On a general note: The more self-confident a society is -- say, the US -- the more it views grades as only ONE of the MANY ways to judge you for grad school success and for eventual career or life success. A Bill Gates or a Colin Powell or a Steve Jobs or even a Dick Cheney (a Yale drop-out) can go on to be what they are today ONLY in the US, and nowhere else on the planet. Self-confident societies value production of knowledgge, and not production of grades. But the less self-confident a society is -- say, Nepal -- all it ever obsesses about is grades, grades and grades. That's one reason why, judging by the SLC results alone, failures outnumber successes in our country. And we value production of grades and not production of knowledge. And that's one more reason why, 35 years later, Babu Ram, the Maoist neta, is still held in awe in many circles in Nepal for his high SLC grades of 1970. No one else care much about Babu Ram's high school grades in more self-confident societies. And I continue to meet plenty of older Nepalis, who still talk about their college friends in terms of "percentage" those friends had obtained at AsCol or TC or where ever else eons ago . . . as if those people had achieved NOTHING of significance in life in all the intervening years. *** That said, study hard and study well in college -- NOT for the grades (though high grades are always perferable to lower ones), BUT for the sheer intrinsic joy of learning and for the joy of finding things out. Pragamatically, times are changing so fast that the ability to learn fast and more than others is the only competitive advantage anyone can have these days for better careers and happier lives and successful jobs ahead. So, learn to learn so that you can earn. oohi ashu