It definitely depends on the kind of person you are.

I found that I loved the openness and atmosphere of university so much that I began thriving here whereas I was somewhat stifled in high school. The rigidity of K - 12 compared to the venerable liberalism of the academy was a much needed shock for me.

My marks dipped slightly in first year, but by now they're already far higher than what I could have even imagined in high school.

My first year grades dropped by 10%, so i was getting around high-70 average. And then it started to increase gradually ever since.

My first year grades were very similar to my highschool grades. High school education should become more standardized. It's dumb that so many people come in not know how to do labs.

I cringe at the number of people coming into engineering not knowing how to use a computer beyond facebook and flash games.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

My first year grades were very similar to my highschool grades. High school education should become more standardized. It's dumb that so many people come in not know how to do labs.

I cringe at the number of people coming into engineering not knowing how to use a computer beyond facebook and flash games.

Haha, the last bit about computers was surprising too. Not that I was expecting everyone to be decked out in nerd wisdom, but I've seen some pretty terrible things enough to make anyone face palm.

In first year, my grades were better than all 4 years of highschool. The weird thing is that in highschool, I've never skipped a class and in first year, I barely went to class. (It's funny how you'd wake up for school at 8:30 but you wouldn't wake up for lecture at the same time even when you lived on campus.)

That being said, I hate how we had little room to maneuver in HS . (Almost every course we took were required.) I know the point was to get us exposed to a wide variety of courses, but I still hated some of the subjects we had to take. With each passing year of HS-and therefore more choices- my grades went up.

Also, at my HS, we were warned over and over and over again that university was no walk in the park. We kept hearing these horrible stories about grades dropping and being on probation.

I remember a story that my geography teacher told us about her friend who had to repeat a course because of a silly mistake on her final exam. The exam had consisted of 100 MC, and by accident she had missed the 3rd question and instead bubbled her 4th answer into the 3rd spot. Hence, every answer had shifted and she ended up getting 33/100 just by pure chance. Since scantron answers were final at the time, there was nothing she could do.
There were also stories my math teacher told us about never being able to finish an exam and always having to pick questions that were worth the most and was doable. Then he'd leave the rest to bellcurve.

Anyways, the point is, I was scared

There are also financial repercussions. In 2008, Maclean’s surveyed the rate at which students who received entrance scholarships kept the requisite grades to maintain their funding going into second year. At York University, where fully 60 per cent of incoming students received an entrance scholarship, only 10 per cent kept their funding. At McMaster the rate was 21 per cent. At Ryerson, seven per cent.

We don't even have renewable scholarships anymore LOL.

Some of us do

Originally Posted by Fight0

Some of us do

4th years are the only ones with renewable scholarships... it's their last year too. Unless engineers have 5 year renewable scholarships, but I'm not sure about that.

I also think it depends on your highschool preparation. My grade 12 chemistry was extremely difficult. However it really prepared me well so I actually did better in first year chem.

My grades raised a bit in first year actually, probably because I had little distractions (i.e. res, partying etc)