Why do so many students grades drop so much once they enter college?

[cobrat]

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@footballmom104

My S’s experience has been the opposite: he graduated with a 3.15 weighted GPA, but got a 3.8 his first semester in college. He did go to a very challenging high school and took mostly honors and AP classes, and they had a “modular schedule” with free periods throughout the day and an open campus for upperclassmen - I guess he was better prepared for college than I thought.

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<p>Your son’s experience sounds just like mine…except I was never allowed to take APs and my high school GPA was much worse than 3.15 (Trust me…it’s the stuff of cc parent worst nightmares). My high school also didn’t have honors courses because all the “standard” courses we took at our public magnet high school were considered honors and most college admissions offices…especially the elite ones knew about the rigor of our curriculum. </p>

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@justtotalk

Statistically, most people find their grades go down, but for some it’s the other way around (almost always it’s just regression to the mean–it’ll fall for valedictorians and it’ll rise for the crappy HS bums).

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<p>Crappy HS bums?!! Gee…thanks. :D</p>