6 Ways to Stay on Top of Your Grades

Story by Lauren Stuckey. Photo courtesy of Providence College.

As a junior in high school taking two AP courses and dual enrollment classes, my grades have seen highs and lows over the course of each quarter. Sometimes, it’s smooth sailing all the way through. Other times, I’m grasping at straws when missing assignments or low scores start to sink my grade. Thankfully, my high-achieving friends have started to imprint on me, and I’ve picked up a habit of doing some extra things to keep my grades the highest they can be. So far this school year, I’ve earned straight A’s for quarter 1 and quarter 2, and I still have them for the Quarter 3 progress check. So, how do I do it? Here are the steps I take and they might help you, too!

Prioritize the “now,” but don’t ignore the “later.”

If assignments from every class start to pile up for you as they often do for me, I have found that doing the ones that are due first, before I do anything due later in the week helps relieve a bit of stress. This way, I can focus on everything urgent, instead of trying to get everything done in one fell swoop. However, if I have time later in the day, or if I know I’m not busy at any given time during the school day, I will attempt to at least look at my other assignments, just to get something started, so the load on myself is lessened.

Make good use of after school time.

While most people just go home and are disconnected from school, I usually dedicate a little bit of time each day to look at my Google Classroom or Canvas to see if I should be doing something productive. This has helped me save myself a few times, such as when I luckily reminded myself of assignments due at midnight that slipped my mind when I walked out the school building. Plus, this strategy has often helped me get ahead on assignments, so I can have some in-school downtime as well.

Attend tutoring regularly.

While tutoring seems to be the bane of people’s existence, proven by the mandatory tutoring rule at my school, sometimes it really is super beneficial. Why wouldn’t I want an easy fix for any problem I have with my work? Stopping by a teachers room for just a couple of minutes after school before I head home can make a huge difference. Would you rather go home and still have extra things to do, or just get everything you need help with done early? I personally feel like the answer is obvious. This also stops you from just using AI and actually using your brain, which is 10 times better.

Form a work group with friends.

My friends and I usually schedule an afterschool FaceTime when we know we have a lot to do. Having friends who have already done the work I need help on, or just to collaborate with, is a great help to get homework done more quickly. Also, just having people to remind me to stay on track if I get distracted is very helpful for someone like me, who accidentally doomscrolls herself into only having 10 minutes left to finish an assignment before it’s due.

Check PowerSchool (or whatever LMS your school uses) frequently.

I always make sure I have storage left on my phone to keep the PowerSchool app downloaded, and I make sure to check it daily. This allows me to get notifications on grade changes or attendance updates as soon as they happen, and I can act on them much faster than only finding out about my progress when I’m told to check by a teacher or parent. Because of the attendance policy at my school, grades and attendance go hand-in-hand, and a slip up from a teacher could make or break a grade I managed to improve at the last minute. 

Set high standards for yourself.

While high expectations tend to be stressful when applied too harshly, simply having a benchmark for what you deem acceptable for your grades can help a lot. I’ve always put my grades on a pedestal because I am proud of them and I work hard to earn them. Having this mindset makes it harder for me to accept “okay” grades, which ends up helping me maintain higher grades in the long run.

Even though it seems like this is literally everything you could possibly do to maintain high grades, and it’s “too much,” these strategies have become subconscious habits for me. I don’t feel forced to do them – I do them because I want the best for myself. I challenge you to integrate at least one of these strategies into your school life and see if it improves your grade management! I’m sure this list has something that's easy for anyone to use.

Lauren Stuckey is a junior at Friendship Technology Preparatory Academy.