How important are high school grades?

[ballup]

How much gas do you want to pump?

Or better yet, how many burgers do you want to flip.

[DeuceWallaces]

It would behoove you to do well, but anyone saying they're terribly important doesn't know shit about life. If you ****ed up in high school all you have to do is go to your local state school and do well for 2-3 semesters, maybe less, and then apply to the school you really wanted to go to. In the end, you'll save some money, and probably get a very nice transfer scholarship.

Furthermore, if you want to go to grad school and ****ed up your start of undergrad, just get your shit together for the final two years and take the GRE; you'll be fine.

[rufuspaul]

None of it is important. Tune in, turn on, and drop out.

[Le Shaqtus]

Take dem AP classes son.

[boozehound]

higher you act/sat is, the less important they are.

This is not really true. It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to go to a top school straight out of HS, you better have very solid grades. If you don't really care and are willing to spend a couple of years at a CC before you transfer to a 4 yr school, then those are the most important.


For the most part, HS grades are more important than college grades (outside of passing obviously). If you goal is employment right out of college rather than grad or prof school, your grades probably arent that important. Of course, its a competitive job market, so any edge helps. In my experience, where you went is generally more important than if you have a 2.8 or 3.2

[Rake2204]

higher you act/sat is, the less important they are.

This is not necessarily true. I think the importance of high school grades are dependent upon a number of factors. For instance, if you have a particular set of colleges you wish to attend for four years, high school grades can be quite important.

My little brother has found this out the hard way. He dilly-dallied through high school and worked up a 2.2 GPA heading into his senior year. His ACT score, considering his GPA, wasn't too shabby (a cumulative 29 based on his two attempts). However, that ACT score wasn't nearly enough to allow him entrance into even mid-level MAC schools within our state.

Further, even when plotting a one or two year community college run, I still think it's worth working toward good grades in high school. Sometimes bad grades can mean one is just too lazy to complete assignments. But many other times, bad grades can mean one is not learning the material, nor the proper habits needed to succeed in an educational environment. And true, there's always time to change those habits and grow, but you may be making things easier on yourself by applying oneself to begin with.

Also, sometimes it's like, why not get good grades in high school? Is what you're choosing to do as an alternative really worth it? Often, it's not hanging out with friends that leads to ignoring school work. In my brother's case, a lot of the time it was just him opting to watch four hours of Netflix every night and opting not to take 30 minutes to go through some worksheets.

In short, the stress that's come with not doing his work has far exceeded what he would have had to go through by actually doing his work.

[STATUTORY]

It actually becomes harder and harder to excel as life goes on. It should be easy to do well in high school, and doing so afford you the luxury of going to better college where u don't have to be the best to secure good post grad opportunities. Sure you can compensate for poor high school grades after th fact in college, but i would guess that takes more effort than having just done well in high school to begin with.

If someone already messed up hs I would say just work hard later and it will be fin but the the first best outcome is definitely do well in hs.

[Bosnian Sajo]

It would behoove you to do well, but anyone saying they're terribly important doesn't know shit about life. If you ****ed up in high school all you have to do is go to your local state school and do well for 2-3 semesters, maybe less, and then apply to the school you really wanted to go to. In the end, you'll save some money, and probably get a very nice transfer scholarship.

Furthermore, if you want to go to grad school and ****ed up your start of undergrad, just get your shit together for the final two years and take the GRE; you'll be fine.

This x100

I did not give one **** in high school and graduated with a 2.4, right now I am at SPC and have a 3.0 gpa. Once I am done with my 2 years (60ish credits), I am going to transfer to USF or UCF and go for engineering. I save money and honestly, going to a community college is better, for your aa at least. Class size is smaller (USF has an average of 300 students per class compared to SPC's 40) so the class is more hands on.

[ace23]

You can always find exceptions like Jobs, Bill Gates but in general students from good colleges produce better careers afterwards. So if you want to convince yourself that you don't need to work hard to try to get into a good university because it doesn't guarantee anything then you're lying to yourself.

Uh, Bill Gates went to Harvard.

[ace23]

if you are a really good student it matters where you go. If you are a straight A student at a big conference school you have a higher likelihood of getting recruited by a big company versus being a straight A student at a smaller conference school.

If you an average student it makes no difference whether you go to a big conference school or a smaller conference school, in many ways the smaller conference school could be more advantageous depending on the relationships they have with local companies/agencies.

Lol, why are you talking about conferences? It's all about each school's individual reputation.

[DukeDelonte13]

Lol, why are you talking about conferences? It's all about each school's individual reputation.

lol, because depending on your region the only place major companies, e.g. IBM, Microsoft, are going to actively recruit from are big conference schools.

[rufuspaul]

lol, because depending on your region the only place major companies, e.g. IBM, Microsoft, are going to actively recruit from are big conference schools.

IIRC the Ivy League is a pretty small conference.

[boozehound]

IIRC the Ivy League is a pretty small conference.

the top 25 schools in the country are all small conference (or div III, etc), with a few exceptions.

[ace23]

lol, because depending on your region the only place major companies, e.g. IBM, Microsoft, are going to actively recruit from are big conference schools.

lol no. all those companies come to my school and we're not in a large conference.

Anyway, you've got the right idea, just change "big conference" to "good" and "small conference" to "bad".

[shlver]

It is incredibly easy to do well in high school. High school grades are important because they make you eligible for scholarships, and getting out of undergrad debt free should be your goal.