<p>I want to go to Cornell U so bad, but my gpa must be raised to a somewhat adequate level, and the only way to do this is to get a near perfect 100 average in all my courses next year (junior year). I am prepping for some of my classes over the summer, but what else can I do? Please no general comments like "study" and "do your homework and ask for extra credit". Are there specific methods that you guys use/ routines/ specific strategies? Suggest everything that you have tried that works!</p>
<p>Getting rid of all your distractions including your social life would help.</p>
<p>Why are you asking this? You already listed the two ways to get good grades: study and do your homework. Start your hw as soon as you get home and seriously review anything you don’t understand. Used textbooks are your friends if you want to study ahead. There aren’t many cheap tricks to getting perfect grades. </p>
<p>Are you in the top 10% of your class?</p>
<p>Time management!</p>
<p>What is your GPA? Do you go to a “gifted” school and your classes/teachers are relatively tougher? Your situation needs to be assessed, it’s not easy to get near-100’s in every single class, especially in your junior year</p>
<p>Of all the general advice I could give you, not many are gonna be that helpful. You should seriously do every single homework, and if you can, try not to leave them for late at night or early in the morning. For trivial assignments, copy/BS your way through them if you seriously don’t have the time, but don’t let that become a way of deterring your motivation. Sit in the front of the room (you’ll have much better focus), study until you starve, minimize your EC’s to an extent, and always be optimistic. </p>
<p>Work smarter, not harder</p>
<p>Settle for less. </p>
<p>Straight A-'s!</p>
<p>Guys, while I do appreciate all the feedback, I asked for specific methods, and the only commenter who has answered the question is MyRealName. No I am not in the top 10% of my class, but I believe I will be if I follow through with my gpa raising plans. My school is not a gifted school, but it is a respectable public school.</p>
<p>Yes, we know that you asked for specific methods, but you already listed the two primary methods of getting a good GPA, and those are studying and completing all of your assignments. Seriously, most every method anyone will recommend will simply fall under the umbrella of working hard.</p>
<p>Although I do have one tip for you: do not underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. Your cognitive functions will be greatly impaired by sleep deprivation. The extra two hours of studying that you might milk out of a late night are not worth the mental impairment.</p>
<p>There really is not much more to say. You get good grades by maintaing a good work ethic which leads to lots of studying and doing homework on time. Just know that if your grades have been less then ideal for the past two years Cornell will be beyond unlikely. You are dealing with a school that is selective enough that they reject extremely qualified applicants all the time and a high GPA for all of high school is basically a must. This is not meant to discourage you, it is simply meant to make you aware of the situation that you are in.</p>
<p>It’s not going to happen. </p>
<p>That said, do the best you can-aim for straight As. ED may be out of the option for you, since you’ll need the extra semester’s grades to pad your GPA. But as long as you come close to the 50th percentile though, I would ED if it is your top choice. A lot of Cornell schools are also all about fit, so you’re in luck. CAS and engineering would be the only ones where a terrible GPA would kill your chances. However, if you are interested in the majors of CAS, majors at schools like ILR, HumEc, and CALS often have a bit of overlap, and at these colleges a great supplement essay goes a long way.</p>
<p>Basically, you still have a chance at Cornell, but the grades thing is totally unrealistic.</p>
<p>Ok, thank you everyone. @Paintallthestuff:
Are you sure it’s worth applying RD just for another semester’s worth of grades? The ED acceptance rate is so much higher for Cornell (more than 30%!). I’d be applying to CALS for their natural resources major, which I hear would be a good idea in my situation. Is it true?</p>
<p>Here is a specific method to improve your grades: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Dump your girlfriend</p></li>
<li><p>Dump your social life</p></li>
<li><p>Get comfy on your recliner at home while sipping a non alcoholic beverage and smile because you are seeing your grades improve dramatically</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Step 1:
Buy all your materials for school.
Step 2:
Get all A+'s</p>
<p>Profit!</p>
<p>Oh, for CALS a lower GPA might not have too much impact on you as long as you make it clear you LOVE nature and the majors offered, either through your essay, EC’s, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, and btw, the ED acceptance rate is now 29%- it’s getting more selective :(</p>
<p>Well, first of all, don’t throw away your social life to focus solely on academics. That’s the only thing that you can do that would ruin your chances of acceptance. Keep doing what you’re doing. If you are on a Varsity team, then keep playing your sport. If you were in band or orchestra, keep doing that. If you like volunteering and go somewhere weekly, don’t stop. </p>
<p>Second, you should also focus on the SAT/ACT/subject tests because Cornell also cares about those. If you need study tips, feel free to mail me. I studied solely on my own and raised my score by at least 400 points.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that essays are also crucial for more competitive colleges. The Ivies reject hundreds of valedictorians and 4.0 UW GPA students every year. They want a unique student body full of people who not only do well in school, but live life to the fullest and make the most out of what they have.</p>
<p>To get good grades, don’t shoot for all A+s. Silly as it sounds, that is more deleterious than helpful. If you aim for straight A+s, that will be extremely hard to maintain and when you go even a little under your goal, you may stress out and end up getting lower grades than you could have gotten. Aim for straight A’s. That’s more achievable and won’t give you as much time to worry. Less stress gives you more time to focus and concentrate, and so you’ll get better grades if you aim just a little lower.</p>
<p>If you’re like me and use your computer often, don’t use your computer when you work, because the internet will distract you and take away hundreds of hours of time you could have used to study and finish homework. Don’t listen to music (I know people say that listening to music is helpful, but trust me, it’s not. You’ll get lost in the music and your brain WILL have trouble focusing on 2+ things at once. I say that music doesn’t affect me either but in all honesty, I could perform much better away from my mp3 and TV). </p>
<p>For tests, study consistently. You don’t have to study for 4+ hours a day on one subject just to ace a test. What works better is if you have 15-20 minute study periods for each subject throughout the day, and every day. For tests and chapters, read over the chapter thoroughly once or twice, then read it over again and refer back to it if you feel like you might have forgotten something. If you look at something frequently, you’ll end up retaining the information whether you like it or not. Plus, your mind is much more efficient if you study this way, since attention span can get iffy after hours and hours of straight studying.</p>
<p>Take breaks. This is a must. I don’t mean to reward yourself by watching a 16 hour TV show marathon, but take short breaks to eat a snack or take a run. While you run, you can think about the things you have been learning or just take your mind off things. If you study without breaks, your mind will eventually wear out, so don’t risk testing your stamina.</p>
<p>ASK FOR HELP.
