The advice given to freshmen every year is to work hard, and in return, you’ll find success. While that advice may be true for some things, though, their GPA is not one. There is a game, a formula for success, that every Top 10 student understands and plays. Rank does not determine one’s intelligence, it determines how well one can play the GPA game.
How The Game Works
Though the unweighted GPA is on a 4-point scale, the weighted GPA is on a 6-point scale, with the highest you can earn toward your GPA (100) in an advanced class being 6.0, whereas an on-level class counts as a 5.0 with the same grade.
Your weighted GPA determines your class rank, which is a ranking of a graduating class. Ranking high in one’s class can grant automatic admission into some Texas universities, with Texas A&M University automatically accepting the top 10% of a class, and The University of Texas at Austin accepting the top 5% of a class.
There are some unavoidable on-level classes all students have to take, though. To graduate, students must have one physical education credit and one fine arts credit. No matter what class is taken to satisfy those requirements, it will still be an on-level class, which is why most freshmen take both classes to get the credits out of the way.
Students are given eight semesters of “pass/fail” courses for all four years of school. Each “pass/fail” use exempts students from that class counting toward their GPA for the semester (unless they fail). The strategy of these tools is to use them for on-level courses taken in one’s sophomore, junior and senior years to maximize their GPA.
How to Win The Game
The highest ranking students in each graduating class are the best examples of succeeding at the GPA game. The game is like chess. Any good player understands that to succeed in the game, sacrifices must be made, whether it’s the on-level class someone is passionate about or the fine art they are forced to quit.
While hundreds of classes are taught every day, those playing the GPA game are limited to a finite number of 6-point scale classes they are allowed to take, even if they don’t enjoy it. To ensure academic success, students are forced to make sacrifices that may lessen their enjoyment of high school.
The school’s brand of “Go Beyond” is one being heavily pushed, but this game directly contradicts it. Instead of being an institution of learning, this hidden game turns school into a checklist, a silent competition.
