Anyone else think college weeds out the people who naturally did well in HS?

<p>I feel like people who would do well in HS without really studying are weeded out in college. </p>

<p>The people who did well in HS with a lot of studying tend to extraordinarily better than those who went through HS without really studying. And this is because of the way college is structured. Large exams, spanning lots of material, with many many concepts to memorize. It rewards to people who really spend hours upon hours studying and studying. And the people who did not really study in HS have to learn to adapt to studying habits which are completely foreign and sets them back. </p>

<p>In HS, tests were simple, and focused on a single concept which made it easy to just walk in and do well without really studying.</p>

<p>I think it’s more along the lines of “adapt or fail”. High school was easy for me, but I quickly adapted, even as a person who barely studied in high school.</p>

<p>I didn’t study in high school and I did decent. Now that I’m in college, I still don’t study, but I have a 3.8 GPA. It just depends on how hard your high school was, amount of AP classes, and how difficult your college and college major is.</p>

<p>I think college weeds out the people who are set to do well from people whose school prepared them for success only at that school. I had a 3.69 in high school and have a 3.81 in college. On the other hand, someone I know had a 4.0 in hs and has a 3.02. College separates the boys from the men so to say</p>

<p>I didn’t study in high school whatsoever (didn’t need to, my school was terrible), had good grades with no effort, and got into a good college. It’s so much harder and I have had to really learn and adapt in order to do well. If people aren’t willing to learn how to study, then yes college will weed them out.</p>

<p>Yeah, it’s been harder than I expected, even in my easy gen-ed classes. I actually have to read the book now! lol but seriously, I really had to learn how to study for once in my life. My grades have improved once I understood that I couldn’t not study and still get an A.</p>

<p>I don’t know, but I didn’t do amazing in high school (3.3ish gpa) vs. my college gpa of 3.7ish.</p>

<p>OP,</p>

<p>I have seen it work many different ways. </p>

<p>Some kids find high school easy, and don’t need to study. When they get to college, some students fall flat on their faces because they did not change their game plan to adapt to the new academic environment. But some turn on their academic jets and excel in a way that the grinds from high school can only dream of.</p>

<p>There are those students who worked hard in high school, and their honed study skills help them to continue to excel in college. And then there are those who worked really hard in high school, and when they get to college, there is no harder that they can work…and they are perhaps in an academic environment that is too rigorous for their native ability.</p>

<p>And of course there is the group that start out not studying in college…and then get their priorities in order and they do just fine.</p>

<p>Something you might want to know before you get to college…it’s not the same kind of studying that is sufficient at a lot of high schools. It’s not all about memorizing vast amounts of material and regurgitating it for the teacher. It’s about synthesizing what you’ve read from multiple sources, and heard in lecture (which may never cover the readings at all) and applying what you have learned in problem solving or creative ways.</p>

<p>I dont think its intentional but I’ve seen it all happen to different people for the reasons mentioned above. Another reason is that some people had through high school had their parents on their case/there to push them, now that they have the sense of freedom (living on their own, no curfew, etc) they loose focus of their priorities.</p>

<p>I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of factors that come into play.</p>

<p>I think a person’s high school often affects how well or poorly they do in college. I went to a private school where most students took AP classes (only three or four students in my class got through all four years without a single one). We also were on the traditional schedule and had to deal with a large workload. (Seven classes of homework a day v block scheduling’s four).</p>

<p>Coming into college, it’s been a lot easier, because, in general, I have less work. My classes in high school were pretty similarly structured to my college classes. Even my hs freshman courses were difficult. I had a 2.9 uw in high school and now have a 3.952 in college.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I have a friend who made all A’s and only one B from 7th-12th grade. She was in about the top 3-4% of her high school class of 750 and took lots of APs. Her GPA now? It’s about a 3.2. College was a really hard adjustment for her. In high school, she only had to deal with four classes a day. She works really hard, but it isn’t like high school was for her.</p>

<p>So, in essence, I think that if a person skated through high school, then yes, high school may come as a shock. But at the same time, I also think that a person’s high school education can also affect how they do. The ability to adapt and to adjust to a completely new environment is important as well. If someone can’t adapt to life at college, it doesn’t really matter how smart they are.</p>

<p>My brother never studied in HS and made great grades, he was number 8 or so in my high school out of 540 kids. In college he still doesn’t study and makes mostly A’s and very few B’s. He is my roomate and he never leaves his room. He sits in the room all day on weekends and as much as possible during the week (except during class) and sits on his computer watching some japanese anime for at least 8 hours a day. I’ve never seen him study yet his grades are very good. I study almost non stop and my grades are definitely worse than his. We attend UT Austin.</p>

<p>Yeah, I got burned my freshman year. I started my senior slide junior year and didn’t really pull out of it until recently. Conceptual understanding is much more important in college, especially in science courses.</p>

<p>it weeds out the slackers that got by with good grades but it also depends on the type of high schools too</p>

<p>It weeds out people who don’t want to work.</p>

<p>I never studied in high school and graduated with a really good gpa. I came to college and didn’t study my first semester and still had a high gpa. I had to start studying in my second semester and I wasn’t really set back too much. I knew how to study theoretically it was just a matter of finding the <em>best</em> way to do it. </p>

<p>I ended up changing my major (CS to Bio) and now I don’t spend that much time studying. I spend a lot of time reading and taking notes on it but actually studying for the test in only and hour or two the day before for most of my classes. Connecting concepts is how I learn so a lot of that sort of comes naturally. The only time I spend a good deal of time studying for is things like genetics or anatomy labs that have a heavy amount of vocab.</p>

<p>^I think it weeds out people who don’t want to work to an extent. To get straight A’s, yes, you have to work extremely hard. But you can get by with B’s with usually slacking, skipping some classes, and cramming before a test (what I do, unfortunately). Plus you see so many spoiled rich kids who are on Facebook in all their classes and constantly partying, but most of them don’t fail, most probably have like a B or C average (from the ones I have met, I used to be in a sorority so I knew quite a few). They take a lot of easy classes, but they get the degree, you know? It doesn’t matter really how well they do in school later on because they’re rich and have so many connections they’ll definitely get jobs. But they don’t fail out of school, and I assume to get C’s you wouldn’t need to do much of anything. I don’t think this would apply for really difficult majors, but college doesn’t necessarily weed out all those who don’t want to work.</p>