Please i need the honest truth!
Depends on the university and the major. There are many universities where there average GPA is above 3.5. Though even at those universities an engineering or STEM major may have a harder time than a theater major.
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It really does depend on you and how you have prepared yourself for tests and projects.
I think that most students will tell you that the courses, pace and subjects are difficult because more is expected from you than just regurgitating facts and figures. Your opinions and how you present those opinions will matter in your essays, projects, proofs, and teamwork.
If you want to maintain your grades, you need to go to tutoring. The tutors are familiar with the professors and the course requirements and can help you to focus on supplemental information that will help you to understand the material and do well in the class.
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Depends a lot on the school and the major. This is why, if the person needs a very high GPA in order to get into grad school, it might be better for them to go to a less competitive, less rigorous undergrad school.
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Depends upon the school, the major, and the particular instructor.
Usually not as easy as getting a 3.5 GPA in high school.
Consider that colleges overall enroll mostly students who had 3.0-4.0 GPA in high school, but then spread most of them across the 2.0-4.0 GPA range in college (with some falling below 2.0 and flunking out). While some students do better in college than high school*, it is likely that more have lower GPA in college than high school (consider the relative rarity of 4.0 college GPA compared to 4.0 high school GPA).
*Sometimes because college allows much more concentration in subjects of interest and academic strength, and usually a wider range of choice in general education courses, while high school is mostly a prescribed set of general education courses or core curriculum that may include many courses that the student is less interested in.
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Many (not all) engineering majors would find theater classes to be more difficult than their engineering classes, so they may choose to take them passed / not-passed, if they choose them at all for humanities general education requirements.
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Easy. No. Many have to work hard for a 3.5. But that is also the point of college. It’s not supposed to be “easy”. You go deeper in understanding. But don’t let that scare you. Most colleges have tons of help from math /science labs for help to peer to peer to writing help etc. Study groups. Your not alone at college.
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Curious why you are asking this?
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And the student!
Every person’s experience will be different. There are MANY variables including (but not limited to): your capabilities, your effort/study habits, your major, your college, your professors to name but a few. It would be a mistake to assume that attaining a college GPA of 3.5 or better will be easy.
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Some high school seniors may be concerned about how difficult it is to renew a scholarship that requires a 3.5 college GPA to renew, or to declare or stay in a major that requires a 3.5 college GPA.
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That depends on the schools too. So far I have two college grads who each had a better college GPA than HS, despite being in colleges generally thought of as rigorous. Don’t know if that reflects their maturity, the colleges or the exceptional rigor of their HS. BTW, same happened to me decades ago – even better college GPA than HS. In my case it was the type of work. HS had more rote assignments and multiple choice tests and college was more essays and open ended questions. I did better with the latter. And possibly matured a bit.
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I would not say “easy”. It should however be “possible” for the majority of serious students. If a university accepts you, then it probably means that they think that it will be possible for you (but definitely not easy).
One daughter had a merit scholarship and needed to maintain a 3.5 GPA to keep the scholarship past the first year. She did not have any problem doing this. Our other daughter needed to maintain a 3.0 to keep her merit scholarship, which she was also able to do. In the second case if she had not kept the merit scholarship the university that she attended would have been out of budget. We never discussed what we would do if this happened. This was probably a mistake on our part. Fortunately this problem never came up.
If you need to maintain a 3.5 for the university to be affordable, then you will need to plan to attend every class, always pay attention, seek out help early if you need help, and plan to keep way ahead in your homework.
And how difficult this will be will depend upon the university, the student, and the major. I would expect a 3.5 in university to in most cases be more difficult compared to maintaining a 3.5 in high school. One exception might be a student who is really, really strong in some areas, and weak in other areas. If they are majoring in an area where they are strong, their GPA might go up in university.
How “easy” was it in High school for you?
Some high school students end up with “at least B’s” with little effort - others struggle to get better than “C’s”.
Taking any AP classes in High School? If you had high grades in your AP Classes, but low test scores in the AP tests, then maybe your HS teachers are grading generously – and you might find it hard to get similar “easy” grades at any different “school” (=college).
My daughter was always studious, and thus worked hard to get good grades in high school - and simply continued to work hard in college, for an equally good outcome.
“Honest truth”: Other than those generic points, there’s no way for outsiders to taylor an answer for you, your high school, whatever college you will attend, your field of study, your studying habits, etc.
Depends – I get emails from the Yale Daily News and this was reported today!
When I taught college writing at Cal, I had a lot of EECS and EECS-aspiring students. They VERY rarely got As. Most got Bs. A fair number got Cs. Plagiarism was depressingly common and those students failed outright.
However, at many of those colleges, the student body had an average of close to 4.0 in high school. So that can very well be the result of a student body who are mostly high achievers.
I have heard from at least a few students that it was easier for them to get good grades in college than in high school, and these are students who attended “elite” colleges.
Of course, there is the basic fact that it is usually easier for a 20 year old in a residential college to focus on their studies than it is for a 16 year old living at home. My kid’s college GPA was substantially higher than her high school GPA, and her college is pretty competitive, while her high school is good, but not nearly as competitive as her college.
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