<p>Well, I wanted to start a forum about Cornell and advice on getting good grades and how hard it is. Do you need to sacrifice a social life to get good grades? or can you really balance out the grades and the life. I have seen posts where people say that even when they’re trying their ABSOLUTE hardest they end up with a 3.0. So, share any personal experience you may have about what it takes to get the grades.</p>
<p>Depends on what you consider good grades. And on your major. Also depends on what you’re willing to sacrifice.</p>
<p>Depends on your intelligence and your efficiency at studying. Many people who claim to study inordinate amounts are just not studying the right material in the right way and thus waste a lot of time.</p>
<p>definitely depends on your intelligence. there are definitely those who try super hard and not do very well. i see students go to office hours like crazy, stay in library for hours, and end up with like the mean on the tests… then there are those other kids who skips like lecture, procrastinates hw til the last minute, and study like a day for honors organic chemistry, and leaves the test 20 minutes early, only to get all 90+ on the exams…</p>
<p>so its all about figuring out how smart you are and how hard you are willing to work. if you are not smart, then obviously don’t take 25 credits of hard science classes, you are either asking for no life or a bad gpa. i was once smart in my freshman year so i did pretty well without much studying and beating the mean was pretty easy. however at the end of the year i caught the flu and burned my brain cells to death and afterwards i knew i got way dumber so i took easier classes and fewer credits.</p>
<p>The university web site posted the avg grades for all undergrad courses and very few classes had mean grades lower than B. Put in a decent effort and most students will do just fine. My advice to our son who attended RPI was to treat college like a job. Start with breakfast at 8am and attend classes and study until 5or 6pm. Any unfinished reading, classwork or exam prep can be done in the evening or unfettered weekend times. Take Fri and Sat off except when absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>You will get better grades to the extent that you are taking a higher proportion of classes that you are both interested in and relatively good at. This may sound obvious, but two members of my family did not follow this simple principle.</p>
<p>However, a desire for good grades should not detract from the imperative to expand your horizons and take advantage of your one shot to get a good, broad college education. There ought to be some reasonable balance. If you cannot get what you want and still accomplish this reasonable balance then you are at too hard a school for you, IMO.</p>
<p>Take some courses you are less good at pass-fail.</p>
<p>There are some fields where grading is easier than others, and if you happen to excel in those fields you may get relatively high(er) grades than someone who excels comparably in the tougher graded area. For example, the engineering college deans list cutoff is lower than the cutoff for CAS, I assume that reflects a bit tougher grading standard. My D2 is getting very decent grades, but she is a humanities major and she is very good at those types of subjects. She could probably survive there as a science major but she wouldn’t be doing as well.</p>
<p>I knew a pre-med there who was an English major. He is a doctor today.</p>
<p>Take reasonable course loads. Do not take every hard course in the university in the same semester. </p>
<p>Do NOT fall behind. Do all papers ahead of the deadlines. Start studyng for midterms and finals well in advance, like over breaks. Often a huge chunk of your grade is decided in the last month of the term, when you get the confluence of your last set of prelims and papers due, immediately followed by final exams and final papers. In order to excel at all these assignements and exams that are all piled up on top of each other you neeed to plan your time carefully well in advance, and do whatever is necessary so there is sufficient time available to give adequate attention to everything. The high school mindset of studying everything the night before is the recipe for poor performance.</p>
<p>Dr. Maas says get sufficient sleep.
<a href=“Psych 101 goes live to Qatar - YouTube”>Psych 101 goes live to Qatar - YouTube;
<p>Want good grades? Stay away from engineering, science, and math courses. Humanities courses are quite easy, or at least, much easier. I used to be a science major and changed to humanities. My GPA went up from 3.2 to 3.6 now.</p>
<p>@Lazykid, I actually prefer science and math and find them easier than humanities and I was wondering if you would consider yourself a “science kid” or a “humanities kid” maybe that is why you found it easier.</p>
<p>@ everyone else, thanks for the good info, any tips on how to study good.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I used to be premed, and I quit premed due to poor grades and I wanted to boost my GPA to focus on law school applications. Thus, I switched to humanities. Back in high school, I thought I was a science/math kid. I realized that these subjects have harsher grading, heavier workload, difficult content-wise, difficult curves, and simply GPA killer. Unless you are a ‘sure’ premed or engineer, stay far away from any science/math courses.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman here in Engineering now and and an ambassador for the university.</p>
<p>The simple answer is staying on top of your work. Yeah, I know that sounds obvious but it’s very easy to forget that once you get here. The best thing to do is get to know how you operate very early and start planning accordingly. If that means you need a tutor then by all means find one. A lot of people like to study in groups. Make sure you go to office hours! The professors are required to hold time each week where the students can come to ask questions. Even if you don’t have questions it’s good to sit in and listen to other people’s questions. The biggest thing is time management! Time can slip by very easily so make sure you have all the time you need to do it. Procrastination is a big grade killer of any college student.</p>
<p>jad just gave one of the best advices i’ve ever seen</p>
<p>im a premed freshman here and while I still have a long way to go I ended up with a good GPA first semester and am doing well right now. I’d say one thing to you if ur a premed: BE SERIOUS. Too many premeds, who want to be in charge of the health of others, procastinate and are generally lazy about studying. In most cases, good study habits (not only spending a good amount of time studying but truly understanding concepts and doing practice problems/exercises that are challenging) will get u a good grade. Occasionally, with good habits, you may have an occasional bad prelim (and even there u likely wont get owned as long as you’ve studied). On the days and nights before these exams, treat them seriously. Make sure u dont leave studying/work till the last minute and are thus up for a long time the night before (or even two nights before). Some people have a blase attitude, remember these tests count for about 20 or so percent of ur grade. I haven’t met too many people who are lazy and are doing well. Sure there are likely a few but you wont know if u are one till u get at least ur first round of prelims done with. So be on the safe side. Also if ur a premed: DONT TAKE UNECESSARILY HARD COURSES. stay away, unless ur really into hard math/chem/physics from linear algebra, multivariable, honors gen chem/orgo/physics. Remember, you’re here to learn but at the end of 3/4 years, ur looking for a decent GPA as well.</p>