Dropoff on GPA from HS to College - Standard?

[JayA]

I was an honors high school graduate, and things in high school came easily to me for the most part. Now that I've finished my first year of college, my GPA is a 2.635 or somethin like that. I'm in the honors program at my college, but I don't think those classes dropped my average. Is this normal, maybe just me getting used to the changes? I think I need to pick it up next semester for sure. This just makes me semi-depressed about my grades. Comments welcomed/appreciated.

[btmagnetw]

that's pretty sick. averaging between a B and a C is not normal for an honors student. what do you attribute your grades to? lack of understanding, lack of effort? lack of time? you need to figure that out first.

[catalyst]

I would guess this is not standard at all.

My gpa went up in college - though I am a corp. finance major and not engineering or something more difficult.

[orange]

my GPA dropped in college, but i suspect that the dropoff started senior year of high school (where i slacked too much) and it sortve carried over to college.

[Dan.]

my GPA has stayed pretty constant from high school through two years of college, as has the GPA of friends. So I'm guessing it isn't very standard.

[Edge34]

I went from a solid 3.6-3.7 student in HS to around a 3.0 through the first few years of college. What do I attribute this to?

1) Not caring about stupid [censored] generals. I really don't see how sitting in a class for an hour a day 3 days a week getting told I'm the devil for being a white man is helping me grow. So I didn't go much and half-assed it when I did.

2) Being social. Making tons of new friends and staying up till ludicrous hours of the night getting hammered has been a lot of fun. I still try to keep up with work, but that sort of thing has only enhanced my procrastination.

3) Some harder classes. I've had 2 or 3 classes that have kicked my ass in college. However, I'm set to graduate in December with 2 degrees and about a 3.2 or so if I keep this up. I'll live with that.

EDIT TO ADD: 2.6 or whatever is SO easy to dig out of if its only after one year. Do your work and go to class and you should be alright. What school and major, OP?

[mik37]

Dont think this is standard, I went from a 3.1 in high school to a 3.5 in college.

[edtost]

meh, i had an unweighted 94 in HS with a pretty tough courseload and will graduate college this year sub-3.0

[chisness]

Orange is right, getting out of the senior mode is tough, especially when attending classes becomes optional. College is also like moving up in stakes -- basically no complete donkeys (people who don't do anything, don't turn in homework at all) and a lot fewer semi donks (barely study, bare minimum stuff). Another problem I've found is that when I do well on the first exam in a course, I slack a little.

A nice thing is that colleges, at least here, have useful tricks you can use to boost your GPA. You can drop courses up to beyond half way through, so if your grade is expected to be low you can cancel it. You can also take 6 courses when the norm is 4, so can kind of select ones you want to continue with based on how well you've done. This will of course let you do better on the "bad" ones next time you take them. The only issue is if a course is a major prereq, then you can't really drop it very easily.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

High school is easier than college, so yes. Also lots of high schools bump up or double weight AP classes or honors classes, so that could be affecting your GPA too.