<p>Prepare yourself for a bit of a rant. Just pondering some thoughts and hoping to get some tips and insights from others. I am currently in the e-school, and have achieved a GPA that is a bit above average for most e-school students, so I'm happy in that way. However, still, it is not something that I am entirely happy with, as I am sure is the case with most students at UVA as most of us have come from the top of our high school classes. It just really frustrates me how I could be doing so well in all of my 3 credit classes, with mostly A- and occasional B+, but then get a B- in a 4 credit course, and that brings my GPA down by an incredible amount... nearly 0.3 points, offsetting how well I had done in my other courses. I guess the strategy is to do well in these 4 credit courses, since they seem to carry so much weight in my GPA, but that is really difficult when they have such harsh curves.</p>
<p>Anyway, I saw a statistic the other day that for intermediate honors in the e-school, which represents the top 20%, the minimum GPA was a 3.677 in 2012. I can't get over how incredible that is... how do these people achieve that? For me, at least, I have devoted a great amount of time to studying, and each semester it seems that I will do very well, but it is those few courses that I do poorly in that ruin what would have otherwise been a 3.7+ GPA. It's really frustrating, especially when friends from less rigorous schools are achieving high GPAs with ease. It really gets to your head and makes you sometimes question your decisions. I absolutely love UVA, but these things frustrate me, and I guess this is something common to most top schools.</p>
<p>For those of you who are among these top achievers, how do you all do it? How do you manage to remain so consistent, and in general, can you share any strategies or tips? I would really appreciate hearing from y'all. Share your thoughts and insights.</p>
<p>My GPA was not high enough to qualify for intermediate honors, but I ended up graduating with a 3.8 Phi Beta Kappa. Things get much better once you are in your major and not being forced to take ridiculous requirements. I picked a major that I loved (math), but part of my love of it was how talented I was at it. I was truly interested in the material, and would spend hours during my week thinking about just 1 tricky homework problem to make sure I understood it and could prove it. If I still didn’t have it by Tuesday (HW assigned the previous Thursday), I made sure to go to office hours. I did considerably worse in classes that I did not have a passion like that for. I also took interesting but easy electives, such as 101 level languages and creative writing, etc. I also came in with a lot of credits so I tried to take the minimum required credits when possible.</p>
<p>I think another thing to point out is exactly what you said, everyone in high school got A’s and that cannot persist at UVA. You are competing against all of the kids who (could have or did) got into Ivy League schools and chose to stay in state instead. I am not saying this as an insult, but there were WAY smarter people in math than I was even with my success.</p>
<p>Another thing was my high school was very competitive, so I was used to not being ranked #1 or even top 20% probably. 1/3 of my senior class qualified for national honor society so you were always competing. At least we did not have curves. I think curves are frustrating and stupid (there was one in a psychology class I took) and would not have been comfortable majoring in something where curves were rampant. One of my friends majored in biology and her GPA was WAY lower than her capabilities. It brought her down sometimes, but she loved her subject matter.</p>
<p>I would say that give it until your 3rd year when you have more major-only classes and your GPA should be higher. I saw this a lot in eschool, too. One of my friends did terribly her first year but she ended up with a great GPA after just taking her ChemE classes and is now in graduate school. HTH</p>
<p>Wahoooo, you do not say what your major is but it matters even in the eschool. You really have to consider how you are doing not compared to the eschool as a whole but in comparison to others in your major. You should consider what kind of job you are interested in obtaining and speak to recent graduates about their GPA and landing a job. School is stressful enough, as long as you are doing your best it is all anyone can ask. Not all classes are graded along the same curve. For example some classes curve to an 85 others to an 80. Over time that can really take a toll on ones GPA. </p>
<p>I am also going to tell you the same thing I told my son, the most important thing is to make sure you are learning what you need to learn, the worst thing that is going to happen to someone with a GPA that is SLIGHTLY lower than the norm or expected GPA is that you start maybe not at your dream job or company, perform well and then move to a job that is your dream job. So the moral of the story is learn your craft well and you will be fine.</p>
<p>There is much wisdom in Hazel and Mama’s words. I can personally vouch for the fact that 20+ years down the road, your college gpa is less than meaningless in your chosen careeer. I’m not saying to not care at all about it - just use it for yourself as an indicator of how well you are grasping the subject matter. However, what you learn, how you learn, and how you approach your work are far greater predictors of future success than your GPA - especially your 1st-year GPA when there is a lot of transition going on for you.</p>