<p>I am going to be a freshman this fall. I was wondering if you happen to have any studying tips or ways to maintain straight A's. Are there any particular study habits that work really well for you? I am pretty much open to any type of advice. Thank you in advance and your response is greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>You don’t need to be straight A or top 10… read this book and rethink your approach. “How to Be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out)” by Cal Newport. </p>
<p>When you get assigned an essay a week before it’s due, began writing it that day. Then keep revising it until it becomes perfect</p>
<p>Don’t go straight home and lay in your bed and watch Netflix or play on your phone. School work first haha.</p>
<p>build your vocabulary, write a lot, read a lot…don’t procrastinate</p>
<p>Write down your assignments. Don’t procrastinate. Make sure to prioritize your assignments and don’t do your least important class assignments first.</p>
<p>To become top 10, you manipulate the GPA system by optimally finding the best route through as many weighted courses as well as finding ways to eliminate classes giving you a 4.0 instead of a 5.0.–You might not need all straight A’s if you can abuse the system to its fullest–a “B” hurts you as much as an “A” in a non-weighted class.</p>
<p>But top 10 is overrated as it loses its value past high school. There are brilliant straight “A” students (which I admire) that get into colleges such as Stanford yet aren’t in the top 10 simply because they took regular classes instead of cheating the system out.</p>
<p>–Develop your English skills! I believe they are weighted the most and they are the one thing that you can’t simply put a lot of effort studying to secure the “A.” </p>
<p>That all said, the most important advice is to make a game plan for as far ahead of the road as you can and make slight adjustments as you go along. Meet up with counselors and/or your parents to do this. How to master high school life is actually a very complex topic…</p>
<p>Honestly, being “good” at school is a skill you’ll learn to develop over time. I wish learning was emphasized more in our education system, but that’s how it is now. If maintaining straight A’s (really not as important as you might think) and being top 10 is your ultimate goal, then just learn the skills.</p>
<p>It’s important to have a good relationship with your teachers. Honestly, they’re the ones who ultimately decide what grade to give you. You know how other kids hate those teachers’ pets? Well, they’re usually the ones getting A’s. You don’t have to be sucking up to them (I’ve never bribed my teachers), but make sure they like you cause that might just tip your grade over to an A if you’re borderline. </p>
<p>Everyone here will tell you not to procrastinate. Oh, if only it were that easy. If you’re able to not procrastinate, then great! I tried, and it never worked out for me. I procrastinate a TON, but my teachers never realized. A few months ago, my teacher was advising some of the incoming freshman and told them that in order to succeed in her class, they should try to be like me and not procrastinate. I felt kind of bad because I’m probably the biggest procrastinator ever. But if you turn in quality work in the end, teachers won’t realize. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how your school determines top 10. If it is by pure GPA, then you can simply take the easiest classes and maintain a 4.0 GPA. But if your class rank is weighted (which I think is more fair), then take the most rigorous classes you can as long as you know you can maintain (almost) all A’s. Another good idea is to surround yourself with the smartest kids in your grade AKA the other kids who are in the top 10. For me, it was fairly easy because I came from one of those stupid “gifted” programs in middle school so my closest friends even now are all in the top 10. It’s friendly competition, but I think it really motivates you to try harder if you can see up-close how close your “competitors” are. </p>
<p>If you’re taking any AP or really hard class freshman year, put like 80-90% of your effort into that. IME I should have studied harder for AP gov first semester of last school year, since I had like four 98+, 94 in lit, and like 88 in AP gov. Which brings me to another point; know your strengths and weaknesses early on. If you have a track record of doing worse in math and science, put more effort into those classes. Or if you have a teacher that assigns a lot of homework, then make sure you DO IT. I’m completely serious. I’m usually not the type of person to miss a day of homework, but annotations this year ruined me. It takes such a long time to annotate just 10 pages of a book, so I just didn’t do it for most of the school year. There was only one annotation check over the two semesters that counted, but I didn’t do part of what was required and so it really dropped my grade.</p>