Tips on How to Get Straight A’s in College

[jsd]

I feel that one. In the grad level course I'm TAing for, we have an extra credit assignment that is literally satisfied by writing a paragraph about your academic/professional background, and some people just don't do it. it's the easiest assignment. Frustrating. You could get away with less than a paragraph, just a couple sentences would do it. Why not?

[studyingfortests]

A couple points:

I concur with the importance of knowing your APA or MLA really well, especially in graduate school.  Like LevelUp, my college professors (and SDC and alt credit sources) were not sticklers about APA until I got to TESU's capstone.  I am incredibly thankful for the capstone class because my professor was a total nitpicker... and that's been a huge benefit to me in grad school.

Purdue Owl is cited by just about everyone as the best resource on APA rules. My TESU professor point blank said "Please don't trust anything other than Owl or the actual APA style manual. There's a lot of misinformation out there and I take of a lot of points from people who followed erroneous advice."   I also recommend anyone who is going to be using APA a lot to invest in the APA style manual.  It's quite readable and gives numerous examples, and it really demystifies the reasoning behind each of the APA style rules, which makes them easier to remember.

I also recommend Grammarly just to check your work. You can't use it blindly, as it is wrong a fair amount of the time (it cannot reliably read context, though its AI continues to improve). You have to know what you're doing at a basic level,  but it will catch your mistakes.  The Grammarly plug-in also allows you to check message board posts.

Perrla is a useful APA format tool that works within Word or standalone, and will help you with basic formatting.

And as others have said... never leave free or almost free points on the table. Do the extra credit activities. Write the extra posts. Do all of your follow-up posts.  READ THE DAMN RUBRIC for each major post/paper/etc and READ THE DIRECTIONS for each post to make sure you cover all the points the professor is after. It's astounding to me how many people don't do this, even at the graduate level. More than once while rechecking a finished post or paper, I've gone back and re-read the rubric and discovered I left off one or more points the professor wanted to see covered. It usually takes only a few minutes to add those points back in, and it results in my almost always getting full points for each assignment.

Lastly, talk to your professors (this applies whether butts-in-seats or online classes, but not to things like SDC or Sophia.) All other things being equal, if a professor recognizes you, and you've shown interest in the class and the material and shown yourself as eager to learn... it's going to make a slight difference in how your paper is read, and may gain you a few extra points when there are subjective grading criteria. If the prof has office hours by phone or zoom, make use of them. Even if you have to invent a reason to call. Or engage with them via email.  They want to help you succeed and will give you advice and insight that will help you get the most out of class... and get the best grades.

[dfrecore]

Trying to teach my kids to prioritize; if quizzes are worth 10% of your overall grade, it does not behoove you to spend tons of time trying to get all A's on those, when you could spend more time on something worth more. Assignments are 50% of your grade - spend quality time on those.

Always spend the most time on the things that give you the most bang for your buck!

[LevelUP]

Every degree will have some landmines. If you know what to expect, it makes it easier to navigate through those landmines.

• Select professors that are known for giving high grades using Ratemyprofessor or some other method.
  
• Do research on courses for peer reviews and find out what methods they used to study for courses.
  
• Pay close attention to the most challenging courses and have a plan of how to get through them.
  

[nyvrem]

Find which learning style suits you best. then proceed to filter courses base on your style.

For me, it would be -

1) Find courses that don't have proctor exams (find the courses syllabus)
2) Focus on project / assessment / essay based course work
3) Find a major that has courses that would harness your strong learning points
4) Find majors that don't require too many UL courses (some majors have very little UL courses)

[natshar]

Don't leave "money on the table." It drives me crazy when my stepdaughter will post 1 or 2 discussion board posts instead of the mandatory 3 out of ....I dunno.... Laziness or apathy?
"You lost points there. The posts aren't graded for content, only quantity. Discussion board is 1/4 of your grade. That's an easy segment of the grade to get 100%. Why would you leave money on the table? Now you have to ace the exam to get an A."
"Iunno."
"Why would you not do one of the Ceregos? You can't not get 100% on those!"
"Iunno."
"Never give up 'free' points! Never leave money on the table!"
"I knooooowwwwwww. *eyeroll*"

I know agree. 

In high school I took summer school once. And at least my HS they make summer school almost impossible to fail because most of these kids already failed the first time. Anyways, they hand out so many extra credit points to make sure the kids pass. One of the last days we played math Bingo for a generous amount of extra credit. And this one girl slept the whole time and refused to participate (and since it was EC it was optional). And then I few days later she complained about her low grade and blamed on how she was "bad at tests." which I don't doubt. But I just kept thinking how many points she missed out on just because she didn't want to play bingo.

Also in middle school our daily math homework was worth 3 points. However, 1 of those points was earned simply by having your name and header on the paper. And you wouldn't believe how many times kids missed out and only got 2 out of 3 points for this one. Also, one time a student argued the teacher because he had a completly blank hw with only his name and she gave him a zero for but based on the grading scale he technically should get 1 point.

