High School Success Means Nothing.

[theboywho2]

Written in many threads on these types of forums is the notion that high school marks are non indicative of success in university. You read about kids with 90s in high school receiving 70s in university. As well, the average high school student who finds that university compliments his or her learning style, thus allowing him or her to achieve higher grades. Yes, I know there is the potential for much distraction in university. As well, the idea of living with parents may allow some students to feel more free to engage in other activities besides learning. However disregarding distractions, how is the ability to preform exceptionally in university any different than in high school? Forgive my ignorance for I am only a grade 12 student, but I don't see how learning is different. You attend a class, you receive notes, you study them, and review the material, and you do well. I keep hearing the learning curve is steep, the transition is hard, and it will take time. To be honest, that is exactly what some senior level high school teachers told me in grade 9 and 10, about grade 11 and 12. I felt no jump in the learning curve.

 

If you work hard, stay focused, and ask questions, and are emotionally stable, I do not see why your marks from high should change in university. I feel that I have to put in a decent amount of work to achieve a mid-90 at my school. Does a 90 not represent effort, and ability to learn effectively? Or is high school just one big joke, and I have no idea what I am talking about? I look forward to your answers.

[lolelol]

Written in many threads on these types of forums is the notion that high school marks are non indicative of success in university. You read about kids with 90s in high school receiving 70s in university. As well, the average high school student who finds that university compliments his or her learning style, thus allowing him or her to achieve higher grades. Yes, I know there is the potential for much distraction in university. As well, the idea of living with parents may allow some students to feel more free to engage in other activities besides learning. However disregarding distractions, how is the ability to preform exceptionally in university any different than in high school? Forgive my ignorance for I am only a grade 12 student, but I don't see how learning is different. You attend a class, you receive notes, you study them, and review the material, and you do well. I keep hearing the learning curve is steep, the transition is hard, and it will take time. To be honest, that is exactly what some senior level high school teachers told me in grade 9 and 10, about grade 11 and 12. I felt no jump in the learning curve.

 

If you work hard, stay focused, and ask questions, and are emotionally stable, I do not see why your marks from high should change in university. I feel that I have to put in a decent amount of work to achieve a mid-90 at my school. Does a 90 not represent effort, and ability to learn effectively? Or is high school just one big joke, and I have no idea what I am talking about? I look forward to your answers.

 

In high school, I consistently had university students tell me that my mark from highschool going into university would drop by 10-20%. Even though my average was >90, it doesn't matter they said, because "you need to take time to adjust to university and your grades will suffer in the process"

So I got to university, and it turns out the difficulty of the material is the same (maybe a bit easier in first year since it's a lot of grade 12 review), there's just more of it. If you increase the amount of time you spend studying proportionally to the increase of course work you should be able to keep the same average.

Note: even though I have 5 courses now as opposed to 3 in high school, I spend less time studying now but my university average (if I were to take precentages like high school would) is higher. I totally freaked out at the beginning of first year because of the things everyone told me and overstudied- but then I realized there's no point in overstudying for everything and cut down a little.

[future_doc]

Welcome to the forum.

 

The most important attribute you can bring from high school is a strong work ethic, not strong grades. The transition is brutal. You will have many distractions that will tempt you, be it partying, drinking, the opposite sex or whatever. You will need a certain maturity. High h.s. grades are indicative of nothing. Let us say you are now getting 90+ in h.s. and you choose a prestigous university like U/T where your family will be proud and have bragging rights. Every other student in your classes has the same background, yet half of you will be in the bottom half of the class and 25% in the3 bottom quarter, etc. Better go to Ryerson or York and obtain a stronger GPA in a program of interest. Med schools could not care less where you took your undergrad. You are at a serious advantage with lower gradesw in h.s. as U/T will be excluded from your list. I am a happy camper in med school who went to a non-prestigous university and was a straight A student throughout. I took a program I was passionate about, worked very hard always, had no social life, no distractions, my priority was my academics, I made sacrifices, was single minded, had no distractions and achieved my dream. Many here will tell you that I am a fool and that you should have fun during undergrad. Many can handle both. I cannot as I am far from the brightest light in the class. For me, it was all about discipline, perseverance, focus and work ethic. I had none of these qualities in h.s. and breezed through. University is far more challenging and it is not easy to obtain As, let alone straight As. I am happy to answer any further questions in the public forum or by private message.

