Your Healthy GPA
So how do you maintain a health GPA? If you’re serious about sports, you may find that you’ll have to perform a balancing act. You can’t let your athletic involvement interfere with the health of your GPA. After all, you wouldn’t be on the team if it weren’t for getting into college in the first place.
Your coach will spell out what’s required to remain on the team, such as maintaining a minimum GPA. He or she may even contact your professors to check on your progress.
Some pointers we offer include:
- Time management – There’s always a trade-off. Make study sessions and homework your priority. Since your practice and game schedule require regular commitments, you need to seek a balance. For instance, you’ll have to cut down on socializing and extracurricular involvement. Set aside at least two hours a day just for studying.
- Communicate with faculty – Keep your professors well-informed about your away-game schedules; arrange to make up missed classes and exams. The fact that you miss a class does not excuse you from meeting project deadlines, so find out if it’s acceptable to submit an assignment electronically. And if your professor does not excuse you from an exam or offer a make-up date, attend the class or accept the consequences.
- Study outside the box – Take advantage of courses offered in summer school or during winter sessions, so you can reduce your course load during the academic year.
- Work in study groups – Studying with others, especially with other team members, reinforces self-discipline and improves your productivity.
- Seek academic support services – If your GPA is at risk, run, don’t walk, to your learning center. Arrange for tutoring in difficult subject areas, take a brush-up workshop in academic skills, and talk to your academic advisor, your professors, and even your coach or trainer about resources. They care about your success.
- Life in the balance – Are you overcommitted? Too many activities steal time away from your studies. If you can’t drop a paying job, consider postponing competitive sports for a semester or two. Try to do too much, and you’ll strike out.