When some calls you bawling her eyes out ...

[UndertheOcean]

and it turns out (after your heart skips a beat ) , it is because she got a B rather than the expected A in an exam .

What do you do ? a myriad choice of curse words come to mind , but I try to be sympathetic.

[rug]

1. Do yo mean bawl? Otherwise it has an entirely different meaning.

And of course, an entirely different response.

[UndertheOcean]

2. sorry

[LisaM]

3. Tell her to get a type B personality

I'm sorry, but that's really, really anal. Is the person an overachiever in general?

My friends tend to be the types who could get A's but are relaxed enough to have a life and live with B's. Strangely, the people I know who got straight A's were (usually) chronic overachievers, who only got A's because they prepared relentlessly. As a result, they got better grades, but ultimately learned less because all they cared for was the trophy.

I hope your friend is young, and can change.

[driver8]

13. I had a lot of friends in high school who were the "classic overachievers".

One of my friends would get so angry and pissy if he got anything less than an "A"...it was funny to watch his tantrums.

I, on the other hand, was a classic "under achiever" and was quite happy with my "B's". As long as school didn't interfere with sports, girls, and beer than I was a happy camper.

[LisaM]

4. More thoughts....

Did you friend care about the A in terms of her grade point average? Or because she really knew and cared about her subject, and felt that she did less well on that basis?

I just don't like people who want A's just in terms of a GPA, then forget about the subject as soon as the test is over. The kind of people who raise their hand all the time and say, "is that going to be on the test?", rather than truly loving the subject.

If your friend didn't really love the topic she was being tested on, maybe she should think about that.

[Brickbat]

5. I would listen sympathetically, and then, upon hanging up the phone, dismiss it from my mind.

I can't relate to a person like that in any way.

A good friend of mine and I cracked ourselves up after we got a test back in a college course we were in together. We flipped open the test books, and: "Oh SHIT, I got a B minus!" she cried.

"AWESOME, I got a B minus!" I said at the same time.

[burrfoot]

6. How old is your friend?

I've got some sympathy for this, I have to admit. Particularly if she'd been working hard and expecting to do better.

It's all well and good to be laid back, type-B; I myself am a fairly easygoing kind of guy. I've been back in undergrad recently (second go-round), though, and I know that there is INSANE competition to get into selective admissions programs now. Much more than ever before, in my opinion. If you're looking at anything in the sciences or medicine or an associated medical field, there's loads of pressure to make A's in the pre-req's, because those programs don't take essays or references into account (at least, a great many don't) until and unless two people are tied for a slot in the admitted class. I've heard this both directly from program/admissions staff and from a previous admissions intern- they don't look past the straight GPA if they don't have to.

I'm sure there are lots of examples of places that really do take the time to sort through applicants in a genuinely thoughtful manner, but there are so many that just don't bother any more that many students feel like they absolutely have to be going into application season with a 4.0, or as close to it as possible.

It sucks, but it seems to be the nature of the beast these days- for most students who want a program that will get them into a job with a decent salary (by which I mean 35-40k and above), they need to get real serious, real fast, about their grades.

Again, it's shit, but that's what my return to undergrad has shown me :)

YMMV, of course!

[Blue Diadem]

7. Be thankful that it was only a matter of a lower grade. Be proud that

she's dealing with her disappointment and maybe is growing up and realizing one can try their best but not live up to their own expectations.

I don't know your relationship to this person but she obviously trusts you enough to share her disappointment with you.

[UndertheOcean]

8. ex-wife , still close friends ... but jesus , imagine someone calling you crying from another state

you instantly think someone was hurt or died .

Jeez, what happened to having a sense of proportion

[Blue Diadem]

9. I understand.

I hate those heart stopping moments. I have a relative who used to call occasionally in the middle of the night just to talk. He didn't realize what a 2 am telephone ringing would do to a sleeping Mom.

[Old Troop]

10. Lived it with 2 daughters. All you do is support them.

[retread]

12. Exactly!! n/t

[struggle4progress]

11. OK. This is gonna sound weird. But when I was teaching, it wasn't uncommon

for me to give B's to people who were really better students than those who got A's

Here's why. For various reasons, it was important for me to be able to show on demand that my grading was completely objective. So I designed assessments that nobody could really complain about. Students complained regularly that the grading was unfair, but they never succeeded with people above me

The people who really mastered facts and techniques got A's. But there were always other students, who really thought about the material and wondered about it and tried to piece it together into a coherent intellectual picture: that takes time, and there's only so much time, so these students often didn't master facts and techniques quite as well as the A students; they got B's -- but they also got something out of their education many A students didn't, because they had often thought harder and deeper than some of the A students, who had only worked on memorizing