<p>In high school, I had the highest GPA in my school while taking on the hardest schedule in my school's history. Although I wasn't the top student in every class (I admit), I was always in the top five grade-wise. Although I'm sure I have above average intelligence, I don't consider myself a genius or a prodigy by any means. I just have a good work ethnic and stick at things until I understand them.</p>
<p>And I know I won't get too carried away by the independence, the partying, and all the other things that go on in college. So with those things aside, am I bound to have the same success in college?</p>
<p>Will this transfer over to college? </p>
<p>Do kids who did well in high school do generally well in college as well?</p>
<p>You have the right work ethic and mindset so I believe you’ll do well (or at least you won’t fail). I was a freshman this past year at Columbia University and I had two people living on my floor. One of them went to Stuyvesant (a top 50 high school) and the other one went to some high school that was ranked like 700 in that US news high school rankings. The stuy person was an above average kid at Stuy, nowhere near the smartest, but she had a great work ethic and got an A in our gen chem class. The kid who went to the rank 700 was their valedictorian but failed the gen chem class.</p>
<p>It really depends on how big the jump from your high school level to college is. If you got into a top university from a bad school because you were valedictorian… well expect to know that the “bad” or “average” kids at top high schools like Thomas Jefferson are probably smarter than you. So you have to work hard to keep up with them.</p>
<p>I feel this is a funny thread. Generally yes, though it is not absolute.
There are some people who did horribly in high school but did well in college.</p>
<p>i’ve seen a scatter plot released by my school. there’s an obvious correlation, but there are many people who don’t fit the trend. I’d say that 75% of people who do really well (meaning top students) in high school do well in uni.</p>
<p>Slightly silly question. If the student does well in HS, chances are they will in college as well. It ultimately depends on the student and his or her work ethic/time management.</p>
<p>There are many variables to factor into the prediction. High grades in HS do not always translate into high grades at the college level. There are more than academics to consider.</p>
<p>–emotional stability
–self-confidence
–work ethic
–social ability
–ability to adapt to different situations
–maturity </p>
<p>In college, you’re going to have to balance your social life, academic life, as well as taking sole responsibility for your daily living-----laundry, food, transportation, dealing with odd sleeping hours, dealing with roommates, etc.</p>
<p>“It’s such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.”</p>
<p>It sounds like you’re worried about being a proverbial small fish in a big pond instead of the big fish in the small pond of HS.</p>
<p>Are you heading off to a highly selective, highly competitive (for admissions) college? I’m assuming you are. I posted this on another thread, but sounds like you need to hear it too. So I’ll repost it here.</p>
<p>OP on the other thread wrote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I graduated (with honors) from William&Mary 30 years ago, having been admitted with a verbal SAT down near the 25% for W&M. [Verbal SAT most closely corresponds with todays CR.] I still remember freshman orientation very, very clearly. And I want to tell you some of the things that President Graves told the W&M Class of 1980 on a sultry, hot afternoon in August 1976 after we all reported to the (air-conditioned!) W&M Hall. I want to tell you these things because I think they as applicable (maybe even more so) to the current incoming Ivy freshmen as they were to those W&M freshman thirty years ago. President Graves told us something along these lines:</p>
<p>Welcome! We first of all want you all to know just how happy we are that you chose to come to W&M. You are, as a class, an exceptionally well qualified class with some incredible achievements.</p>
<p>But we also want you know this as well: All of you graduated near the top of your high school class; most of you were in the top 10% of your graduation class. All of you have exceptionally high test scores. Many of you have earned straight A’s in high school. Almost none of you has ever earned a C in a class before. All of you are well above the typical high school graduate. And all of you are average William and Mary students right now.</p>
<p>Look at the person to your right. And look at the person to your left. One of the three of you is likely to graduate in the top 1/3 of the Class of '80. One of the three of you is likely to graduate in the middle 1/3 of the Class of '80. And one of you is likely to graduate in the bottom 1/3 of the Class of '80. And neither we the faculty and administration nor you the students can predict who of the three of you will eventually rise to the top and who will not. But that’s not what’s important. What is important is that all three of you will graduate—and you will graduate in four years with a degree you can be proud of earning regardless of whether you graduate with honors or graduate in the bottom tenth of the class.</p>
<p>Of you and your two neighbors, it’s likely that two of you will earn the lowest grades you’ve ever earned during your first and second semesters here at W&M. But that’s ok—remember, you are the typical student at this college and your grades are likely to be average grades for W&M. And average grades here include lots of B’s and C’s. So don’t beat yourself up when you earn that first B or C on a midterm or paper or course: Those are not “bad” grades—they are average grades for average W&M students.</p>
<p>It’s also very likely that neither you nor your two neighbors really know what studying is: For most of you sailed through high school with little or no effort. You were the students for whom most of the high school content simply made sense with little or no effort. And this too will cause you great frustration during your freshman year. You will need to consciously work on developing good study habits, and while you are working on that, your grades are likely to be lower, perhaps much lower, than what you regarded as “acceptable” in high school. But in time you will learn how to best study in order to do your best in each class that’s important to you. You may also learn how to study “just enough” to earn a grade that’s acceptable to you, but doesn’t actually reflect what you could do if you wanted to put all your effort into doing your best in that course. And that’s ok—because sometimes doing “good enough” but not “excellent or best” in Course A is what you can afford to do in order to really do your best in Course B when Course B is more important to you — for whatever reason that’s important to you.</p>
