Grades and Classes
Your grades and final GPA(grade point average) are a huge factor in your application and deserve great importance. How can you pick the right classes and get the best grades possible?
The Factors of Grades and Classes
3 factors go into how your admission officer will look at your classes:
- Grades
- Rigor
- Type
All of these are important, and whatever point you are in high school, you can boost your application by considering these 3 things.
Let’s start with grades. This is fairly obvious: get As in all your classes, but it might not be that simple. It all depends on how your school reports grades in their transcripts, and there can be a few different ways of doing that, which changes what you have to do.
Letter grades
If your school reports grades with letters, as in, they only report A, B, C, D, or F, there are advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is effort: for letter grades, you only have to get the minimum for that letter. This means both a 90 and a 99 are reported as an A, so you can put less effort into that letter grade. However, this gives a disadvantage: you can’t shine. If you get 100s in all of your classes, colleges will only see As. If you got an 89.99, colleges will only see a B. Therefore, it might be in your interest to use that effort for extracurriculars to help yourself stand out.
Number grades
This means your school reports the final number, 98, 73, 86, etc., and they’ll usually give the letter grade along with it. These advantages and disadvantages are practically the opposite of letter grades. Advantages: You can shine with outstanding numbers, such as 100s, or show that 89 which was so close to a 90. Disadvantages: There is a difference within the ranges. If two people are the same, except for a 94 and 95, colleges will pick the 95, even though they’re both As. You might want to put in that extra mile to get the best grade possible.
Pass/Fail
Virtually no schools use pass or fail, but if they do, the best situation might be to put in minimum effort to pass and use close to all effort for extracurriculars. Also, though few high schools do this, a college class you might be taking does. If this is the case, put that extra time into other classes and activities.
Now that we’ve covered the grade factor, it’s time to cover the rigor factor. Rigor is essentially how hard your class is. This doesn’t mean a bad teacher who gave you too many assignments, it means the level of curriculum. There are a couple levels for classes:
- Standard: The regular version of a class. Usually, looking at your transcript there won’t be any labeling with the class name. Your English class will simply say “English”. This level of class doesn’t stand out to colleges.
- Program-based: Your school might have a program or academy with certain classes. Your transcript might mention the class with the program, such as “Masonry LM”, where LM stands for some program. These aren’t usually recognized by colleges as they don’t know your high school’s specific program rigor, but they’ll have some value over standard classes.
- Honors: The advanced version of a class. For your English class, if it is honors level, your transcript will say “English Honors”. Honors mean the class is more rigorous, though the content doesn’t change. It may come with a GPA boost, and Honors are recognized by all colleges.
- IB: IB is an international program that creates more rigorous classes and programs for certain schools. If your school offers this, it might be a blend of regular classes and IB, and they might come with a GPA boost
- AP: I’m sure most of you have heard of AP classes, produced by College Board. They are college-like classes that cover all kinds of subjects: Math, Science, English, History, Computer Science, and Foreign Language. Your class will usually say “AP Macroeconomics” or “AP Chemistry” and may come with a GPA boost. This is recognized by all colleges and is the highest level of rigor.
- College Course/Dual Enrollment: Some of the classes you take might be at a local college that allows high school students to take classes there, online or in person. Usually, you will get a separate transcript from that college to submit or your school will make a place on your schedule to cover those classes as well. The class code will appear, like “HIS131” or something similar. This is considered to have fairly high rigor and usually comes with a GPA boost.
Grades and Rigor are critical, but one thing often overlooked and considered unimportant is the type of content. For example, let’s talk about the two people who are the same. The only differing class is that one took Macroeconomics Honors, and the other took Chemistry Honors. They are both applying for a chemistry major, so the second student gets picked. The content of the class is also a factor that depends on what your major is.
There isn’t much to say, except that you would want to pick classes that align with what you want to study, because it shows knowledge in that field. Of course, no one expects you to know your major in freshman year, but it is good to have an idea of a general field you want to go into. Based on that, it’s where you want to focus your extra classes.
Picking Classes
We’ve gone over all the factors of your grades and classes, and these help us decide how to pick classes. Remember, every person is different and will take different classes. Not everyone has to take advanced Spanish, especially if your major is Mathematics.
