alexluong

Is there a book out there that is actually helpful? I've grown up hearing I'm not going to be successful in life if I don't go to a prestigious college. I know that's not completely not true, but I still want to attend someplace special. The ivy league caliber is not necessary, but acceptance into a place like UVA would make me the happiest person ever.

Unfortunately, my grades are just not good enough. I have about a 3.6 or somewhere around there. 4.0 = A. Also where I'm from, an A is a 94% instead of 90% which I hear what an A is in most places. Also, the GPA boost from an AP course here is +0.5, where I hear others get a +1.0 or something. Not sure if this is true or whether it puts me at much of a disadvantage or not. I have taken the hardest classes offered to me with all honors and 2 APs as a sophomore, and I am taking 4 more APs next year as a junior. This is a ton for my school as most sophomores take 1 AP at most and most juniors take 2. I'm really trying to show something for college with this workload. I am also aware that there are much harder working students out there from other places, but that's just the case here and plenty of people here get accepted into UVA.

What I'm looking for is some kind of resource that offers me tips and allows me to develop the best habits for getting perfect grades in school. I pay attention in class and request to sit in the front to enhance my learning. Yet, I feel I don't absorb the information. I study for hours on tests, but time flies by so fast it seems. It seems as if studying is useless as I don't seem to take much information in anyway and don't do very well on the test. I don't know the proper way to prepare for things. There is nothing more frustrating than working at something for hours and hours to see the reward is a C when you deserve an A.

I know I'm a smart guy. I honestly have not ever seen anything below an A in my entire life until high school began. I was incredibly intelligent in my younger years and smarter than everyone I knew. Yeah, I know it sounds cocky, but all of those people now are earning higher marks than I am. When I'm taking tests or quizzes, I feel like I know the information very well. I don't second guess myself because I am confident in what I know. It just so happens that everything I know is completely incorrect when I get my results back.

Is there something, anything that can help me? I need to raise my GPA next year and do well on the SATs for my shot a great college. I need to feel on top of the world again!

Thanks. Your time is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Not sure what board a topic like this would go haha.

wildchartermage

hey, this is a wrong place to post it here. it should be in "admissions" forum.
and it sounds like ur situtaion sucks..and i don't think there's a book that's going to tell u the formula to life, espeically grades and stuff...but the rule of thumb, is to try to understand your materials and ask more questions about the stuff you don't know or got wrong..hope this helps, though I think it's eh..not too helpful in your situtaion.

Caleno

Take a deep breath..you are doing everything you should..you'll be ok. Get and stay as organized and focused as you can, do your best, and let the chips fall where they may. Pick a range of schools (safety, match, reach) each of which you like and one way or the other you'll be going a place that you'll be happy. You have a pretty fair record- it just sounds not good enough because you are comparing it to the hyper CC posters, at least a few of whom are exaggerating or outright lying. Good luck.

alexluong

Thanks for the replies. It's just some people don't ever study for anything, yet they get perfect grades. I wonder to myself how they accomplish this, why am I unable to do it? Perhaps it may be due to lack of sleep even. I often stay up past midnight every night.

I think what I should do now is to buy an SAT prep book and study it over the summer.

How would you deal with things like teacher ruining things for you? This year there was one teacher whose course had a ridiculous workload. Because of this, it was difficult to focus very well on others classes as best as possible. I tried to switch out after hearing comments from upperclassmen to leave in order to protect my GPA. This was not an option, as my counselor disallowed it due to full classes in my schedule. You know, the kind of classes where it's nearly impossible to get an A. What are you supposed to do?

Do you guys have any general tips to offer on getting good grades? About understanding material, I think this is a problem. Some years I have such easy teachers that do not teach me enough for the following course the next year. Perhaps this was in elementary and middle school. I got perfect grades, why is it now that it feels so impossible? As I enter that course, I feel as if I do not understand much at all at times because I have not learned the prerequisite material. I am completely willing to stay after school everyday, but that simply is not an option. My school takes the boys lacrosse program extremely seriously, meaning training and conditioning all year after school. It is mandatory. Skipping one every week to go see a teacher after school is unacceptable even, more like twice a month is tolerable.

