I’ve just been communicating with a family who was shocked to discover that their son failed a college class last semester. Even the student himself was dismayed. What!? Failed?

When we looked into it, we found out that he hadn’t realized that 30% of the grade included class participation, and he had not attended class once. During our coaching sessions, he’d worked hard to practice good reading strategies, do a good job researching for the final paper, and and write an excellent paper. He’d neglected to mention to me, however, that he’d not been attending class. When that F arrived, he was shocked.

Let this be a warning to all you students: The syllabus is not just a pretty sheet of paper that professors hand out at the beginning of class. It actually holds crucial information that is the key to your success in class.

As a result of this incident, I now build into my coaching process to have every student fill out an online form with the grading rubric from their syllabus, and engage them in conversation about what this means in regards to study habits and participation over the school year. We then measure how well they’re doing over time using a graph.

When reading your syllabus, look for:

• the grading breakdown.
• policies regarding late work
• any supplies you need for the class
• any due dates (put them directly in your planner)
• any project that might require advance planning
• office hours for your professor, and how to contact him/her via email

Once you’ve noted your professor’s expectations, remember to follow through! Don’t ruin your chances of doing well in a class simply because you have not taken the three minutes it takes to review a syllabus and understand a class’ guidelines.

Anyone out there have any stories? Did you ever bomb a class because you didn’t read a key instruction? Please comment below and tell us all about it.

P.S. If you have a student that you would like to save from this fate, please forward them this article!