<p>Any precautionary information about university or college that the dazzled students fail to notice?</p>
<p>Study more than 20 hrs a week, at least that is what I heard</p>
<p>No. It’s difficult, often impossible (one bad class, one bad illness, etc). It’s an unrealistic goal. Do the best you can. You’re overthinking this college thing to be honest. Just relax. </p>
<p>I see you’re an international student. Are you applying to colleges this fall or will you be a freshmen? If you’re applying, you need to focus on getting into a college that you want and can afford. If you’ll be a freshmen, you really just need to relax and not worry so much about things like this… at least not yet.</p>
<p>it’s impossible. even if you are smart and spend all day studying, you will get an A- or B+ somewhere</p>
<p>Honestly, obsessing about grades and trying to obtain a perfect GPA will make the stress of college worse because you will begin to worry about every little mistake. Do not go in expecting to graduate with a 4.0 - it is highly unlikely. Just put in the necessary time, work hard, and accept the results that follow (which will probably be very good if you are a smart and dedicated student).</p>
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<p>Mostly true.</p>
<p>It depends a lot on your major(s), school, and other circumstances. For a typical student, sometimes good work ethic and organization skills are enough to ensure 3.8.</p>
<p>Still, try to aim for A’s in all your classes, but don’t be disappointed if ended up with a 3.5.</p>
<p>Work hard and do your best. Don’t spend all your time studying because then you’ll end up stressed and tired and not do very well in the end.</p>
<p>Nearly impossible. I’m sure it’s possible, but in 99.9% of majors, you’re going to have classes that you just don’t get, or your views don’t agree with the professor’s, etc. I did perfectly well and never had a 4.0 semester or a 4.0 overall, even after my freshman fall semester.</p>
<p>Closest I came to a 4.0 was when I got A-s and As. At my uni that counts as a 4.0 (we’re implementing normal plus-minus GPA calculations this Fall) so I call it my perfect semester, but sadly at most schools that’s like a 3.9.</p>
<p>A perfect GPA is also pretty useless. Unless you are INCREDIBLY smart it will take a lot of time and dedication to get a perfect GPA, and that’s time that could be spent honing one’s social skills. Good luck acing a job interview if all you can talk about is how you sat in the library every day.</p>
<p>just want to emphasize ThisMortalSoil’s point as it’s often overlooked and EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!</p>
<p>Whether you are pre-med, pre-law, going to grad school, getting a job in ANY field, a student with a 4.0 and no extracurriculars will be passed over every time for a lower GPA student who does things other than study. There’s obviously a fine line which is why I’m not going to throw out a number for “lower GPA” but know that a 4.0, while impressive, is only 1 piece of the puzzle for any position and no matter how good that 1 piece is, it won’t make up for not having any others.</p>
<p>I agree with ThisMortalSoil. At my college graduation I noticed that not a single student with a 4.0 (they announced those with a “perfect 4.0” when they called their names) had completed an honors thesis, and they tended to be wearing few or no honors cords (for joining honor societies and other big name clubs). No one graduating summa cum laude (over 3.8 GPA at my college) had completed an honors project either, and I was one of the very few magna cum laudes that did.</p>
<p>My point is that those with lower GPAs seemed to have more resume/CV worthy accomplishments, such as completing an honors thesis, taking part in honor societies and clubs, working several good internships, etc. In some fields top grades might mean a lot, but in most fields these other accomplishments will do more for your career. Two years out of college you might still think a 4.0 was pretty cool to have, but employers really won’t care. But two years out of school you can still talk about your research and internship experiences, leadership opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>Like many have already mentioned, having a 4.0 GPA is great, but not nearly as important as other activities you need to partake in for your resume. But to answer your question, yes, the obvious is to study. And not just study, but study correctly. And some might disagree with me, but I can honestly say this has probably saved me more than once from the borderline between a B and a C in a class, and that’s your behavior in class. Talk to your professors, let them know you want to ace their classes and tell them that you’re really interested and I guarantee you they will more than likely be willing to help you when you need it or even bump a final grade of a 79.7 to a B.</p>
<p>If your school has + and - grades, then it will likely be incredibly difficult (only like 2/2000 graduating seniors get 4.0s at my university). It’s very hard to get a 94+ in every single class. However, there’s little difference in mastery between an A- and an A, despite the difference in GPA being 3.67 vs 4.0.</p>
<p>I think it becomes easier to get a 4.0, if you go to a college that gives 4.3’s. </p>
<p>Then just do REALLy good is some of the easier classes to balance out some lower grades in other classes. In other words, don’t blow off your easier classes, they’ll help your gpa. </p>
<p>"Any precautionary information about university or college that the dazzled students fail to notice? " </p>
<p>I have no idea what you’re asking here.</p>
<p>Here is the comprehensive guide to getting and maintaining a 4.0
- Only take the easiest classes with the easiest professors.
- Don’t join any sports, clubs, or do anything fun. Live in the library.
- Don’t get sick, ever.
- Don’t make friends, don’t even bother getting to know anyone except your professor.
- At the end of 4 years, realize that you have nothing on your resume, no friends, and you wasted 4 of the best years of your life.</p>
<p>My point is, do your best of course, but as mentioned before trying to achieve perfect grades won’t have many tangible benefits.</p>
<p>Get? Easy. Maintain? Not possible.</p>
<p>Very amusing and insightful responses. Will try to keep all of these in mind. Getting into Yale Law School is impossible, no? sigh.</p>
<p>It’s very difficult, competitive, and a crapshoot. That being said, if you aren’t even a freshman in college yet, I wouldn’t freak out about not getting into Yale Law school. You’ve got a few years…haha.</p>
<p>In all seriousness - I definitely don’t have a 4.0, but I’m pretty close, and am a varsity athlete/editor at a campus publication. In my opinion, doing well in college while still maintaining a life outside of classes is a lot of time management, and a lot of studying effectively. For instance: I learned pretty quickly that in problem-based classes (i.e. physics, chem), I do a lot better if I spend a few hours actually doing practice problems vs. just studying the book for hours and then going over problems. It’s all about studying effectively. Also, I will stay up all night finishing a paper - two nights before it is due. That way, the night before, I can take some time to go away, come back, and edit it effectively.</p>
<p>I would say it’s pretty close to impossible to maintain a 4.0 GPA if you take challenging courses, especially since some professors are going to go out of their way to make it hard to do well. I’ve taken courses (<em>cough</em> physics <em>cough</em>) where the midterms were blatantly unrelated to most of what we were doing in class, and the professor openly told us that he was trying to challenge us and “stretch our minds,” rather than see how much we’d learned from the class. The average ended up being around a 48, and even with the curve the highest grade was a B. Because of the way the class was graded, it was essentially impossible to get an A with a B or lower on the midterm, so very, very few if any students could get a B based purely on knowledge of the course material. I worked my a** off, definitely understood all of the material, and still only got a B in the end because of his stupid midterm that had nothing to do with anything we’d learned. I’m fine with it, though, because it was, for the most part, outside of my control. A lot of college is about accepting that sometimes, you can’t control your grade, and you might know a lot more than one test will reflect.</p>
<p>Relax. You’re going to be fine.</p>
<p>Thanks reesezpiecez103! Very insightful! I feel like life is that way too-trying to balance work and play. Thanks for the insight!</p>