Assessing your strengths
If you were a genius in every subject and naturally smart, you would take the hardest classes your school can offer. However, most people have a weak subject or more, and this affects what classes you take. It’s hard to give specific advice, but the best thing is to be honest with yourself about your current and future capabilities. Only YOU know how hard you can work and what you’re good at, letting you decide where to take advanced classes. It might be beneficial to write down a list of your passions, strengths, and work ethic to see if you can take the advanced classes your school offers, and how advanced you want to go.
Asking others
Biology Honors isn’t the same in every single school. Someone may have the same curriculum as you, but you don’t have the same assignments, teachers, timings, etc. The person who might know though, is someone who has taken the class. Asking a friend or peer might give you THE BEST insight as to what the class is like, and seeing if you can take it. Even after you create a schedule, have a peer review it to give you feedback, especially the friends who know you well and can give you personalized advice.
Analyze Priorities and Activities
It would be bad advice to tell the best high school football player in the country to start spending all his time in AP classes, even if they would excel in all of them because football is their priority. Similar to the football player, you will have priorities that take time out of your day: playing a sport, robotics club, violin, or helping out the family business.
Your other priorities and activities affect the time you have for your classes. This is one of the biggest reasons it is hard to advise on picking classes because everyone has different lives outside of school (hopefully contributing to your application). Whatever you do, figure out how much time it takes so you can find a balance between school, your activities, and having fun.
At the end of the day, you don’t want to stay within your bounds. Picking some harder classes that might challenge you is good, as they teach you a good work ethic and prepare you for the challenge of college classes. You may also realize that you have more potential than you thought.
Improving your Grades
Hopefully, you picked classes that are suited for you, now it’s time to ace them. Not all classes are ones you want to take, so it can be hard to motivate yourself to put in the work for the class. Before you use any of these recommendations for getting good grades, it’s important to know that you need passion, motivation, or discipline to make yourself get the work done. Without any of these, it’ll be hard to stick to a study schedule or to change your habits at all. But if you can do that, here are some things to focus on.
Note-taking/Attention tricks
Paying attention is the best way to improve your grades. This seems obvious, but ask yourself, are you always paying attention during class? Perhaps you zone out or talk to friends, all of which lessen the amount of content you absorb. One way to fix this is via note-taking. Don’t write down everything, just the important things. You’ll stay focused during a lecture, looking for key takeaways, and can study it later.
Building a schedule
Building a study schedule can help you stay consistent with studying. You don’t have to study for hours every night, and you might end up damaging your retention if you do so. However, it has been proven that studying your notes every night, even for 15 minutes, can help retain information. Make sure you pick a time when you can stay focused on what you study.
Night studying
Studying right before you sleep can improve retention. This does not mean you should stay up to study! Get your 8 hours, but studying right before you sleep has proven to improve long-term retention of information in most cases than if you studied in the morning. Take 15-30 minutes before bed to study or refresh content.
Integrating Content
We always say we will never use the things we learn in school, but doing that might help us retain information. However you choose to use the information you learn in school, somehow integrate it into your life. Not everything you do has to be done with Calculus, but if it pops up in your mind now and then, you can deeply process the information.
Sleep and healthy habits
Studying is useless without sleep. When you sleep at night, your brain processes the information throughout the day into long-term memory, and this is partially the reason why night studying is beneficial. Make sure to get 8 hours, eat and drink well, and stay healthy to improve everyday retention.
Summary
Remember, to improve your grades and knowledge, you need to be consistent, and it requires some discipline. The tips you learned today are just the groundwork, shape things up to fit your life. Here is a summary of this article by section:
The Factors of Grades and Classes
Grade, Rigor, and Type go into how colleges view your classes. Higher grades (depending on how your system works), more rigorous courses, and classes that align with your major will help improve your application. If you don’t know what major you want to do, then pick a general field you want to focus rigorous courses on.
Picking Classes
Assessing your strengths, asking others, and analyzing priorities all go into picking classes. You need to figure out what you’re good at to pick the right rigor for each class. On top of that, every class is different, so asking someone who has already taken the class might be beneficial. With other priorities like extracurriculars or work, you might have less time for classes. Remember, it’s always good to take a challenge, but don’t make things unmanageable.
Improving Your Grades
The best way to improve grades and knowledge is through retention practice. Pay attention in class, write down the important things, create a good study schedule, study before you sleep, integrate the content into your life when you can, and keep healthy habits.
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