How to get good grades in college

There is no great mystery that surrounds academic success. In fact, with persistence, perspective and a willingness to find the available help and tools, you may be able to achieve better college grades than you ever imagined. Jonathan Lewis, the assistant dean of operations and faculty at University of Phoenix, offers his best tips for making the grade.

The single-most important quality when considering how to get good grades, Lewis says, is good old-fashioned tenacity. The “want to,” if you will. “Those who persist, get the grade,” he explains.

In college, this means pressing through obstacles, distractions and sometimes sleep deprivation to keep up with coursework. 

Once you embrace simple, put-your-head-down perseverance, the following strategies can help you live up to the desire to do well.

If you’re a right-brained thinker whose view of the world resembles an Impressionist painting, or if you’re a fly-by-the-seat of your pants type who always manages to land on your feet, there’s no getting around the next strategy for how to get good grades: strong time management.

This skill is not only helpful, but Lewis goes so far as to say it is essential for online success. If time management is where you hop on the struggle bus, start simply by finding and protecting blocks of time for studying and completing course assignments.

Lewis also recommends going over class assignments right away when a new class begins. That way you can plan big school projects around major life events — and vice versa, when appropriate.

Finally, never wait until a due date to begin assigned work. At University of Phoenix, for example, each online week of study begins Tuesday morning and leads up to Monday night due dates. “Get in on Tuesday. See what the week ahead holds, so you don’t have any surprises,” Lewis says.

With family needs, work deadlines and the unpredictability of life all coming at you in college, it can be tempting to skirt assigned readings or otherwise cut corners to get by.

“The problem with that is you’re going to graduate with [less knowledge than you could have],” Lewis says. “Life doesn’t often give us an opportunity to branch out, grow and expand. If you throw away this opportunity to learn, you may not get another one. You’re in college! This is an opportunity not everyone gets to pursue.”

Lewis’ formula for success is to do the readings, participate in discussion questions and especially carve time and margin to participate in group projects when they come around.

Are all of these activities fun? Not always. But think of it this way: You will form muscles now that you will be able to flex later — in interviews, work settings and life.

Some students have had prior academic experiences in which faculty members did not seem accessible, or class sizes were so big that instructors simply did not have the bandwidth to offer individual help to students.

This is not the case at University of Phoenix. Here, instructors often want to be partners. In fact, faculty members have been known to connect students with resources that help them stay in school, or they go the extra mile to help students understand assignments and press through academic or personal roadblocks.

“Enlist your faculty as a partner in your learning,” Lewis says. Students sometimes make the erroneous assumption that faculty are not interested in personal interaction, he says. “It’s just the opposite. In fact, faculty often love the personal interaction. Remember, they’re online too. They want to know and help their students.”

Lewis acknowledges it can be embarrassing or nerve-wracking to go to a faculty member to ask for help. “Having the courage to punch through that may open a professional relationship you didn’t know existed. Your instructor may become a professional mentor or may help advocate for you with networking or professional advice in a way you didn’t see coming,” he says. “The last thing our faculty think about that sort of thing is that it’s burdensome.”

Finally, interacting with faculty can open up the ability to simply fess up when you need to. “If, after putting in a strong performance early in a course, something comes up that interferes with your ability to get an assignment in on time, you can approach the faculty more freely based on that prior, earned credibility,” Lewis says. “Also, assuring the faculty member that you have learned a lesson and will be more proactive, you will likely find that this meets with more understanding and grace than failing to offer an acknowledgment that work is late.”

Really practical steps — such as starting a notebook labeled “how to get good grades” — can be your friend from the very start. Lewis suggests buying a multisubject notebook that you can also use to record the key elements of every course. Online options also work, from basic documents to note-taking apps. “Add to it as you go along. Refer to it when content of one course overlaps another so you can build on connections,” he advises.

Lewis recommends writing down the main objectives for each course. At UOPX, these are called Course Learning Objectives. “Jot them in your notebook or record them in your app, and track your mastery of these objectives,” he says. “This is what you are paying to learn!”

You might even want to bookmark or print this blog (tape it inside your new notebook!) and refer to it periodically — especially if you are a first-generation college student who may not have a personal example or a template for how to “do” college.

“Life is a game, and you can increase your odds of winning the game if you do these things. This is the ‘how to win’ document,” Lewis says.

Finally, he reminds adult learners to keep academic success in mind and to keep grades in perspective. “In the end, sometimes a good grade is a B. If you have gotten an A at the expense of a relationship with your kids or participating in a major family milestone, then you haven’t succeeded,” he says. Juggling priorities, in other words, means one has to come first. Make sure it’s the right one for the right time.