One of the key elements of a successful high school career is having a good GPA. When you apply to colleges, they primarily look at the following: GPA, ACT/SAT (or other exams), extracurriculars, and essays. It’s hard to truly determine which is the most important, but generally you’re going to be looking at a crucial focus on GPA and your standardized exam scores. For some, keeping GPA strong and steady is an arduous process, but in the end, it turns out that it was worthwhile. So, how do you improve your chances of getting better grades?
-Know your limits. While it’s appealing to sign up for tons of extracurriculars, there would be no point in being involved in 5-6 clubs when you could be focusing on your GPA. Instead, why not be very involved in 1-3 groups AND maintain your GPA? If, however, you can handle many extracurriculars and a stable GPA, then more power to you. Remember, extracurriculars help in college admittance, but you probably won’t get in if you’re rocking a 2.5 GPA and have 7 clubs to boast.
-Motivation is important. There is a simple way of knowing if you’re capable of a good GPA, and that is to ask yourself if you are motivated for a higher grade. If you don’t believe that you’re fully motivated, consider what your future holds for you. The more prestigious university that you can get into, the more likely you are to have a good career and, ultimately, life. Once you find your motivation, see if it’s a long-term goal. Don’t let yourself be guided by short-term goals because, in the long-run, you’ll most likely have to maintain an extensive amount of stamina. You’re not done after high school (hopefully), and for some, you will need to attend some grad school to continue your education.
-Know your errors. Perhaps you believe that in the past, you weren’t on the right path and are seeking better work habits. Look at a year or semester where your performance was poor (only relative to YOUR OWN standards) and contemplate where you went wrong. Grab a paper and write down everything that you had done (big or small) that could have even the smallest chance of resulting in some bad grades. Leave the paper and come back to it the next day. Now examine it, thoroughly, and make sure you analyze which errors are legitimate problems. Pick three errors that could, under realistic circumstances, be eliminated. The difficult part is here: you need to figure out how to weed out your bad habits. For some, it could be a realistic option to troubleshoot all the issues that they wrote on the paper, but it’s probably more effective to work on three at a time, until they disappear from your life as problems.
It is, of course, important to focus on your classwork, do all your homework, and study hard, but there are other issues, like the ones mentioned above, that are factors in the process.