[thatonekid]

Not everyone finds the transition from high school to university to be difficult. Lots of people make blanket statements that don't hold true for everyone.

[inspiring-curmudgeon]

A lot of teachers write off kids in high school, and they feel like the system failed them. So why bother working? When those kids get to university and find something they love, there's nothing stopping them from learning.

 

Additionally, a lot of high achievers in high school are high achievers because they are diligent and well organized. But if it takes you most of your time to get a 90 in high school, you'll do worse in university because you still have the same amount of time to study, but the courses just keep getting harder and harder.

 

I had a 52 average in grade 10, and a 94 average by 3rd year university. The difference was due to a lack of stupid teachers who wrote you off as a daydreamer or lazy. Instead there was only the material, and I was fascinated by it. Tons of kids from my high school went to my university, and all the high achievers got totalled after first year (due to the aforementioned reason).

[IamIDP]

I think most people on these forums are misleading high school students.

 

I know many highschool students who got barely 90% in their top 6 in highschool, and are getting 4.0's in big Universities like Mcgill, mcmaster and UTSG. The only ones that don't follow these trends (do bad in undergrad) are the ones that went to an easy highschool with inflated grades (class averages in the 80-90's) and they ended up scoring in the 90's.

 

It really depends how you did in comparison to the rest of your highschool, not by your %. For example, in my highschool 1 student got 90% in Grade 12 biology in the entire school (was ranked 5th best hs in ontario in my year) and that student is now getting 4.0 GPA at mcgill. So don't listen to these rumours..There is a trend that correlates your highschool grades with university, and that's if you compare your grades with everyone else.

[charmer08]

I think most people on these forums are misleading high school students.

 

I know many highschool students who got barely 90% in their top 6 in highschool, and are getting 4.0's in big Universities like Mcgill, mcmaster and UTSG. The only ones that don't follow these trends (do bad in undergrad) are the ones that went to an easy highschool with inflated grades (class averages in the 80-90's) and they ended up scoring in the 90's.

 

It really depends how you did in comparison to the rest of your highschool, not by your %. For example, in my highschool 1 student got 90% in Grade 12 biology in the entire school (was ranked 5th best hs in ontario in my year) and that student is now getting 4.0 GPA at mcgill. So don't listen to these rumours..There is a trend that correlates your highschool grades with university, and that's if you compare your grades with everyone else.

 

It also depends on the kind of courses you take and the number of courses you take. Many people only take 3 courses a semester in grade 12.

[Dr_Scully]

I know people who got 90s in high school who later dropped out of college and are now doing pretty much nothing with their lives (i.e. working in grocery stores at 30 with no education). Meanwhile, those in my little "group" who partied a lot ended up getting their act together and going to college and university and being successful. I think maturity and attitude have a lot to do with it. I had personal reasons as to why I was getting crap grades in high school, it had nothing to do with the fact that I didn't know how to study hard and get good grades. I completely agree with "inspiring" too, a lot of teachers had told me I wouldn't get into university, instead of asking "Hey I noticed you had straight As in grade 9, and straight Ds in grade 13, what happened?"

 

Personally, I found the transition from high school to college difficult mainly because of the pace. I went from taking a whole semester (Sept-Jan) with lots of little assignments to finishing a whole semesters worth of work by beginning of December before exams started. Like others mentioned you have some courses where the final is worth 50%+.

I was also working a lot of hours at my cashier job which hurt my grades. I was still an immature, drugged up brat fresh out of high school and hadn't really learned to grow up too. By second year I got my act togther and had straight As.

