Christina Ruan

At a school like Harker, excellence is normal. When everyone is already doing so well, the only way to stand out is to downplay your wins to make them look even larger.

I’ll be honest — I’ve said this classic line before: “I did so bad….only a 96.” It slips out after nearly every test at Harker. But lately, with tests and assignments in full swing, I’ve started noticing just how strange and damaging it is, because, frankly, no one I know who gets a 96 truly feels like they failed.

At Harker, saying “I did so bad” when you didn’t isn’t about insecurity — it’s about subtle signaling. It’s a form of quiet and backwards bragging. There is an unwritten rule at most schools: you can’t brag outright, so why not brag in reverse? 

When someone says, “I only got a 93,” what they’re really saying is: “My baseline is an A+.” The complaint itself is a flex. It tells everyone how high your standards are and reminds them how consistently well you perform.

And it works. Arrogance gets punished—people roll their eyes and say you have an ego. But self-deprecation? That gets rewarded. 

I’ve watched classmates receive reassurance the moment they pretend to complain about less-than-perfect scores. Instantly, others scramble to comfort them, applauding the impressive score they’ve downplayed, all because the brag was dressed up as self-deprecation.

We must accept true pride. Admitting that someone worked hard should be as acceptable as disappointment in a grade. Being proud is not arrogance, it’s transparency. When someone starts humble-bragging, we have to stop showering them with reassurance. Just neutralize it: “That’s a good score, you don’t need to downplay it.” If we stop rewarding fake humility, this mentality will die out quickly.

At Harker, excellence is expected. When everyone is already doing so well, the only way to stand out is to downplay your wins to make them look even larger. Acting like an achievement is no big deal becomes the new way of signaling high-level student success.

This is all a part of the new wave of “nonchalance culture,” the idea that effort is embarrassing, that hard work should look effortless. Nobody says, “I studied like crazy for that test and I’m proud of how I did.” That kind of vulnerability feels almost taboo. We only talk about effort when we don’t do well, not when we succeed. 

For someone who truly struggled on that same test, hearing a classmate’s disappointment over a 96 feels like a slap in the face. I have been on the opposite side of humble-bragging: a classmate turns to me, disappointed about their 95 grade on their essay, while I sit in silence with my 90. It converts someone else’s goal into your failure. 

Somewhere in the middle of this fake modesty, authenticity disappears. Even when we win, we can’t be honest about it. We’ve turned success into an act—something to frame and package for the public to approve.

Sure, the easy answer is to just not talk about scores. However, we all have to be realistic: at a school like Harker, people will always talk about score. The least we can do is make these conversations honest, not performative. In the end, if we are really proud of what we have achieved, we shouldn’t have to disguise it as disappointment.