Colgate University was ranked 12 in the 2017 edition of Best National Liberal Arts Colleges. It is an extremely challenging university, and its students go on to do amazing things. I am proud to go to Colgate and I know that my education here is going to serve me well in life; however, in addition to making me grow as a student and intellect, Colgate has also made me feel stupid.

I have never in my life had such rigorous coursework and such challenging classes that it is almost impossible to get an A. Academia has always been my strong suit, that is what got me here in the first place. This is college and as such, it is supposed to be more difficult than high school or anything else, but sometimes I feel that the standards here are set too high. I have had professor’s tell the class that we will not get an A in this class: the highest we could hope to achieve was an A-, because only the professor, who is a professional, would be able to understand the material enough to receive an A. That makes no sense; the professor should know more than we do, or else I question why they would be teaching the class. I have taken courses elsewhere and noticed that while the basic materials are the same, the actual courses are not purposefully made so difficult, and it is entirely possible to get an A. Some of our classes are harder than graduate level institutions, and while I praise Colgate for striving to push us, this immense grade deflation is also responsible for the deflation of so many students’ confidence.

I came to Colgate with the idea that I had all of the tools necessary to succeed here, but I was met with the crushing reality that my best simply wasn’t enough. I am glad that I am pushed to do more, but I miss being even the slightest bit confident in my academic and intellectual abilities. This atmosphere, which aims to promote the highest level of education from its students, also makes us feel very small and insignificant. I am not stupid; I somehow managed to get into Colgate, but I don’t feel smart enough to be here anymore. I don’t trust myself to raise my hand to give an answer anymore, and I never feel like I have read enough or studied enough. I do not feel good enough, and while I know this is also a product of my own anxieties, the atmosphere at Colgate does not help.

I do want to reiterate that I am proud to go to Colgate and I do not intend to leave anytime in the near future, but that this is simply how I have come to feel after two years of classes at Colgate. I have had amazing professors and classes that I have loved, but I have also had classes where the professor was unclear in his or her expectations and set seemingly impossible standards. My intention in writing this is only to express how such grade deflation has affected me personally, and perhaps to let others know that if they too feel stupid here, they are not alone.