Before A Level results day you feel as though everything in your life is leading up until that one point. It’s billed as a make or break moment and, to some extent, it is. What happens on that day determines where you’ll be, what you’ll be doing and who you’ll be with for the next few years of your life. Say results day and think of hundreds of images of school leavers leaping in the air, beaming with pride and hugging each other in celebration. There’s a huge amount of hype and ritual angst centering on the process of collecting your pieces of paper.
Once you leave school your life is no longer neatly divided by year or defined by the exams you’re working towards. You are more than the sum of your score sheets and, regardless of whether you go to university or not, as time passes what you got in your A-levels becomes an increasingly small part of what shapes your life.
A-levels are still fresh in the memory of some of us here at The Debrief, for others they’re a little longer ago. We remember what happened, how we felt and what we did on results day and night...
Rebecca Holman, Editor
Despite my mum’s entreats that I stay in and get an early night, I got really drunk in the pub the day/evening before my A Levels. After closing time, my dad found my sitting at the bottom of the stairs having a freak out about failing while my mate had a loud argument with her boyfriend on the phone in our front garden. I remember my dad saying something vaguely comforting about how it didn’t really matter what results I got, which I suspect he didn’t mean.
Cut to the next morning, when I made my friend drive me to sixth form to collect my results, while I cradled a plastic bag in my lap in case I was sick from hangover and nerves. As it happens, I did ok. In fact, I had to have my picture taken straight after collecting my results for a series of adverts promoting my college (a massive picture of my head next to my results and where I’d gone to uni). The thrill of getting into my first choice of uni wore off three months later when I came home for the weekend and saw my massive, hungover head on the side of a bus in Harrow. In hindsight I definitely should have stayed in and had an early night.
Jess Commons, Deputy Editor
I had a great day on A Level Results day. No that’s not true at all. What happened was that I strolled into school wearing my new flared jeans with a cut-off waistband (visible thong included), dead confident I’d collect the three As I needed to get into Manchester-or-Leeds. But, disaster. I got ABB (this wasn’t entirely my fault, something to do with my English teacher entering us for an exam that didn’t exist. Thanks school!). So, while my friends were drinking Lambrini on the school playing fields I was sulking in various school offices listening to my mum and my teachers debate what the best thing to do now that I hadn’t got into my first OR second choice.
In the end, I went off and sat in my car and had a look at clearing places. I didn’t end up going to uni that year. I took a year off, retook the English exam I failed, got my A, and had a billboard time gap yah-ing my way around South East Asia like a total knob. Eventually I got into Goldsmiths, University of London and I AM SO GLAD AND HAPPY THAT HAPPENED. It led me to my job, a life in London, friends, boyfriend… it pretty much made me the (almost) well-rounded and together adult you see before you today.
Remember ladies, if things go wrong with your A Levels, you might think it’s the end of the world. It’s not. It’s just the start of a different path that’ll take you on to the life you are supposed to lead. Everything will turn out alright in the end. Just give it time.
Vicky Spratt, Features Editor
The ritual and myth which surrounds leaving school is intense. It’s ‘the end of an era’, ‘the start of the rest of your life’; an end and a beginning. I was a total nerd at school, I still am. I studied hard for my exams and put a hell of a lot of pressure on myself. As results day approached the suburban South London commuter belt town where I’m from turned into a pressure cooker. We were killing time, waiting and drinking to distract ourselves.
Along with two of my best friends we plotted an escape. Four days before we were due to discover our respective fates we sat in the local Wetherspoons and hatched a plan over our pink Zinfandels. Some of our boy mates were camping in Land’s End, at 9pm on a Sunday we decided to pack a tent, nick my dad’s Road Map of Britain and jump into our friend Jess’s battered grey Renault Clio and drive to find them. I had approximately £30 in my bank account. We drove to Cornwall through the night. I drank luke warm Pimms straight from the bottle on the back seat. We played Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back on repeat, which came out that summer. Before we arrived the boot fell off of the car, we secured it and carried on.
We spent the next four days being lashed by torrential rain in Cornwall, falling asleep on the beach and drinking too much in pubs listening to Cornish men talk about how they wanted to be independent from the rest of the country.
We drove back late on the eve of results day. When I arrived at school I was sick, hungover and exhausted. I was too wiped out to be nervous. I got my grades, I got my first choice. The same couldn’t be said for some of my friends, which was a horrible thing. We suddenly realised that our lives might take different paths, and they did.
Regardless of the mixed emotions, we all dressed up in our school uniforms and jumped in a coach with everyone else from our sixth form and went clubbing. The club had a fast food restaurant on the top floor, I ate chicken nuggets, cried and texted my boyfriend-notboyfriend-boyfriend of the time. My friend Jess reassured me with a pre-mixed vodka and coke she’d smuggled in.
Natalia Bagniewska, Creative Editor
Oh mannnn. I genuinely can’t remember because I’m that old. I was definitely in Poland being chaperoned by my 83 year-old grandma. I’m pretty sure I’d chosen that day to entertain myself by dressing in my grandma’s clothes and walking around like a fool in the Polish countryside. In all honesty (and I’m really not proud of this) I had forgotten it was results day until my dad arrived later in the afternoon with a mobile phone like the baller he was (bearing in mind this was over 10 years ago and mobiles weren’t as much of ‘a thing’) did I think to call up my school in London and find out. I’m not sure I even had a drop of celebratory alcohol.
Chemmie Squier, Acting Fashion and Beauty Editor
I was pretty nervous in the lead up to results day – there was one exam I thought I'd completely screwed up, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I drove to school to get my results with two of my best friends; we’d spent the whole exam period studying together so it felt only right that we’d collect them as a group but it didn’t go so well. One of them had been expecting better results and was really disappointed whilst I had the opposite – I’d totally surpassed my expectations so was ecstatic and wanted to celebrate but she totally wasn’t up to it so I think I ended up just going home and calling all of my family to fill them in.
I can’t remember exactly what else I did in the day but I went out that evening to Bristol’s finest, Thekla, to celebrate with three of my best friends (pictured) who had gone to college so I hadn’t seen them yet. Naturally we ended up getting far too trashed on wine before we actually made it out (also pictured) so once I got to the club I didn't last long and my then boyfriend came and picked me up early. There’s a high chance I was sick out of his window – real classy – although that could well have been a different night.
Marianne Eloise, Intern
I remember waking up way too early and making my boyfriend come into school with me to collect the results as soon as was humanly possible. I had worked really hard and stressed myself out a lot so I had a few little panics that I had somehow fucked everything up. When I opened the envelope it was exactly the same as my AS results so I was convinced they had made a mistake, but I had gotten the B in English Language I needed to go to uni so I was pretty much ecstatic. Then, when I checked all the individual results I had almost full marks on an essay I wrote about Moulin Rouge so I loved myself. To celebrate I had a little party at mine where I made a shit cake and everyone got drunk off sour apple Mickey Finn’s and my friend’s mum made her bring me a congratulatory card. If I could chat to my 18-year-old self I'd tell her to have more fun and worry about it less, but she most likely wouldn't listen.
Like this? You might also be interested in:
The Complications Of Introducing Your Home Friends To Your Uni Friends
What Happens When All You Have In Common With Your Friends Is Partying?
Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.