So many students stress over their GPA. Grade Point Average is exactly that, an average of the culminations of your grades. It may not reflect a semester when you were just so out of sorts that all of your grades suffered, or the time that your family was going through a crisis and you had a hard time keeping up. Your GPA doesn’t say any of that to anyone. I does say how you handled and dealt with learning as a general rule. But colleges today want to understand who you are, not necessarily what you did.
Often colleges will look to your volunteer work to gain insight to what is important to you and if you actually did anything with your interests. Regular students, who are looking for a place to go to school that will give them an education, are a dime a dozen. Just look around your senior class. Many of your fellow classmates are planning on going to school. This is exactly what college admission boards are looking at. Now you can see why they want good students that will help to promote their college in a good way.
You want to stand above the normal crowd. And if you do, you’ll have to do something different than everyone else. By involving yourself in activities and by having interests different than the norm, others will see your unique qualities and talents.
Take the time now to be involved with community projects. If you are already involved, then you are a step ahead. Keep doing what you’re doing and eventually, maybe someone you meet will be able to write a letter of commendation to your school. It is your experiences working on community projects and with people to help some noble cause that will help them to see who you are and what you are passionate about.
Your grades are important, don’t loose focus on the point, but your volunteer activities are another window into your soul.
Furthermore, by putting too much gravity on your grades, you could be shooting yourself in the foot. Loosing sleep over a class or a project may only raise your grade by half of a percentage point, if you’re lucky. Just so you know, grades are important, but they are not everything.
I knew a girl who was so focused on her grades being perfect, that when she did finally make it to college, she was not prepared for the overwhelming amount of activities and interests around her. In the smaller world of high school she could block out the few distractions, but in college when not even her dorm room was a haven, distractions and outside interests were everywhere. She struggled with her grades through the entire first two years of school. Her determination and over attention to her grades turned out to be a detriment to her future success.Â