Tasha Dhanraj gets her exam results

The day I had been waiting for finally arrived. Results day. If you could imagine the worst possible place to be when you first heard what your Sixth Form results were, it probably wouldn’t be as uncomfortable as where I was. At 9am on 6 July, I was in my cousin’s living room at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I was due to go to an open day at 10.15am at the university I’d spent the last 18 years fantasising about. How that day turned out depended on what tone of voice my mother had as she called me to deliver the news. Unfortunately, the tone was sombre. After a quick chat with the director of studies, it was clear I had to say goodbye to my dream.

I received 38 points on my International Baccalaureate. That puts me roughly in the top five per cent of candidates in the world who took the course. But in the words of a fellow IB-er who received the same number of points as me, “But I want to be in the top one per cent.” Even compared to the other people in my class I did well, but the problem with success is that it is all relative. In my head, I was a failure. That’s why at 3.15pm I was on a train to London King’s Cross; crying and snivelling and causing the kind of awkward silence in the carriage that only an emotional woman can.

“And like that, I snapped out of my self-loathing cesspool of despair”

Luckily, my boyfriend forced me to look rationally at my options in light of my ‘disastrous’ results. Within minutes, I discovered that I could still apply to another university that I am in awe of, along with several other highly respected ones. And like that, I snapped out of my self-loathing cess-pool of despair. But if I’m honest, I don’t think it was just that.

Over the last two years, I have had hideous fears realised with close family and friends dying, that even now still devastate me to think about. When I compare that to only getting ‘fairly excellent’ grades on some qualification that in six months time nobody will probably ever ask me about again, scores just don’t matter. Getting perspective is part of growing up. More important than a piece of paper saying that I’m officially not an idiot, is realising that life isn’t just about quantitative success. I’ve got far too much to be thankful for than to worry about whether or not I revised enough for French.