 

Your current work ethic is a good thing to carry onto university. The pace will be a LOT faster than high school and you will probably have more courses. Yes, there will be more distractions and your grades might slip a bit. It's not as easy as it is in high school to get 90s. The material will be faster paced and more difficult. You may even go through personal stuff in one month.... Not a big deal for high school but in uni when a semester is only 3 months long and the course consists of one midterm + final exam you don't get a lot of wiggle room if you screw up an assignment.

 

Lastly, I know a B+ sounds like a scary grade to a lot of pre-meds, but my view on it is if a doctor can graduate med school with a B+ average does that make them a failure? I don't think so. Don't kick yourself too hard if you get one of them first year.

 

Keep your head on straight and work hard like you are doing now, and you will achieve your dreams. Don't worry about that bridge until you cross it. Focus on growing spiritually and becoming a better person and treating others with love and respect and the rest will fall into place.

 

Oh, and be kind to your TAs

[A Second Daniel]

I think most people on these forums are misleading high school students.

 

I know many highschool students who got barely 90% in their top 6 in highschool, and are getting 4.0's in big Universities like Mcgill, mcmaster and UTSG. The only ones that don't follow these trends (do bad in undergrad) are the ones that went to an easy highschool with inflated grades (class averages in the 80-90's) and they ended up scoring in the 90's.

 

It really depends how you did in comparison to the rest of your highschool, not by your %. For example, in my highschool 1 student got 90% in Grade 12 biology in the entire school (was ranked 5th best hs in ontario in my year) and that student is now getting 4.0 GPA at mcgill. So don't listen to these rumours..There is a trend that correlates your highschool grades with university, and that's if you compare your grades with everyone else.

 

Not fully true. I've seen excellent and respectable students with 90s from grade 12 go from the same high school to the same university. Some of them excelled, others got torn to shreds. For the MOST part, there is probably some correlation (which also depends on the program you study), but it definitely isn't 100%, and this is why rumours persist (they aren't actually rumours, but the truth).

 

The transition to university is tough for some. Others find it very streamlined. Personally, I didn't realize any difficulty in the transition because the university environment was very liberating by every measure. The key thing you will pick up in university is learning how to learn- this should guide your studies in any field.

[Helljumper_Ty]

In all honesty, HS doesn't mean or account for much in terms of learning at university. Like someone repeated, the learning curve is steep and there are few opportunities to really do well in a class. Having a class with a 100% Final will destroy you if your not prepared at all, or having marks deferred to the final for any reason.

 

Personally, I'm someone who never thought I would be in university and was set on entering the trades while I was in high school because all the sciences and didn't really interest me and I didn't put the time into them that I should have. Think I might have graduated with a 67 in high school. Now after entering university as a mature student after being away from high school, I want to succeed in those hard classes and achieve my goal. I'm doing much better in university than high school overall, despite have personal issues to deal with in the past term.

 

In some of the harder classes, there are tons of chances to succeed, Physics and Chem are two, there is lots of free help available for assignments, homework and labs that help you pass the class.

[theboywho2]

Thank you, for all your insightful and rapid replies. I look forward to being part of the community.

[future_doc]

.........

[Minion]

I was in your situation about a year ago. All I can say is high school can't 100% predict what you can achieve in University. In HS, I barely got 80s and I maintain a 85% average right now. I also know people who had 90+ average getting reduced to 70s in first term. The difference between them and myself is that I am a loser who likes to study on friday nights rather go out and have fun. University is all about time managing. If you don't have time management skills, chances are your average will drop.

Right now, instead of worrying, you should: Have fun while in HS and try to develop time managing skills.

 

Also, according to my experience, the easiness of university really depends on the program rather than university.

[a1b1]

Most of the people who were "top dogs" at my high school, either got pregnant before 18 or are now working at IGA (not that there is anything wrong with this). In high school I was in the "special" class, and not the good kind of special. I guess what im trying to say is that high school success means nothing, it all depends on how determined a person really is. If your willing to fight for what you want and not just roll over and die (so to speak), then I believe anyone can reach their dreams.

[atesme]

In my opinion...

You know on average you intellectual capabilities - your HS grades, your peers, your learning style will all give you insight into that.

