Specific Grade Point Average

• A student's grade point average (GPA) is one of the most important measurements of achievement that colleges consider for admittance. With this in mind, it should be important to the students as well. Grade averages at the end of each marking period offer students a quantifiable goal, which can be useful in motivating excellence in classes they struggle in and classes that are easier to them.
  
  

Class Rank

• Like GPAs, class rank is also a number-specific benchmark considered by colleges, although perhaps not as much. Some schools may not publish class ranks until the end of the year or, conversely, until graduation. Nonetheless, setting the goal of having a grade average that ranks a student in a certain percentage of his peers can be a useful goal, especially if he has a competitive nature. A word of caution must be given, however, on using another student's rank to mark personal progress.
  
  

Making the Honor Roll

• A general objective for students is to make the honor roll or one of the grade designations the school organizes. The school often promotes the designation, such as publishing it in the local paper, thereby rewarding those who achieve it. Making the honor roll is also a useful demarcation to include on college, scholarship and employment applications. It may also seem like a more concrete goal than other objectives, keeping the student more focused on attaining it.
  
  

Improving in Subjects

• Larger educational goals can be broken down into smaller objectives, such as improving in classes the student is typically weak in. If math courses tend to harder for the student and lower her grade point average, one benchmark for the year is to raise scores in that particular class. Another option is to ensure you are improving in subjects by working towards receiving a higher score in them each successive marking period.