Why isn’t your GPA higher? You work hard. You study for hours. You stay up all night sometimes to complete assignments, but your GPA is still relatively the same regardless.

Meanwhile, a peer who barely puts in any work has much higher grades. This student rarely pulls all-nighters, claims to study very little, and yet earns better grades than you do after hours of work. How unfair?

If you’re dissatisfied with your GPA, you may start wondering if this is the best you can do. Are you capable of being any better? Or are you destined for a life of being average?

Your GPA only reflects a very small picture of college academics. Read on to discover what your GPA does and does not reflect about you!

Your GPA does not reflect your unique learning style.

In her TED Talk, Eva Ren explains how students think of learning as maintaining a certain GPA. She explains that students are told and think that grades determine their future, but earning good grades does not necessarily indicate you have more potential and more value (or less potential and less value). 

What GPA often does not reflect is each student’s different learning style. Some classes are simply more difficult for you, while others come with ease. Does this mean you should throw in the towel or call it quits? No. It simply means you need to find a way to conquer the material that works for you.

Read more about how to identify and utilize your learning style in this post: “How to Harness Your Learning Style in College.”

Your GPA does not reflect how uniquely busy you are.

Each student comes to school with unique limitations. Some need to take more credits for their major. Some need to work one or two part-time jobs to cover the cost of tuition. Some need to spend hours in labs or rehearsals due to special requirements within their majors. You are not the exception to this rule.

What your GPA does not reflect is your level of busyness. Don’t get me wrong. Everybody thinks they’re busy in college, but not everybody is equally as busy.

You may have a roommate who wastes hours on Youtube or who spends almost every evening socializing. Even though your schedule is busier, your grades may be relatively the same.

You have less time to study than your less-busy friend who earns the same grades, but your grades often don’t reflect the busyness of your schedule compared to someone else’s less busy schedule. Each student has to do the best with what they have.

Read more about organizing and managing your busy schedule in this post: “How to Organize Your College Schedule.”

Your GPA does not reflect how well you were prepared for college academics.

What was your high school education like? Was it rigorous? Was it filled with extracurriculars? Was it more intense academically than your freshman year is proving to be?

Some students do not come to college prepared at all for college academics. Their high school classes did not challenge them to think at a higher level. Their teachers did not enforce strict deadlines. Whatever the case, they were not prepared for college classes.

Other students come from an aggressively intense high school. Freshman year classes have proved to be a breeze compared to what they expected. They were almost over-prepared for the difficulty of college academics.

What your GPA often does not reflect is your level of preparedness for college academics. You may find yourself somewhere in the between of these two extremes. You maybe were well-prepared for some classes but less prepared for others. Your grades don’t accurately capture this advantage or disadvantage that you have.

Regardless of how your high school or home life prepared you for college, you have to step up to the plate and swing your best when the pitch is thrown. You have to step up and deliver when it matters, even if you weren’t given great instruction on how to study, take tests, or take notes.

Read this guest post titled “5 Common Study Mistakes of College Freshmen” to learn more about why the adjustment to college academics is difficult for some freshmen.

Your GPA does reflect your ability to manage time.

You can’t really manage time. You can only really manage the way you choose to spend time, and you’re finding that’s actually pretty hard to do in college.

Likely, time management is one of your biggest challenges in this first year of college. You’ve maybe never had the level of control over your life that you do currently. In the past, your parent(s) or school managed more of your daily routine: when you woke up, how long you stayed at school, when you ate your meals, etc. Now you get to control all of these factors.

While having this freedom and control sounds nice, managing how you spend your time is challenging. Some students are more skilled at time management due to past experience or natural ability, but you may not be one of these students.

What your GPA often reflects is your time management skills. How well are you able to juggle all your responsibilities? While this may seem unfair, your ability to manage how you spend your time is often what your grades do reflect.

Conquer the challenge of time management by refusing to multitask, removing distractions, and choosing to prioritize getting the sleep you need. Read more in this post entitled “How to Improve Your College Grades.”

Your GPA does reflect your ability to detect requirements.

If you’re a rule-follower by nature, you probably do pretty well in most of your classes. (Please don’t be offended by the use of the title “rule-follower,” because this can be a very positive quality. We need people in society who can stick to the instructions.) You have an advantage over other students who naturally think more outside of the box.

If you’re not a rule-follower by nature, you probably struggle figuring out what teachers are actually asking and what they’re truly wanting you to do. You often find yourself so frustrated by classes and teachers that you determine it’s impossible to succeed.

What your GPA often reflects is your ability to figure out requirements and follow them. This is a valuable skill that you will need in your future career.

When a supervisor is demanding but a bad communicator, you will still have to decipher what they want. When an indecisive client cannot express what their needs are, you’ll have to figure that out with them or sometimes for them.

You also, however, need to have the ability to work and think outside of the box. You need to be able to consider solutions that don’t fit the rules or expectations. This valuable skill will be necessary in your future career too.

Read more about understanding how your professors think in this post: “What You Might Not Know About Your College Professors.”

Your grades don’t often accurately reflect your unique challenges. Your grades more accurately reflect your ability to decipher requirements and your ability to manage your time. Rather than letting your GPA discourage you, keep in mind that this letter or number only reflects a small portion of what you’re capable of.