Your Secret Weapon

By Kate Forman, Former Rugger’s Edge Advisor

You (the students) must read books, solve math problems, plot science experiments, and write essays (oh, the writing!). Balancing these requirements can be pretty complicated, and you need a secret weapon. Here it is:

Check your grades (every day)

Checking your grades should become a habit; I do this in all my classes. As the bell rings, every kid knows to open their grades and then record them on a student calendar (created in class). With technology, there is no excuse for not knowing your grades; there is even an app for it. You can log into your account in about 3.1 seconds, quicker than it would take the fastest man to run a 40-yard dash at the combine.

Being aware of your grades is a huge advantage.

Let me tell you a little secret: teachers make mistakes. We forget to input a grade; we lose a paper, we mark an assignment incorrectly, blah blah blah. So, you need to be on the offensive with your grades. Teachers also grade assignments differently; tests in one class might account for 80 percent of your grade (like in math), whereas in English, they might count for only 10 percent. Understanding this difference will allow you to play the grades game.

If you know that tests are the majority of your grade in math, then that is where you spend your energy; spend time before each test studying, reviewing difficult concepts on Khan Academy (check it out!), or working directly with your teacher before or after school. Understanding how your grades work and where to spend your time and energy will reduce stress and help you maximize your efforts.

Now, don’t misconstrue what I am saying; I am not encouraging you to skip assignments, but you do want to know how to get the most bang for your buck, particularly if you are an athlete. Hopefully, you are a multiple-sport athlete, which means you are busy. When your schedule is overloaded with practices, tournaments, team events, family time, and even a job (hopefully), you need to find ways to prioritize your workload. There has to be a way to balance all that is going on, so in that effort, check your grades. Check them every single day.

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