In college I had one class where there was a requirement to reply certain number of points to reply to discussion posts every week. And this was no word count, you could even just do a one word reply. I couldn't believe how many people didn't do this. It was beyond easy.

Another teacher gave an extra credit on the final exam. All you had to do was write a sentence or two about what you learned in his class. And he said half the class left it blank.
 And on a similar note, I never understood why people leave multiple choice questions blank it doesn't count again you for guessing and you have a 1 in 3/4/5/6 chance of getting it right. Even if you are a slow test taker in the final minutes just circle random answers for everything it's so much better than nothing.

So my tips:

• If you are offered bingo or some other easy extra credit do it every time.
  
• If it is worth points to put your name/heading on a paper double check and make sure you have one.
  
• If replying to discussion boards is worth points, do it because it's easy points.
  
• If you are taking a test always at least attempt the extra credit, it might be easier than you think.
  
• When taking a multiple choice test always answer every question even if's a completely random guess.
  

[Maniac Craniac]

I'll start with an obvious tip:
1.  When writing a paper, follow the instructions and rubric to a T.

Not until I became a grad student a year ago did I learn just how sharp that "T" really is.

[LevelUP]

To clarify, there are two methods of getting straight A's.

#1 Brute Force Method
- Many long hours of studying
- Giving up time with family and friends to study
- Lots of stress and misery

#2 Hack Method
- Focuses on the efficiency of studying
- Requires knowing how to select the best path by leveraging the knowledge of previous students
- Low stress and a lot less time than Brute Force Method

The Brute Force method often requires 2 to 3 times the effort of students just getting by with a B/C grade, while The Hack Method requires around 10%-25% more time.

Tips for Taking Classes
- Research what books are required, and get a sneak peek of books
- Research how to study for courses
- Find old tests
- Review the study guide before a test if there is one
- Find examples of written papers (ask the professor)
- Find other books, videos, and resources outside the course textbook
- Make a detailed study plan for all your courses
- Drop courses if expectations are too high or the course looks like too much work
- Withdraw before the deadline to avoid failing or low grade
- Transfer in credit for harder classes such as math or anything that would be hard to earn a high grade
- Put a little extra effort into your 1st assignment for a good start
- Prestudy for harder courses before the term begins
- Get the best calculator that is allowed (Especially for math courses)
- Find some friends in the same major for advice/motivation/accountability
- Find a tutor when you can't understand things or need help

[SweetSecret]

I have three pieces of advice to add:

1.:Connect with the professor right away. Let them know your future goals and why the class is important to you. This might be a long-term career goal, but if they know you plan to pursue another degree after and need a good GPA they seem to give better feedback.

2. Outline the sections of your papers to match the rubric, especially if the school uses a peer grading system but even with professors. Some people cannot connect the dots unless it is clearly defined for them. So, if the rubric says "Define XYZ" your paper section needs to be something like "Definition of XYZ", "Defining XYZ", or "XYZ Defined."

3. Acknowledge when other students are improving on their performance. Professors like to see people who encourage others. I took a class with peer grading once and kept getting the same student's papers, who was clearly plagiarizing plagiarizing straight from the text book. He did it over and over for weeks, and I had notified the professor who told me to mark the papers with a grade of zero. This was a professor with the military background, which I appreciated because that's what I grew up around, and I knew there's no way that this would fly with a person like that who has high expectations. Eventually the student's work majorly improved and I acknowledged that in the feedback. At the end of the course I asked the professor for a reference letter, and he gave me a fantastic reference.

I should add that my undergrad GPA was not fantastic. I financially and emotionally supported myself. I was always working many hours leading to exhaustion. I was also a first gen for college, so I didn't really have a guidance or understand the importance of AP classes in high school and how to follow a rubric. Now I'm holding a 4.0 in the graduate program. DegreeForum was a massive help to me because I have found the college advisors were generally useless, and DegreeForum was not only a great place to get better advice but also operated as more of a cohort of support that I needed.

[cardiacclep]

I always got As on research papers after creating a system. One thing I learned (can't remember where) but for a long multiple page research paper use what I call the scaffolding method. Create an rough outline of your research and start with researching the outline topics (journals, white papers, videos). Copy and paste the research into your word document under the appropriate subheadings. This provides the scaffolding with little effort. Now with the bulk of the research list in the document, you add your own interpretation to the research within the paragraph and build it out as needed adding more references or removing needless or repetitive sources. This creates a system to work with but also psychologically you really start writing with multiple pages filled up so if feels less overwhelming. Trim and add research along the way as the paper takes form. Hope this helps. 


Bonus: Use Anki/flashcards and active recall (InstaCert q banks) for mundane facts. 
This medical doctor has some good study content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIyDJK_SAjs

Wish I had a more disciplined or organized approach to learning earlier in life but learning is indeed a skill. As suggested above......learn how to learn is an important aspect that is not emphasized in early education.