Hi all, I was meant to be an incoming undergraduate Maths student at the University of Cambridge this October, but things didn’t go to plan.
After getting my offer in January, I felt like I didn’t really deserve it/got lucky. At one point I believed that I was only given an offer to decrease the grade boundaries for the STEP exam. This kinda went away when I was scoring 1s and Ss in past papers.
Fast forward to May/June, I got really stressed and sick, and probably started to give up on exams.
This only got worse when I sat STEP 2, which was arguably the hardest paper I’ve ever done. I don’t know if it was my nerves or a display of where my intelligence/skills are not good enough.
It was no surprise to see that I had been rejected by Cambridge in August. Since this, I have felt like an imposter and failure, and I can’t snap out of it.
How would you deal with this? Any other advice?
I really love maths, I want(ed?) a career in academia and the fact that I have missed my place to study at one of the best universities in the world pains me greatly. I feel like a failure and an embarrassment. I hate the idea that I have hit my intelligence “limit” as I couldn’t perform well in my exams. Maybe it’s my fault for thinking I could compete with international and private school students (copium)
This is kinda long, so thanks for reading it this far!