How to Make the Ultimate Academic Comeback 🤝

Hey y’all,

First off: welcome to all the new subscribers! The Studious Student is my weekly newsletter in which I drop my best study tips, college admissions advice, life hacks, and more.

Excited to have you along. 🤝

Alright, let’s cut to the chase. The school year ends soon and maybe your grades aren’t where you want them to be. Don’t worry. In this newsletter, I’m going to cover some of my best tips for boosting your grades at the last minute.

(If you’d rather learn these tricks in video form, feel free to watch my latest video on YouTube.)

Be Honest

Okay, I need to you be honest. Why are your grades not where you want them to be? I think most students have one of the four answers below. They’re either…

1. Overwhelmed

2. Distracted

3. Struggling

4. Lazy

And I don’t mean that in a rude way! I’ve been all four of these things at one point or another. But if you genuinely want to make a comeback as quickly as possible, you need to need to evaluate your situation honestly.

If you’re overwhelmed, you have a lot on you’re plate. Maybe you’re juggling a handful of AP classes and intense extracurriculars. Or maybe you have a bunch of responsibilities at home and can’t devote enough time to your academics.

If you’re distracted, chances are your phone gets in the way of your productivity. Whenever you try to work, you end up scrolling through social media, watching Netflix, or playing video games.

If you’re struggling, you might be putting in the time and effort, but you cannot understand the content. It’s hard to get new information to stick inside your head.

And finally, if you’re lazy, you don’t feel like doing the work. For example, you might finish 80% of your homework and call it a day. Or you might spend 30 minutes studying for an exam and think that’s enough.

You might just be one of these things, or you might be all four. So let’s dive into concrete solutions so you can get your grades to where you want them to be.

Scenario #1: You’re Overwhelmed

I want you to step back and evaluate your commitments.

What things are taking up most of your time? Are you able to take a break from any of them? Are you able to drop any of them entirely?

The goal here is to get things off your plate so you can make more time for your academics.

However, it’s not like you can drop a class or extracurricular activity at this point in the school year. So here’s my piece of advice: make special requests.

For example, if you’re juggling a ton of responsibilities and can’t finish an assignment on time, email your teacher several days before and I promise they will most likely accommodate.

If you’re part of a club and can’t make it to the next few meetings because you have to study for the SAT, let them know in advance, and I’m sure they’ll find a way to keep you involved.

I think the mistake that most students make is they’ll either never ask for these accommodations, or they’ll ask too late. I promise if you plan just a tiny bit ahead and alert the right people a week or even a few days in advance, you’ll find a way to balance everything.

Scenario #2: You’re Struggling

Before I continue, yes, “you’re struggling” and “you’re overwhelmed” could mean the same thing. But in this context, it means that you’re struggling to grasp the content.

The first step here is to let go of your ego, especially if you’re always been the smart kid. Realize that struggle is okay and an inevitable part of the learning process.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to fight through the pain alone. If you’re struggling, I recommend that you leverage every resource at your disposal.

If you’re in college, this means going to office hours, meeting with TAs, going to review sessions, visiting your campus tutoring center, etc.

Back in college, I loved office hours because the TAs would often map out the answers to extremely difficult PSET problems, lol. However—and more importantly—they helped me grasp the fundamental concepts.

If you’re in high school or younger, you probably don’t have as many resources. In your case, I recommend finding a study partner and even leveraging AI.

Now look, I don’t think you should have a study partner for everything. But if you’re studying for your finals and want to solidify your knowledge of a concept, find a study partner, review it together, and pretend to teach it to each other.

This strategy, also known as the Feynman Technique, is a great way to grasp new material.

And when it comes to AI, here are my favorite use cases:

1. Have it explain concepts to you like you’re five years old. Simply append “explain like I’m five” to any of your prompts, and feel free change the age if the explanation is too simple.

2. Use it to generate practice questions. This use case can be a bit funky, imo. I find that generating open-ended questions works a bit better than generating multiple-choice questions.

3. Have it generate a learning plan. This one’s a bit more abstract, but if you’re trying to learn a new concept, have it map out what you should study and in what order.

(If you’d like a newsletter or video dedicated just to AI, send me a DM on Instagram! Might do this in the future.)

Scenario #3: You’re Distracted

This is the big one that I think affects us all, especially in today’s era when we’re all glued to our phones.

Now look, I could easily tell you to put your phone away while studying and go about my day. But I know that’s easier said than done.

So here are three practical solutions based on how addicted you are to your phone:

1. Eh, it’s not that bad. In this case, I recommend you silence your phone, place it face down, and start your work. Simple.

2. I use it a decent amount. In this case, I recommend you silence your phone and place it in a different room or somewhere where it’s out of reach. Also, set time limits on your most-used apps.

3. I need help. In this case, you probably need an external force to hold you accountable, so I recommend having a family member keep your phone away from you while you’re working.

And here’s a bonus tip: use grayscale mode to make your phone less enticing.

On your iPhone, you can do this by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters and toggling “Grayscale.”

On Android, the steps vary depending on the model of your phone, so simply search up your phone model followed by “grayscale.”

Scenario #4: You’re Lazy

Okay, in this scenario, the issue isn’t that you’re overwhelmed or struggling—you literally just don’t feel like doing the work.

For example, maybe you start your assignments late and only finish 50% of them. Maybe you only study for 20 minutes and think that’s enough.

Or maybe you are finishing your assignments and putting in the time, but maybe you’re just studying in a lazy way. Let me explain.

You have two kinds of studying: passive studying and active studying. Passive studying includes re-reading your textbook, re-watching lecture, highlighting your notes. Active studying is when you’re engaging with the content and assessing your knowledge.

For example, you don’t just re-read your notes, but you re-write key concepts in your own words (without looking). You don’t just re-watch lecture, but you also quiz yourself on the most difficult concepts.

Now here’s the dangerous part. In the moment, passive studying feels just as effective as active studying. It feels like you’re doing work, but it’s nowhere as effective as active studying.

So if you’ve been passively studying for your exams thus far and want to make a quick and effective comeback, switch over to more active techniques ASAP.

And finally: if you’re lazy, visualize the outcome. How will you feel if you get the grades you want? How will you feel if you get that A? If you get on the honor role? If you end up in the top 10% of your class?

Hope that helped! What did you think about this newsletter? What do you want to see in the future? Feel free to DM me on Instagram to let me know (@goharsguide).

If you want additional study advice, come join my Discord! We have a global community of students helping each other succeed in school. Would love to see you there.

And if you need help with college applications, check out Next Admit! We have a team of Ivy League consultants eager to help you navigate the admissions process.

I’ll see you next week!

Best,
Gohar