In a sea of graduates draped in red, the one white cap and gown stood out. Stacey Alvarez found unexpected inspiration on a bright June day at her older sister’s high school graduation. Alvarez asked her mother what the white cap and gown signified. The white garb was for a 4.0 student. "I’m gonna do that," she told her mother, who replied "You can’t."

Alvarez took it as a "double-dog dare." Throughout the four years of her own high school experience, Alvarez maintained straight A’s. She finished the streak marred by one B, which came down to only one missing point on a senior year final exam. While she was still one of the top ten in her graduating class, and was awarded with various medallions, the white gown was not hers to wear. "You beat yourself up mentally," she said, "anything less than an ‘A’ is failure." A ‘B’ on a test feels like "a punch in the chest. There is a physical pain there," she said.

For Alvarez, the high grades became part of her mentality.

"The grade is part of my identity; it’s not separate from me," she said. She is driven more by her fear of failure than by the happiness of achievement. Now at De Anza college, she again has a 4.0 and will eventually work on a Master’s or a Doctorate in Psychology. Yet she says, "I shy away from the Ph.D. because I’m afraid I’m not going to be good enough."

Alvarez doesn’t congratulate herself on the A’s but considers "That’s what’s expected of me." If she couldn’t maintain her grade point average, Alvarez said she would feel she had "blown everything" and "really messed up." She said at one point it wasn’t so much to know or to learn; she worked just to get the grade.

She said there is a "perfectionist thing in me" making her think that what she does is up for judgment. She "strives for 100 percent, not even 90" on her work.

Even if it’s something as simple as cleaning the house, keeping up with friends when they go bicycling, or inviting people over for dinner, "it has to be the best,"

She said she makes "a lot of sacrifices"; entertainment, sleep, and even calls from friends get pushed aside. She said she has "blinders" on when it comes to taking care of homework.

When her son got pneumonia before a big paper was due, she remembered studying in the hospital waiting room. Yet she decided that her son came first. "Certain things are more important than grades; for me it’s my family."

When Tina Tseng graduated from high school with a 2.33 grade point average, she said "I had no faith that I could get good grades" and she thought things were "hopeless for me."

She "never really studied," and sometimes cheated, copied homework, dozed off in classes, and would do work she would not bother to turn in. "School was something to kill time with," she said.

She passed the high school graduation requirements and started work at a local university, still unmotivated and without a major or a career in mind. She dropped out.

"I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life; the only reason I went to college was because of my parents," she said. She never considered herself smart. "I needed someone to reach out to me." She said.

Tseng’s attitudes changed when she met a man she described as a "really strong person with a really strong mind" whom she began to date.

As he got scholarships and internships and worked to get into graduate school, she said he "inspired by example," and she would study along with him. Sick of failing, she felt there was an "overnight change."

When she started attending De Anza she maintained A’s for a full year before lowering her GPA. Her academic history has changed her perspective. She said "If you hate yourself for getting a B, you’re not looking at yourself as a whole. Life moves on. You need to learn to survive in life; you can’t just know everything."

Of a sampling of 3,250 De Anza students who have completed at least 45 units, three percent of them have 4.0s.