You know hard or diligently you're capable for working.

And you know how lectures work.

So you already know in a general sense what's going to happen in university. You just end up getting all psyched out by everything you hear about how hard/easy/whatever it is. It's a transition, yes, but it's not magic. It's not going to be so incredibly strange that your own personal judgement is no longer valid.

[Let'sGo1990]

High school was great. I was the biggest slacker and the "smart" kids hated me for it.

[nikki dale]

Okay I was about to do a whole bunch of multi-quoting and plus ones, but it's getting complicated.

 

So anyway.

 

The transition isn't a big deal from HS to Uni if what you're bringing with you is hard-earned success based on your own independent work ethic. There are high schools that 'spoon-feed' you and 'help' you get high marks that many students don't deserve - and this is where we say - don't expect the same from university.

 

Honestly. I worked hard all my life ever since I got stickers for my good grades in grade 2. For that, I've been getting 90s ever since all through high school and univeristy; and if you keep up your own hard work and dedication, which you have so far been demonstrating, you can too

[bored]

High schools seems like it's more about being able to "pick up what you are thought". As in learn what you are thought, and do so with minimal effort.

 

University on the other hand is all about hard work

[drkwhy]

High schools seems like it's more about being able to "pick up what you are thought". As in learn what you are thought, and do so with minimal effort.

 

University on the other hand is all about hard work

 

Hard work and good work ethic. You don't need to be constantly studying but you should know when to do so and when to play.

 

GPA! Grade = Persons intelligence x Amount of work you put in.

 

[bored]

Hard work and good work ethic. You don't need to be constantly studying but you should know when to do so and when to play.

 

GPA! Grade = Persons intelligence x Amount of work you put in.

 

 

yup exactly,

except think of it more like

GPA! Grade = (Persons intelligence) x (Amount of work you put in)^2

 

because the amount of work you put in has a much more impact on it all

[qw098]

I disagree with you bored.

 

I have a 3.92 GPA in Chemistry and I barely study or put hard work. I just understand everything once the teacher talks about it.

[phosgenic]

I disagree with you bored.

 

I have a 3.92 GPA in Chemistry and I barely study or put hard work. I just understand everything once the teacher talks about it.

 

i agree with bored and im sure most people would, i would probably make it quartic or something tho

 

you are an outlier, good for you, youre very blessed to be able to do that.

 

as an aside, i feel like the person who works harder to achieve the same grade extracts much more meaning from that activity as opposed to someone who got by on talent alone.

[medhopeful64]

Wow, people on this forum sure have had some horrible HS teachers! my HS teachers were all very supportive and encouraging. Its a shame that some people have had to experience that, teachers are incredibly influential and can change a kid's life.

 

OP, pick something that interests you AND you can pull off good grades. Make friends with upper years - they are a source of very useful info. Try your best not to fall behind because that's pretty much the surest way to get wiped out in a course. Take notoriously hard courses in the summer, as most med schools don't look at summer grades.

 

I remember there was a thread called something like "things I wish I knew before university" meant for High school students, you should check that out

 

Oh, and one last thing - take "fun" humanities courses in high school while you have the chance. Things like philosophy, photography, languages, history, or whatever you consider fun electives because education will never be free again and humanities are more difficult to get higher grades (80+) in in university. I didn't realize this until after I got to university unfortunately

[Jaybird]

I disagree with you bored.

 

I have a 3.92 GPA in Chemistry and I barely study or put hard work. I just understand everything once the teacher talks about it.

 

Some people really are "just good" at something. I've never gotten less then an A in my chem courses, for example.

 

All it means is that I have more time to study what I'm "just bad" at. Nothing special about it.

[Morzan]

I think having HS average of >90% means you show some promise in your future performance during university. If we say >90 is meaningless, i.e. not indicative of intelligence/work ethic etc, what about the kids who have <80 and have plans of further education? Do we say their chances at success dwindle to absolute zero-like quantities?

Regardless of how we judge your HS marks, your probability of 'academic' success (at face value) is still somewhat higher than the rest of of your high school mates.