• Question: Do your grades in high school determine your future?

    Asked by to Nat, Nate, Roberto, Sam, Sarah on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Nate Bastian

      Nate Bastian answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      No, they definitely do not determine your future. However they do influence your future. I got relatively poor grades in the first half of high school, which meant that it was difficult for me to get into the university that I wanted, even though I worked much harder in the 2nd half of high school. In the end, I was still able to study the subject that I wanted, even if it meant that I had to work a bit harder than I would have, if I would have gotten better grades from the beginning.

    • Photo: Sam Connolly

      Sam Connolly answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      Not necessarily. They do affect things like whether you can do certain A-levels, depending on where you do them, and which courses you do at University, but they don’t completely determine what happens. Firstly, you can have another go at your GCSEs or A-levels a bit later in life if you decide you didn’t do well enough the first time round. But more importantly, there are other ways to get to do what you want to do. For a given course you should be able to get into a university somewhere if you at least pass your A-level in it, at which point you can prove yourself at university instead – I know loads of people who didn’t get the best grades at school that did at university, it just depends what you’re good at. There are also things like foundation courses and access courses that can help you get into university if you didn’t get the grades you wanted or needed. Not all scientists got the best grades, there are plenty who didn’t!

      But that’s all about getting into university. If you want to get a job after school instead of going to university, all that getting lower grades means is that you might not get your ideal job straight away, but you probably wouldn’t have anyway! You might have to start off a bit lower down in the job ladder, but if you prove yourself at those jobs you can get up to jobs which are just as good as anyone who originally got higher grades, and higher than them too!

      Still, it’s worth making sure you do as well as you can now, to save yourself more work in the future!

    • Photo: Roberto Trotta

      Roberto Trotta answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      I believe that there are always options in one’s life, so no, your high school grades do not determine your future — although they might well set a certain path for your next few years.

      Many students do not really flourish academically until later, and it would be a shame if they were prevented from attending university and later do the job they love because of that. This is why at Imperial we always are on the lookout for potential, not just achievements. You need to give people a chance to prove themselves at doing what they really like! And chances are they will do much better if they find their true calling, because working hard is less difficult if you are working on something that you are really passionate for.

    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      No they don’t. You do have to think about making the most sensible choices though. We get a lot of people who come and visit us at my University who say “I love physics, but I hate maths and am going to drop it”. You can’t do a physics degree without maths however much you love physics, so they made a bad choice.

      Your school can help with this though, as can university or college admissions people as well as careers advisors.

      Lots of people develop at different rates though – people who get firsts at university sometimes came in with low grades and vice versa.

    • Photo: Natasha Stephen

      Natasha Stephen answered on 25 Jun 2014:


      No, they help obviously but they don’t determine what you end up doing at all! Being enthusiastic and keen for something is just as important. As the others have said, opportunities that exist in Science are not always 100 % academic so there will always be people willing to give you a chance if you can prove to them that you really want and deserve it, no matter what your grades in school were!

Comments