Get Great Grades While Still Having a Social Life
These are draft first pages of the chapter on great grades. The rest of the chapter focuses on multiple choice tests, habits during class, distraction blockers, note-taking, and studying strategies.
Now that you know that you are capable of becoming a top student and getting large scholarships from top schools, set up your daily habits and systems. Daily habits and systems (like checklists and time-blocking) are key to getting top grades while still having a social life and getting 8 hours of sleep. In my 6 years of university, I only once pulled an all-nighter.
Overall, if you are at a school that does not use plus/minus (like A-, B-, C-) and only uses A, B, C, it’s pretty realistic to shoot for a 4.0. A 3.7 is more realistic if your university uses A-, B- C- (an A- is typically a 3.7).
These top grades are possible if they become your top priority. Track your grades, and check in with professors about your grade, especially in the second half of the semester.
One of my favorite tricks is to reframe grades and learning.
Would you act differently if you got $10,000 in cash for every A? You’d likely do your homework first thing once you got home, set up a daily study habit, and check in with your professors about your grade to ensure there were no surprises.
You’d also choose your classes differently. School is a great place to learn, but for $10,000 you could buy a lot of textbooks, more semesters of college, and gas money to keep you getting to school on time. You probably wouldn’t take a chance on professors who are known for being difficult graders and only giving an A to 3 students in the class regardless of how many students did great.
If you pretend to have that sense of urgency, everything else will fall into place. And in some ways, you really are getting $10,000 for every A. Having straight As at the end of your two or four semesters can become $150,000+ in automatic scholarships by getting you into selective schools with financial aid guarantees.
The strategies to boost your grades in the rest of this chapter will feel much easier to implement.
Optimize your Class Schedule for GPA and Energy
Avoid having multiple very time-consuming classes during the same semester. Use RateMyProfessor.com or other similar websites to gauge whether this professor requires very time-intensive work and hardly hands out As. Even if the course is on a subject you really like, I wouldn’t imperil my GPA with a professor who takes pride in making classes excessively demanding. If it’s a course you must take, make sure you only have one excessively heavy class.
Also, sometimes a class can be excessively time-consuming because of the topic itself. Organic chemistry (“orgo”) and sometimes a major’s entry level classes like intro to physics or calculus can be a very difficult class, no matter the professor. You want to make sure to do well, so count this as the one excessively heavy class per semester and avoid any very difficult graders for your other concurrent classes that semester.
Use Nonobvious Resources
I was always so surprised at how many students would spend excessive hours doing calculus homework when our community college had calculus tutors for free most weekdays on a walk-in basis. Do not think that the only way you can get unstuck in class is by looking online or asking students.
Check what your school’s tutoring program offers. Most students aren’t aware of the free tutoring resources.
Also, ask the teacher’s assistant for help and make time to go to the professor’s office hours.
Also, online artificial intelligence language-based models like ChatGPT (available at https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/) can help you get over writer’s block, generate essay ideas, and give in-depth explanations of difficult concepts. Use this carefully, however. Sometimes these AI models are wrong; do not use them to cheat as professors as starting to use AI model detection technologies too.
Easily Get Through All Required Reading
At the beginning of the semester, make it a point to find and order online all the books you need for the semester by reviewing class syllabuses. You’ll save money by ordering these online before you need them AND you won’t lose time waiting to find the book as you near any deadlines.
Make a habit of reading 2-3 hours a week for every single class. Find a to do list app or checklist app that you like. I also recommend blocking off time on your Google Calendar for when you will do the reading for those classes (also called “time blocking”). By setting up a weekly predictable system, you won’t be cramming to do the required reading.
Learn to speed-read or skim productively.
Often, teachers assign entire books and way more pages than what is possible. Efficiently skim by reading the first and last page of every single chapter, or only reading the chapters that are relevant.
Search for comprehensive summaries of the book. Ask ChatGPT for a summary.
Look at reviews and criticisms of the book, like Amazon or GoodReads reviews for more insight.
Use text-to-speech apps. and potentially use Scribd to download the book or it’s summary then use a text-to-speech app to listen to the book.
A few ways to find downloadable versions of assigned readings:
Type a few words from the text exactly as they are written into Google in quotation marks. If you’re using the title, add filetype:pdf to get fewer results. Sometimes authors, publishers, or universities will post these files on their websites for sharing.
Check Scribd. Scribd often has downloadable and legal versions of books.