<p>So in conclusion: We wish you luck as you begin an incredible adventure. We want you to take risks. We want you to explore. We want you to take a course in a subject you’ve never been interested in. We want you take courses in subjects you already know you’re interested in. We want you to study hard. But we don’t want you to define yourself by the grades you earn. We want you to define yourself by how you change between now and the time you graduate.</p>
<p>My sister graduated high school in the middle third of her class and graduated college with a 3.85 in speech communications disorders in three years while her friend graduated number 10 in the same class in high school and barely made it out of a photo journalism/communications program in four years (not that four years is an oddity). It all comes down to determination.</p>
<p>"In high school, I had the highest GPA in my school while taking on the hardest schedule in my school’s history. "</p>
<p>Did they give you a plaque or ribbon for making history? Or maybe a holiday?</p>
<p>Well, there are plenty of kids who got 3.5+ in hs and are working harder than in HS to get a 2.5-2.9 in engineering. It depends on a lot of factors. In my major, writing level is the big thing. It is surprising how many poor writers there are. Hard work can get you only so far in some majors. Some Prof’s really make sure only the people who truly understand something earn an A, so the kid who works hard and kind of gets it will earn a B.</p>
<p>Back in the day, way back when computers were still affairs the size of a garage, it wasn’t as common for regular public high schools to have especially challenging academic choices such as AP. At least my school didn’t offer any such thing. I’d never heard of them or IB. There were “college prep” and non college prep but not that much difference between the two.</p>
<p>Between being bright enough and also an aural learner, so that I could retain most of a lecture well enough that I really only needed to briefly review notes, I graduated in the top ten of my class without having actually really studied all that many times.</p>
<p>One of my best friends was always studying and had to work a lot harder for her grades in high school.</p>
<p>Guess who didn’t get a rude shock in college?</p>
<p>I was one of those students in post # 12! I’d never had a c in my life!</p>
<p>(I did learn how to study and got high marks after a while…)</p>
<p>Work habits and effective studying habits (working smarter, not necessarily harder) are critical, and it seems to me that the high schools are better at challenging kids than they were 30 years ago which is a good thing for college preparation - but if you were so above the coursework in high school that you skated along without having to really learn to study, then unless you are either truly a genius or your school is significantly below your ability, you will find at some point you hit a wall where your native intelligence level and ability to retain and learn enough during classtime, without outside study, will eventually not be enough to do the trick.</p>
<p>Back in the day, way back when computers were still affairs the size of a garage, it wasn’t as common for regular public high schools to have especially challenging academic choices such as AP. At least my school didn’t offer any such thing. I’d never heard of them or IB. There were “college prep” and non college prep but not that much difference between the two.</p>
<p>Between being bright enough and also an aural learner, so that I could retain most of a lecture well enough that I really only needed to briefly review notes, I graduated in the top ten of my class without having actually really studied all that many times. (it was much less rigorous than today’s schools, I am sure of it.)</p>
<p>One of my best friends was always studying and had to work a lot harder for her grades in high school.</p>
<p>Guess who didn’t get a rude shock in college?</p>
<p>Work habits and effective studying habits (working smarter, not necessarily harder) are critical, and it seems to me that the high schools are better at challenging kids than they were 30 years ago which is a good thing for college preparation - but if you were so above the coursework in high school that you skated along without having to really learn to study, then unless you are either truly a genius or your school is significantly below your ability, you will find at some point you hit a wall where your native intelligence level and ability to retain and learn enough during classtime, without outside study, will eventually not be enough to do the trick.</p>
<p>It depends. I did pretty well in high school, and I’m doing well in college also (but don’t have as high a GPA as I did in high school). I just have more to do in college, and I figure that I’ve rather have a 3.5 gpa, be able to work and be social to the fullest extent possible, than strive for a 4.0 GPA and have to work so hard that I’m not able to work/have a social life. It’s completely up to you…college is definitely harder than high school (in my opinion - not the case for everyone) and procrastination is not quite the same. Just don’t get too caught up in the partying/freedom (and be aware that it might be hard to adjust at first) and as a good student you’ll eventually be fine.</p>
<p>If you value a high GPA, generally, a high GPA is not as difficult to get. However, in college, most people realize a super-high GPA isn’t all that important, and there’s so much MORE to college than just studying. And some people also realize they’d rather push themselves, get lower grades but learn more than maintain a high GPA with easy classes.</p>
<p>My GPA dropped from HS pretty significantly, especially the first semester. Intro Physics was HARD, when HS AP physics was incredibly, incredibly easy. And I valued that class/knowledge more than my anthro or calc classes, so I didn’t do so hot in those courses.</p>
<p>High school is, by no means, an indicator as to how well you do in college. I had a friend who was valedictorian…her report card is littered with Cs and three Es.</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, was an “ok” student with a 3.3…and I’m doing WAY better in college than in high school.</p>