<p>I want to get a 4.0 GPA, I will get AT LEAST 4 Study Halls a week (but a lot of people say 5)
That should help, but my sis said it takes 4 hours of studying a day to get a 4.0
Is this true? She did not like Freshman year at all, may just be her experience</p>
<p>Well it really depends on the school, but I’m in my freshman year taking the IB Diploma + 2 APs and it’s not really that bad.</p>
<p>Edit: By IB I mean Pre-IB, but our school requires that everyone who’s in IB take Pre-IB, so for us the IB Diploma is 4 years…</p>
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<p>No. Especially freshman year, but even in college you don’t really have to study four hours every day outside of class. The good thing about high school is that you learn a lot in class and you don’t usually have to spend twenty million years reviewing.
Also, there’s no significant difference between a 4.0 and a 3.8-3.9. </p>
<p>The younger generation will definitely be more competitive…be aware of your surroundings…
I remember when I was a freshman, only 2-3 kids out of 380 students in my graduating class took 1 AP class.
Now however, many kids are taking 2-3 AP’s as a freshman. It’s crazy. I’m a little sorry for you guys.
But as the world continues to modernize and develop new technology, I guess it makes sense for society to push on you guys more. Just study hard, and go with the flow.
You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it too much. Start worrying at the end of sophomore year 
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<p>@Halcyonheather how many hours do you get a day?
Yea, I think it will be better if you do not review 90% of the time because then I will be able to stay attentive </p>
<p>@Seniorpanic
Our school only has two honors in Fresh, and I can’t take any of them (although I should be taking honors Environmental Science) so that is why I need to get a 4.0 to make up for it :l</p>
<p>@Seniorpanic - A good number of Freshmen at my school take 2 APs, but only because APHUG is the only social studies course offered to them, and anyone done with Bio has to take AP Environmental Science.</p>
<p>Study Hall will help a ton if you take advantage of it. </p>
<p>High School is not hard. The hard part is just staying focused. </p>
<p>Well I just finished freshman year and I’m fairly certain that we go to the same school. </p>
<p>I managed to get a 4.15 GPA (4 A+s, 1 A, 1 A-) this year (again, assuming that you know what scaling I’m going by if you go to the school I go to) without too much effort or any studies because I am in Chorus and I used up one study to tutor a sixie in math. If you have 4 studies, that will help you a lot but I recommend using studies before lunch to study and studies after lunch to get started on your homework for the night. I say this because it is almost always bad if you get into the habit of finishing assignments right before your class since it doesn’t give you time to really absorb the material. Also if you ever happen to have a pop quiz or test in a class and you don’t have that class first period, chances are that you’re going to hear something about it from your friends and then you can have your entire study to study for the exam rather than frantically trying to finish your homework. [I am not trying to condone cheating but we all know that this happens so it’s always better to be prepared for it.]</p>
<p>To be completely honest, freshman year went by rather easily because most of the teachers are not hard at all. If we do go to the same school, feel free to message me and I will give you a rundown of all the teachers and ways to get As in their classes but I don’t feel like going into detail here. If you are a fairly bright student who is willing to do the work and devote some studying time here and there to your exams and if you get straight A’s now, you’ll do just fine next year. </p>
<p>I think that as I wrote, I forgot what your original question was in the first place but I still hope that my answer helped you in some way. I may not have expressed myself the best through my answer but my takeaway message is that you should not worry too much about freshman year because it will not be as difficult as you imagined. If you are already worrying about getting 4.0 GPA, I’m sure that you’re someone who works hard and does well already so that’ll make freshman year even easier for you. Although classes do get harder (mainly because your grade is literally a joke in terms of difficulty), if you put in the work, I can’t imagine that you’ll get anything less than A.</p>
<p>P.S. If you read this and we do go to the same school and you want tips and pointers about freshman year, please message me and I’ll be glad to give you my advice on anything you may have questions about. </p>
<p>I hope you have fun next year! :)</p>
