<p>Ok so I am in my sophomore year of high school and so far it is a lot harder than freshman year. So far my grades are terrible, ok so I am in all honors classes and have all Bs and B+s except for cooking and English I have As. I'm really scared it will bring my GPA down drastically and make my choices for college less(I have a 3.8 now). So i want to know if any of you have experienced the same problem and any tips you have to do better and raise grades. Do you think I would still be an eligible candidate for good schools if my GPA (unweighted)is say a 3.5 or 3.6 but in all honors and I play tennis and am in 2 clubs.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re getting ahead of yourself with your last question. Each year of high school should get harder, so you have to adjust to the level of difficulty as you go. The same thing will happen at some point during college if not your very first year. Take the hard courses in high school because they will make college a little easier. Just give yourself the time you need to adjust, and part of that time will include less time spent gaming, shopping, chatting, etc. Each year you will have a little less time for relaxing. This will continue once you leave college: in college you will complain about how busy you are, and your older friends who have graduated will just laugh. You will learn to do more and more and to do it more efficiently. At least until you have children, when efficiency goes out the door.</p>
<p>It’s possible you have overloaded yourself and are discovering your limitations, but I’d guess it’s more like you need to start dedicating more time to studies and less to ECs. Also, consider if any of your classes take an extraordinary amount of time for little gain - band and orchestra with their practice requirements are known time-eaters and why many students discover they’re better off dropping them if pursuing a tough academic schedule and they need more study time.</p>
<p>One other possibility is sleep. It’s not optional. If you’re feeling tired all the time due to late night studying, you might find that LESS studying and more sleep actually makes for a more efficient combo. It’s practically impossible to study well if tired, so trading some of that inefficient study time for more sleep might actually be the best thing, but first you need to get well rested - so cut some EC time to get there first, then when well rested you’ll discover you can restore the EC time… Finally, set a bedtime and try to keep it as many nights as you possibly can and stay well rested.</p>