exam fever

The exams are not important. The dean tells us, the finance professor tells us and the amiable UDJ prof makes a joke about how if the paper is difficult we will all be clustered around the mean....
No one though is listening. There are sponsored students, there are brilliant students, there are students who have done most of this all their waking life but are they listening? Nope, not at all
The library has replaced the bar as the new hang out joint. A week ago most of us wont be caught dead going there but this week your cool status depends on which seat you managed to grab as the early bird.
The tests score will never be revealed to recruiters, or parents or spouses or siblings, basically anyone with any stake in our lives.
Statistics show a negative correlation between the deans list & professional success (apparently a successful CEO is more likely in a rock band than in the library!)
So if we are still not listening, what would you call it? pigheadedness? super competitive? just plain dumb?
LPG taught us the importance of incentives...so why are we still not feeling incentivized to not care about a bloody test?
I think the riddle lies in this - we dont care about the deans list or grades but somehow we'll look so much more cooler saying that when we are on it :)