TransitionSucces

Alex,

A few things stood out in your post, one of them being that you feel confident about the material before an exam, yet it turns out your answers are incorrect. Vital to the study process is taking at least one practice test. It serves as a rehearsal, so you can actually see what you don't know. It tells you what needs further study. I suspect you are skipping this step. You can find practice exams online (usually texts have companion websites), or you might try asking your teacher if he has an old exam you can practice on. It is never enough to simply feel you understand the material -- I guess that has been proven to you.

Another thing that jumped out at me is your preoccupation with getting into a high prestige college. Why are you putting this pressure on yourself? It sounds as if you're a very good student and would excel at a good school such as U Mich, GWU, etc. UVA might as well be Ivy League - students who apply there have applied to Princeton, Yale, etc. and think of UVA as their safety school. Do you really think that not going to a UVA-caliber school will affect your future? It's the quality of your work at any school that opens doors for you.

Here's a real eye-opener. My friend's son recently graduated GWU law school (a top 20) and got a job at a top Philly law firm. He recently attended a gathering of all the new hires, and was he stunned to find that not all the hires were from top twenty schools. Those who had done exceedingly well at lesser-known schools reached the same end as he (at the time he applied to law school, getting into a top 20 was an obsession). So, keep in mind, there are many roads to the same end.

alexluong

That makes me feel a little better. Practice exams are a great idea! I will definitely consider that for next year.

Also, U Mich? That is another school I am aiming for.

I am amazing with computers. Truly a prodigy. However, I have decided that the careers that make the big money, completely bore me. I took programming this year in AP Computer Science, and I did not enjoy it at all. Sure, I was quite good at it, but that class already has made me decide it is not for me. No, I do not feel like giving it another chance haha.

The careers that make money are stuff like dentistry and medicine. They are actually pretty interesting to me as well. My aunt and uncle own a dentistry, and seeing them do work, it's pretty cool! Plus, they live in a humongous house, and if I was set like that for life, I could not be any happier. I also want to help people, so that's another thing. Doctors, I couldn't bear being around sick people all the time, coughing and sneezing on me and whatnot.

Now about a school like U Mich, it's supposed to be one of the best schools for dentistry. Do I really have a good shot at something like that? I thought U Mich was of the UVA caliber. Also, my family is not exactly the richest around. Well, my mom and my dad at least who will be handling the expenses for college. Since I'm in Virginia, how much cheaper will it be to pursue something in-state? Still, I shouldn't let money be affecting where I could go to college should I?

Patrick Bateman

Another person affected by Fairfax County's Nazi grading.

TransitionSucces

Alex,
It is a good idea to try to avoid undergraduate loans, if possible. You are WAY too uptight about a status school. Do you know that going to U Mich as an undergrad in no way guarantees you'll get into their dental school? Sometimes schools don't like to choose from their undergrad pool. Do well at whatever school you go to, and you'll have a decent shot at dental school. And if that's the career you want, remember that you'll be a dentist whether you graduate from U Mich or U Wisconsin!

nontraditional

I know that The Teaching Company (my only affiliation with them is as an occasional customer) has a series on study skills aimed at high school students. I haven't seen it, so I can't tell you whether I think it is any good, but I do like a lot of their other products. I considered buying it as a gift for a high school student last year but ultimately didn't.

The thing about The Teaching Company is that their stuff is really expensive -- but every item goes on sale at least once a year. (The point here is that it's cheaper for them to produce larger batches of smaller number of products once a year, sell through those, and then not store any than it is for them to be producing and storing stuff all year.) They have a service that will apparently alert you to when particular titles are on sale, but I have never managed to get it to work. Last year the study skills set went on sale right before the start of the fall semester, though.

juststoppingby

You need to figure out if you learn best by listening, by reading, by seeing, etc.