No matter what anyone says, there is NO ONE in this world who is completely independent. Everything we know and everything we do is an amalgamation of what we’ve seen, read, heard, and been taught. Even if you’re studying alone by using study guides, those were written by people. You aren’t studying alone, no one is. In class, don’t be afraid to ask questions. If I never asked questions in my classes, then I wouldn’t have gotten a 100 average in my trigonometry/pre-calc class. The reason I did so well was because if I tried solving something and didn’t understand the concept after a few tries, I asked the teacher for help. Everyone laughed because I was the only one in class who ever dared to ask a question so I guess I did look a bit stupid in their eyes, but I was the only one who ever got 100s on every test (actually, I was the only one who passed every test too…) Ask questions. Obviously, it will be annoying and inefficient to ask TOO MANY, but that’s a different story. Go through these steps and ask yourself this:
- First, read the problem a couple times if you don’t get it the first time.
- How do I solve this? Try a few different ways. You don’t need to get the right answer on the first try. Test a few different methods, and see if any of those work out. The key to this is trying to solve it by yourself before you ask anyone for help, because this would be a good learning experience for you, especially if your attempt was successful.
- If you still don’t fully understand what you need to solve/do, NOW is the time to ask the question. Write down what you don’t understand in your notebook (because later on, if you forget, you might have the same question down the road) and then ask the teacher either before, during, or after class to explain to you. </p>
<p>Similar to the last tip, don’t be afraid to QUESTION. I mean this in a different way though. Teachers aren’t perfect. They may seem perfect but they aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. If you think that they might be wrong, or there might be more than one way to solve a problem or do something, then let it out there. I don’t mean be pompous and get ahead of yourself, but if you think that there might be another way to approach a situation, stop and think about it. Organize your thoughts and take your time to see if it works out, and if you are absolutely sure that this is something worthwhile then talk to your teacher about it. Who knows! You might actually have a great idea. (Plus, I can’t even count the number of times my test/homework grades raised to a high A after I corrected the teachers’ grading mistakes).</p>
<p>Here is another important tip.
TEACH OTHERS. If you think you understand what is going on, then don’t be afraid to help out. If people ask for help, don’t turn them away. Even if you aren’t completely clear on a topic, offer to help out. You can work with other students to come up with a conclusion. While you teach others, you learn how to explain things to yourself more efficiently, AND teaching also helps you to retain the information in the long run. </p>
<p>Lastly, look up anything you don’t understand or recognize. If you are reading a novel for AP English and you come across the word “faux pas” but don’t understand what it means, don’t skim past it and assume that the word is unimportant. If the Hesiod is mentioned in your Mythology textbook but you have absolutely no idea what that is (is it a type of food?! a god?! the name of a warrior?! nah…), then google it. This helps for worldly knowledge, gives you a better idea of what you are reading, and is just plain good practice.</p>
<p>If you need tips for specific classes, feel free to ask. These are just some generic tips.
To sum it all up in a few short clauses, ask questions, study frequently/consistently, don’t stress out, relax, teach others, avoid distractions and look up anything you don’t understand.</p>
<p>In seventh grade, I barely knew how to divide. I didn’t know what a verb was, I thought a cereal box weighed 1000 kilograms, and the most challenging book I ever read was Junie B Jones (I did read Romeo and Juliet, but I didn’t understand a word of it.) When I took the placement tests, I was put into the lowest level classes possible. Now I’m the valedictorian of my class, do well in standardized testing like the SATs/APs, and most importantly, still have a life that, in all honesty, I care about ten times more than school and turning into a rabid, studying automaton :)</p>
<p>^^So many great ideas and suggestions. </p>
<p>Strongly agree that you put the “all A’s” goal out of your mind and just concentrate on working hard and having a great year. You’re right, your Junior year is important…but the pressure of “perfection” will break you. When you start your college search don’t put all your eggs in one college basket. You have a “dream” school. Cool. But the smart student does their research and prepares a well balanced list of schools to apply to.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for all of your suggestions, everyone!</p>
<p>gomdorri: WOW…what a great response! 
Very inspiring for me as I am struggling to obtain straight A’s and do well on my SAT/ACTS (junior year next year!!!). It is inspiring to hear someone so accomplished reveal their study habits. Valedictorians do not obtain secrets or superpowers but perseverance and hard work. Very well said about balancing your social life, EC, and work experience with schoolwork. At the end of the day, do you really want to have done nothing but eat,study and sleep?!
In addition, thank you for revealing your passion for learning. It’s not just for the grade! We must all question the world. Otherwise, our world would be super boring! Thanks again and good luck in your future endeavors! :D</p>