With a 4.0 unweighted GPA, and a 4.52 weighted GPA halfway through junior year, I have never needed to boost my unweighted GPA, but I have employed several strategies to maintain it over the years. The biggest thing would be the strategies I have to procrastinate less. For my weighted GPA, I take as many AP Classes as I can and take honors for any non-AP classes; however, it is important to remember that in terms of GPA, getting an A in an honors class is better than a B in an AP Class.

Strategies I use for maintaining my unweighted GPA include writing due dates in my planner for projects a week early and using Quizlet write mode frequently to memorize information. I also use all of the review materials that my teachers provide me even if they are not worth a grade because they typically feature information more closely related to information seen on the test. However, every class you take will be different, and learning how to adjust is vital to your success. A couple of examples include running lots of extra practice problems for math and science classes, using Grammarly to identify writing weaknesses and then learning more about that writing standard for English to improve my future writing, and using flashcards/Quizlet to review terms and concepts in more memorization based classes such as AP U.S. History or AP Human Geography.

Now to talk about some things that did not work for me, first of all waiting to study until the night before does two things – 1 it leaves you with a limited timeframe to work with & 2 it takes away your ability to ask questions about the material. With that, if you are going to wait until the last minute just start studying two days before so the day before the test you can reach out to the teacher with any questions and review any areas you felt you did not entirely understand the night before. Another thing that does not work for me in review videos, is they have their time and their place if you are specifically dedicating time to listen to a lecture and review a certain topic, but reading an overview of the unit and different study guides available online along with practice problems has been a lot more engaging for me(possibly because I like to listen to Taylor Swift music while I study) but everyone’s a little bit different and they can be very effective for some people.

In conclusion, I recommend exploring some of the different resources available online for each course and from your teachers and try a little bit of everything in the first unit before using the one that felt the most effective for that class the rest of the year, and not to overlook a resource until you have tried it.