The importance of getting good grades in high school

by Becky Parmiter

author email [email protected]

Hs grades

While grades are not always the perfect indicator of a person’s mental capability, high school course grades are the best way to present academic competence to educators, higher learning institutions, and prospective employers. 

 

Higher Learning

 

High school grades are one of the keys to unlocking higher education. Universities and colleges often look at a student’s GPA to help assess their academic capabilities and how well suited they are to the program. 

 

The competition between students to get into high demand universities can be incredibly daunting. While factors like community involvement, volunteering, and school leadership can be important, at the end of the day, test scores and overall course grades are imperative to beating out the competition. Grades are the most important element of getting an advantage in the higher learning admissions process.  

 

Good grades predict future success. They are a key indicator of a student’s motivation, persistence, and dedication to learning. 

 

Makeanexam.com is an excellent platform for high school students to practice getting their GPA up. On this website, high school students can create their own preparation tests to help build their memory recall for important exams. They can also access hundreds of other exams in their subject matter as a way to better familiarize themselves with the content that they are studying. 

 

Scholarships

Acceptance letters can be an incredible moment of celebration for a young student. However, the true icing on the cake is when an acceptance letter includes a monetary discount. 

While universities and colleges may award scholarships based on community engagement or social activation, they most often look toward academic performance in regards to financial compensation. 

This should be a huge motivator for all applicants. Student debt, particularly in the United States, can be absolutely crippling and can follow people well into their late thirties. However, good grades can help offset this by offering high achieving students access to institutional funding to help them achieve their academic goals (and beyond). 

Students that are offered scholarships are also often given further opportunities such as studying abroad or access to special funding for research and/or for their thesis projects.

For those looking for monetary assistance, they must first boost their grades to be taken seriously by the intuitions that will guide them. At a high school level, this means that students must exceed the average norm by continuously working on their test scores. 


Employment

Students coming straight out of high school and into the workforce might be have their academic performance assessed by their potential employer so they may understand factors such as dedication, time-management, and engagement 

 

Those pursuing higher education may certainly have their university/college performance reviewed by interested employers. While GPAs might not have a fitting place on a resume for smaller employers, 67 percent of larger companies do screen their students by their grade performance. 

Dan Black, the director of recruiting for the Americas at the professional services giant Ernst & Young, which hires up to 7,000 new grads per year, says that absolutely, he expects to see a GPA on a resume. “Grades certainly do matter when we’re recruiting students,” he says. “It’s really one of the only indications we have of a student’s technical ability or competence to do the job.”

In the last decade, a survey of over 200 employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, stated that 67% of companies screened candidates by their GPA. 

 

Financial Wellbeing 

It is common knowledge that a college education can improve a person's future earnings. A student’s grade-point average in high school is not just a clear indicator of their chances of getting into college but also a marker of how much they might earn later in life. 

 

A recent study indicates that a one-point increase in high school GPA results in a 12 to 14 percent boost in annual earnings in adulthood. 

The same study also shows that people with better grades are more likely to keep studying after high school. For instance, “a one-point increase in GPA doubles the chance for both genders that a person will complete college, increasing that probability from 21 percent to 42 percent. Better grades are also linked to a greater probability of going to graduate school and earning another advanced degree.”

 

Confidence/Social Life

Students who get good grades are more likely to be socially involved with their peers and teachers. By speaking up and engaging themselves with the material, they forge relationships with their personal educational community. 

 

Not to mention, acing tests and term report cards can help boost confidence, create initiative and push high school students to try innovative approaches to learning. 

 

How to get your grades up – a ten step process to success: 

 

1) Attend all classes and focus your attention

 

Arrive in the classroom prepared and focused on the material. It can be daunting to look at the clock and watch the minutes go by, but the sooner you engage with the material, the sooner you’ll actually become interested in absorbing it. 

 

Take out your notebook and jot down any pertinent notes, thoughts, ideas that strike you. Pay close attention to what the teacher is emphasizing. Write it down for good measure. Writing things down can help with memory retention. 

 

Try to participate as much as possible. The more you engage with the material, the better you’ll know it. Not only will you stand out to your teacher but you’ll also be able to understand and observe the points of view of your classmates. 

 

2) Forge a relationship with your teacher

 

Mentorship is often a relationship that students engage in when they're in university. However, high school can be a wonderful place to take your first steps toward a mentee/mentor partnership. High school teachers are there to guide their students toward higher education and career fulfillment. 