<p>If your sister spent 4 hours a day studying freshman year, then it’s no wonder that she didn’t enjoy it. Aside from second semester senior year, that’s the one block of time you really have to put yourself out there and explore your interests. Here’s the thing–freshman classes, honors or not, will most likely be the easiest classes you take by far in high school. It should be fairly easy to get a 3.9+ your freshman year. If not, you have some reevaluating of your schedule/activities list to do. </p>
<p>There’s really nothing to worry about academically. I’d suggest that you only take honors classes your freshman year and hold off on any AP’s until next year. This should be the year that you’re going outside your comfort zone, whether it be to try a sport or instrument or club or what have you. Freshman year is a chance to start with a clean slate, so make the most of it. </p>
<p>…This wasn’t part of your question, but I feel it had to be said. Watch out for DUCKS. Not the aquatic kind, the kind mentioned when people bring up Stanford Duck Syndrome. There will always be kids who claim that their workload of 8 AP’s or a million extracurriculars is such a piece of cake. They’ll make you think that by not following exactly in their footsteps, you’re dooming yourself to mediocrity. Don’t listen to them. They’re wrong (and horribly insecure). Focus on YOUR own life and you’ll do fine in the college admissions sphere and beyond, believe me. </p>
<p>Best of luck! </p>
<p>As long as you apply yourself and get help when needed you shouldn’t have a problem getting that 4.0! Study hard for test and stay on the teachers good side all of your hard work and effort will pay off! </p>
<p>Freshman year really isn’t that bad in comparison to the rest of the years (I think I left my brain behind in junior year lol). Most people find freshman year initially difficult because it’s a transition year, and all of a sudden, you have to get used to taking more charge of your education than you might have in middle school. Sophomore year was a cake walk, and junior year and 1st semester of senior year were brutal. </p>
<p>Don’t get intimidated though, it’ll be fine. </p>
<p>I didn’t find freshman year (2013-2014) difficult academically at all. I would even dare to say that my middle school courses were more challenging though there is MORE work in high school. It wasn’t even challenging socially that much because I really didn’t care about my social life (really hoping to make more friends sophomore year)…though I did cry in the cafeteria once, lol. </p>
<p>Anywaaaays, some people are saying it’s fabulous compared to other years. I have nothing to compare it to, but I will say I sobbed for hours on end after each school day for the first month or two of high school. Most of my peers immediately liked high school compared to our rigid middle school (ie more freedom and more opportunities). I was alone in thinking that the sense of community was diminished in high school compared to my middle school (we had tracks/teams and you knew everyone in your classes; you grew up with these people). I LOVED 8th grade so that’s probably why I had such trouble adjusting to HS. Also, I was/am thinking I was in love with my 8th grade language arts teacher so I was battling heartbreak too…</p>
<p>Anyways, overall, I’d say the year will be pretty good if you didn’t have an extraordinary 8th grade year. If you did, be prepared to be let down. My biggest problem going into freshman year was that I had too high expectations. I also thought I should join EVERY single club that could possibly be in my interest, despite the evident cliquey qualities of some.</p>
<p>One thing I will stress is to begin planning for sophomore, junior and senior year as soon as possible. It’s okay to be flexible with these plans. When I was entering freshman year, I had rough drafts of my future transcript but as I got used to high school and realized what was really possible, I gathered an actual four year plan. It’s very important to take classes FRESHMAN YEAR that will further your plans in the following years. Say you want to be on the newspaper staff like me, at my school, it’s required to take an Intro to Communications class. In order to be on the staff for the next three years, I made sure to take the class freshman year. If you want to become as close as possible to being fluent in a language, make sure to take as many of those courses starting freshman year. Same with any other elective class you want to become committed to (this will most likely become clearer with time), such as Theater, Band, Chorus, Art, Yearbook, Agriculture classes, etc. (And yes: beware of the ducks! Taking the most AP classes does not put a huge flag on your forehead, reading “Winner” no matter how much you want it to! Having your own interests and pursuing things that are significant to you is so much more valuable, in my opinion!)</p>
<p>Good luck! (Your sister sounds kind of crazy).</p>
<p>If you liked middle school, you probably won’t like high school. If you hated middle school, you will probably like high school a lot more.</p>
<p>I agree with the above statement. </p>