5 Ways To Look Good To Colleges | Part I: Academics

Colleges look at many different aspects of a potential student when considering them for admission.  But what areas should you focus on to give you the best shot at getting accepted to college?  Does one area carry more weight than another?

In this article series to help you prepare for college admission, we’re going to take an in depth look at 5 different admission factors that you can focus on to help you look irresistible to the college of your choice, and hopefully gain admission!  In this first installment, let’s talk about the most important and also most obvious college admission factor…

Also see Part II: Course Selection and Part III: Tests For College Admission.

Grades and Academics

Obviously, it’s not much of a secret that to get into a top college you will need to have good grades.  College admissions is a tricky business and sometimes there are exceptions to the rules, but not here.  If you don’t perform well in the classroom, you will be denied admission within the first 10 seconds of the admission reps looking at your transcript and GPA.

In our ebook we talk about the “Big Three” admission factors and how important they are when painting an “academic picture” of a potential student.  Grades are one of those “Big Three” and are probably the most important.  Here’s why…

In most high schools across the country, your grades translate into an overall GPA or Grade Point Average which follows you from year to year.  Depending on how well you do in those specific school years, your overall GPA could go up or down over the course of 4 years.  And it doesn’t stop there.  Along with your GPA is your Class Rank, which will also fluctuate depending on your GPA and other student’s GPA’s in your graduating class.  Confused yet?  Let’s clarify…

Class Rank

Class rank is basically where you fit in with the rest of your graduating class based on your GPA.  The higher the GPA you have, the lower the Class Rank.  For instance, let’s say a student has good solid 3.8 GPA on a 4.0 scale.  In most high school’s across the country, that will translate into a Class ranking somewhere in the top 25%.  That’s pretty good, as the top colleges are looking for students in the top 25% of their class at a minimum!  The closest to #1 is where you want to be.

Unlike your GPA, class rank can only be controlled by you to a point.  You can get the best grades possible, but if everyone else in your class is doing the same thing, your rank won’t move much.  So half of the class rank is your ability to do well, and the other half is controlled by your classmates and their grades and GPA. 

Colleges realize this and is one of the main reasons that they take into consideration your GPA with your Class Rank.  They also want to know what percentage you fall into compared with your peers.  Are you in the top 10%?…or is it more like the top 50%?

How To Look Good To Colleges With Academics

So the next question you probably have is “how can I look good to colleges by improving my grades?”.  No matter what year in high school that you’re currently enrolled in, it all starts with making a conscious decision to do as well as you possibly can on your school work.  Getting your GPA to where the colleges can see that “upward trend” is key. 

Do not worry about your Class Rank as much because you do not have 100% control over it.  Focus on the things that you CAN control, like your GPA, and your Class Rank will take care of itself.

Here are a couple helpful articles we’ve written at CollegePrepU regarding study habits and some tips to help you get your grades up!

• Improving High School Study Skills - Why You’re Doing It Wrong!
• How To Improve Your Study Skills

Also, we’ve found a couple great resources to drastically improve your grades by teaching you how to study more efficiently.  The first one was developed by Dr. Marc Dussault who teaches students how to get the best grades, with the least amount of effort.  In fact, he guarantees that you’ll have success using his proven study techniques.  They have a Free Report available for download on their website…

Get Better Grades Now - Dr. Marc Dussault

If you’re more of a visual learning and prefer a video course, Scott Young has developed a program to help you learn more, and study less!  It’s very similar to the “Get Better Grades” program, only in video form.  You can get all the information at his website…

Learn More, Study Less – Scott Young

So that’s it for Part I of our “5 Ways To Look Good To Colleges” article series.  In our next installment, we’ll talk more in depth about the types of courses you should be enrolled in to really impress the college representatives.

Continue Reading…. Part II: Course Selection