 

Attempting to get yourself closer to your teacher can also be more than an academic feat, this can be a wonderful learning experience about how to engage with different types of personalities. Your career path will likely see you encountering a spectrum of work colleagues and this is the ideal time to get practicing on your communication skills. 

 

3) Practicing

 Paying close attention to lectures and taking notes is one thing, practicing and putting your knowledge to use is another.

 

Makeanexam.com is the perfect place to put your knowledge to test. This might mean creating your own practice exams with the material you have at hand and sharing it with your peers to help retain information. This might also mean researching the website to find likeminded subject matter to push your knowledge to the next level. 

 

Makeanexam.comhas an open forum for all students where they can discuss exam and topic questions with the worldwide community to help clarify questions and gain greater insight into the material presented. 

 

4) Time Management

Once material has been passed onto students, time management becomes key in being able to retain knowledge. Once again, Makeanexam.com is an excellent tool to be able to reflect on recently presented material. But this needs to be used in a timely manner. Rather than crunching for the exams that go toward your GPA, this platform allows students to test themselves in real time before tackling large examinations which may decide their future academic goals. 

In this regard, it’s important to touch the most difficult information first. If you are having a hard time understanding a concept, this should be your first studying point. Tackle what’s hardest first and often the rest will fall into place.

While you should act quickly on new information presented to you, you should also be able to strike a study-life balance. Be sure to take breaks after you’ve studied certain pieces of material, not only will this ease the pressure on you, it may actually allow your brain the time to process the necessary information. 

Breakdown your study goals into smaller day-to-day milestones. If you’re studying for a major exam, it’ll be difficult to review all the material every day. As such, it’s important to create your own learning landmarks for any upcoming examinations.  

 

5) Refer to your notes

Your number one aid in studying and in the actual examination period is your own notes. Take pride in them. Make the best notes you can, in the way that makes the most sense for your own interpretation of the material. 

Make sure to listen in class, actively speak up and take notes for yourself. Find shortcuts in your notes for help with memorization. Re-read these notes as often as you can. 

 

6) Revisit the material

Reread your notes. Refer to any class materials your teacher has given you. If they’ve made a point of going over certain examples, make note of these as these are usually high concepts that you might be tested on down the line. 

Make sure you read all of the material assigned to you in full and bring any questions you have to class. Build quick tests on the material at Makeanexam.com and take them frequently so that you’re able to retain all of the goodies you’ve learned.

Try to understand what is absolutely critical material. This should be clear either through your lectures or repeated reading material. Clarify if you need to. If you see something being emphasized, make sure you understand it inside and out. 

 

7) Revisit your own testing system

If you’re new to Makeanexam.com or if you’re a seasoned player, check in with your own grading system. If you’re getting 100% of the answers right every single time, then you need to think about more critical and difficult questions. High school tests will certainly stump you. What are you missing in the material?

Make sure to take peer tests or completely obsolete tests to keep your critical thinking skills sharp. 

 

8) Study as often as you can

While we recommend studying every day, we realize it might be impossible, so study as much as you can. 

Study as early as you can. By breaking down material into shorter chunks, you’re able to process it in a more meaningful way. Keep your Makeanexam.com sessions regular. After each major lecture/lesson, try to quiz yourself on what you’ve just learned. The more you repeat the information, the more you’re likely to cement the details in your head. 

Share your study notes and Makeanexam.com practice tests with your friends. Not only will this give you social prowess, it’ll allow you to approach the material from a completely different train of thought.

 

9) Be well prepared for your exams

Know what to expect. Are you walking into a multiple choice test exam or an essay of sorts? Build your practice tests as such. 

Once you are in the exam space, take a deep breath, and read the questions carefully. Feel free to plan your answers out, just be mindful of the clock.  It’s important to know how much time you have. Tackle the difficult questions first and save the easy ones for last. 

 

10) Fake it until you make it 

So much of the educational experience is based on exam performance. Aside from studying, practice tests, and general aptitude, success also comes from confidence. Prepare yourself enough through your studies and visualize yourself in a place of success. Practice as much as you can but hold that image of victory in your head. If you are able to motivate yourself to achieve your goals, you likely will. 

While high school performance isn’t necessarily the end-all of a successful career path, it is certainly significant for the student trying to achieve a higher education. At the end of the day, nothing will preserve more than self-motivation. However, students who are able to discipline themselves enough to strive for good grades will have a much better chance at getting into university, swipe the scholarship awards, become more social in academic circles, and get a leg up in their future employment prospects. 

 

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