I guess google 'learning styles and how to study best" because you want the tips for the different styles of learning.

See, I'm a huge reader, and I do have to read to absorb. I cannot get it by listening. I know this intuitively because I reach for a pen to record what I hear. I may never look at it again, but I have just GOT to see it written down to retain it. Maybe I'm an extreme case. Could be that's why I'm such a fantastic speller--I have a pretty excellent (at times) visual memory. Only thng is, it's the ONLY way I learn.

Also, when I read, I learned I had to take notes, and DRAW FLOWCHARTS. I llearned this on my own, but then read about visual readers and that is what they do. So I just followed my instinct. I also draw pictures to sum up the paragraph I just read. It is very helpful that I design and draw the picture--nothing fancy, I can't draw at all. I did learn about mneumonics in school, and that's very effective for me too. Very effective.

Also, chew gum. Keeps you awake and also reduces your stress level.

Another thing is try to study in the room where the test will be given, if at all possible. Results in a higher score, research shows.

Anther thing I found amusing is that at exactly 2 hours after I have commenced studying, my head comes up. I must take a break. It is so amazingly like clockwork. I found that out accidentally, but it is how I am.

pay attention to yourself. I didn't learn this stuff about myself until I went backto school as an older student. See if you can figure out how you tick learning-wise.

Good luck.

Am now reading the other posts, I recall one guy saying that in college, he never realized he didn't know the material that well until he tried to tutor someone else in his class. that's when he was hit with all these holes in his knowledge, that he went back and read about and filled. tutoring helps other people, but it really helps the person doing the tutoring the most.

when you sleep, you consolidate the memories of the day. Shortchanging yourself on sleep could be interfering with your recall the next day.

Also, sounds like you do a lot of running around. No wonder you can't just sit and consolidate what happened earlier that day in school. You might try to do that at home each night for an hour or so when you finally arrive home. Dont wait until close to the test to start studying, try to start doing it right away because you have such a busy schedule that you have to be disciplined, and also get to bed earlier. You may have to curtail some fun on the Inernet or whatever, because you do lacrosse so heavily and that is your break.

A good trick when you get to college and don't have this busy sports schedule is to study right after a class for 2 hrs if you can, and, hey, in the classrm if possible. Pretend to leave, and then return to the class so you can be alone and concentrate. If you read the chapter before the lecture, and then studythe matrial just presented for 2 hours after the lecture, you will be in good shape for the later looking over before the test. you have to find out how many times you need to review the material inorder to get an A. I needed to study 50 hrs before evry statistics test to get my A. I am not kidding. So I would start a week before the test so I would ahve time to put in my 50 hrs. It is all trial and error as to what you have to do to get an A, once you find out what works, stick to it. Yeah, it's unfair that some can skip studying in HS, but just wait 'til college. My brother laughed to recall the dorm engineering whiz who in his jr yr hit the wall on some course that the others were struggling thru. Whiz kid had gone out for his usual weekend running around, returned Sunday night to glance at the material for the test on Tuesday, and was heard to scream in anguish, I don't understand this! That was a first for him. Leanring to work in HS guarantees that this won't happen to you in college (if you don't burn out), as you will be used to it.

juststoppingby

Re, that 50 hrs of study for a college statistics test. Don't freak out. You see, I never read the chapter, never paid attention in class, just wrote down notes, the pace was too fast so I couldn't keep up with the reasoning, or at least so i thought. I came to every class, but it was really just a waste of time, I never looked at my notes much.
I am naturally pretty average in math, too.
So I had to immerse myself for hours at a stretch to study for these stat tests, I had to slowly read the chapter, then slowly do problems, then go on to the next chapter, etc. Then I had to go back to the first chapter and start over, and re-do all theproblems. I think this process of doing the problems happened a 3rd time, too. It was worth it becasue I had a huge ego and I was just determined to get an A (I was an older student atthat time, your work ethic changes a lot after your 20's).