These crying girls from the university entrance exam videos

These days, students in some areas of Spain who have already taken the university entrance exams are posting videos online in which they say what grades they think they got. One friend records it, the other has the results on her phone, and she, the victim, who doesn't know them, guesses the grade.

"Let's see, language and literature," the friend says. And she replies: "Wow, I got... it was... fucking awesome. A ten, right?" And the friend then says: "A three and a half..." And so they go on reeling off their grades. The girl—there are several, all similar—ends up crying because she wanted to study medicine and says: "I won't even get into a degree like that..."

They all react roughly the same. They say they got an extraordinary grade in high school. They all aspire to get into medicine. They need an eleven or a twelve, sometimes. They start to cry, saying their mother is going to kill them. They've all dressed up and put on makeup for the occasion because they were probably expecting success.

Why did they all expect a great grade, to the point of dressing up and posting the experience on Instagram? Probably because they were told in high school that they were really good, that they'd worked really hard, and their grades were inflated. Maybe they ended up passing in the end, maybe not, maybe they deservedly passed and it's simply that the level of the school they attended was necessarily very low.

The surprise of these girls, so sincere, the exaggerated crying, the upset, the friends laughing or comforting them, leaves me terrified. Will the same thing happen to ours, who start exams today? Are they made of sugar and cotton candy and now they'll finally get a reality check? I hope not, please. I hope that, no matter what happens, they're out in the world, walking on the ground.