Given how concerned most students are about grades, it's amazing how little they know about how grading is done. Actually, it's not so amazing. Universities go to great lengths to hide—or at least not disclose—facts about grading that anyone who's taught at a university for more than a year knows. Want a peek? Read on.

1. It's 10 minutes—and then on to the next. You might think that your grader will spend half an hour to an hour grading each student's piece of work. Not so. Unfortunately, given that an instructor might have a stack of 30, 40, or even 70 papers or tests to grade, he or she has only about 10 minutes to devote to each piece of graded work. This is why you should make your claims clearly and forcefully, avoid any irrelevant or unnecessary material, and take the trouble to really explain your points.

2. The grading is often outsourced. In large classes at large colleges, the professor giving the lecture is rarely the one who does the grading. Instead, there is usually a cadre of low-paid grad students who do the grading. You might know the grad student as the TA running your discussion section. But your grader might also be an unseen and unnamed person who has been hired only to grade the written work, with no other duties in the course. Some professors actively manage the grad student or grader, going over sample papers and setting a grading scale. But other professors are happy to delegate the whole job to the underling and never set eyes on student work.

Everyone's a critic these days, college students included. And why not? With the average tuition at a public college having gone up almost 6 percent this year, students have a right to mouth off when things aren't to their liking. The trouble is that faculty and staff are overworked and, in many cases, haven't gotten a raise this year. What can you do? Here are our best suggestions about how to remedy the most commonly hated things about college.

1. College costs too much. What you can do: Be sure to research all the possible forms of tuition assistance, from the federal government, the state, the university, your major, and community organizations. Consider cheaper alternatives, such as community colleges or, in some cases, summer school. Take as many courses as possible (within reason) if you're paying by the semester rather than by the credit. Save on textbooks by buying online, renting, or sharing books, or by buying E-textbooks. And be sure to check out all the tax incentives for higher education.

No one should lunge at graduate school. Getting an advanced degree can take years and can cost tens of thousands of dollars if you're not lucky enough to land a fellowship. And no one should begin planning for graduate school in October of their senior year. Putting together a good application—one that can really sell—is the product of years of careful planning and doing the right stuff to get yourself ready for graduate work in your desired field.

How do you do this? Follow our step-by-step guide to getting ready for the graduate school of your choice:

1. Don't fixate too early. There's no point making a decision about whether to go to graduate school until you've finished about half of the courses in your major—especially the upper-division or advanced courses. Only then can you see whether you like the field enough to devote yourself full time to working in it, and whether you're good enough in it to make it your profession.

College is like juggling. Five balls in the air that you're trying to not let drop. Between going to class, doing the homework, taking the tests, perhaps holding down a job, raising a family—well, how's a mere mortal supposed to do all this stuff? It boils down to managing your time. But how are you supposed to do that? Here are our top 12 tips for managing your overcrowded schedule:

1. Block your courses. Many students think that they'll learn better if they scatter their courses throughout the day, with frequent off-hours. Wrong. If you take your courses back to back as much as possible, you'll have larger blocks of time to devote to concerted bouts of studying. Usually, if you have a gap of 50 minutes between classes, it's much more likely to end up as Twitter or Facebook time rather than study time. And if you can group your classes on only two or three days, it will free whole days for studying.

Professors are human beings, too, with real human feelings. How your professor feels about you can influence how much time he or she is willing to put in to help you with the course, and even how good a recommendation he or she is willing to write for grad school or a job. Surprisingly enough, only 1 in 100 students thinks about this. Assuming you're one of the other 99, we offer you our baker's dozen of tips on how to ingratiate yourself to your professor:

1. Look interested. Professors like nothing better than to see alert and engaged students seated front and center in their classes. Even if they're usually too polite to mention it, professors do notice students who sit there yawning or looking bummed out—or, worse yet, openly texting or reading E-mail. If you look as if you're following, actively taking notes, and showing an interest in the material, you'll stand out from the huddled masses.

2. Say hi to the professor when he or she enters the room. Seems obvious. But take a look sometime at how few students do it.

For many students, the biggest difference between college and high school is studying: In college, you're really supposed to be doing it. But many beginning college students have habits and strategies that not only don't help their studying but actually thwart it. For them, we offer our best ideas for what not to do if you're going to ace your college studying.

• Don't look for the perfect environment. Many students think if only they found the perfect place to study, studying would be easy. So they spend inordinate amounts of time scouting and trying out various locales—first their dorm room, then the coffee shop, then the library, then the grass, etc. Such elaborate "setup" time can be a major time waster, and even worse, can make you feel that you can't study unless you are in your ideal study spot. Better idea? Find a reasonably quiet place and just get started. You'll get more comfortable as you get going.

One of the most exciting things about starting college is finally being able to make your own decisions—no family rules to heed or break. But then it turns out that being responsible means you're the only one to blame when things go wrong, and suddenly independence doesn't seem all that great. This week, visiting blogger Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota and author of You're on Your Own (But I'm Here If You Need Me) offers 10 tips for college students as they figure out a new relationship with their family:

1. Keep in touch. With all the technology out there—E-mail, texting, Skype, Facebook, Twitter—your parents don't just have the tools to talk to you every day, they can even see you. And if they paid for your phone and laptop, they probably expect you to use those gifts to contact them at least occasionally. Texting and E-mailing are ideal for checking in quickly without facing a lengthy conversation. The once-a-week or twice-a-month phone calls, though, are helpful for keeping up with what's happening at home and letting your parents know you're still thinking about them.

Community colleges are hot, even among those students who expect to go on to get a bachelor's at a four-year college. The regents of the University of California report that 30 percent of UC graduates attended a community college before transferring to the UC. And among all those earning a bachelor's degree in Virginia, a third began at, or supplemented their education with classes from, a Virginia community college.

We were eager to find out a little more about how to make the transition from a community college to a four-year college, so we invited guest blogger Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia's community colleges and himself a graduate of a community college, to offer a 10-step plan for making the leap. Here's what he had to say:

The first week of the college semester is a very stressful and busy time. But no matter how crazy things get, all students should take a few minutes to assess the classes they're taking to make sure they've made the right choices. Bad choices can net you a whole semester of intense boredom, pain, and suffering—not to mention wasting all that good money you spent on tuition. But how to decide?

After the very first class, ask yourself these 10 questions about what you've just witnessed:

1. Is the teacher good? Even after the first class (or the first couple of classes if the first class is just an intro), you should be able to tell if the prof knows his or her stuff and can present the material in a clear, organized, and coherent way. Another thing to look for is whether the lecture has a point. A good teacher will center each class around one or two main topics; a loser will wander aimlessly through lots of unrelated detail, just dumping whatever he or she knows about the topic.

The college financial aid system rivals only the IRS in its complexity. But change is on the way. This week, we've asked visiting blogger Sandy Baum, professor of economics at Skidmore College and special consultant to the College Board, to bring us up to speed on college financial aid. Here are the six most important developments:

1. More generous Pell grants. The Pell grant is the cornerstone of federal student aid: The government provides grants to dependent students with family incomes up to about $50,000 and to independent students with low incomes. The maximum grant is set every year by Congress and has not kept up with the price of college. In 2008-09, the maximum grant was $4,731; in 2009-10, it will be $5,350.

2. Income-based repayment for federal student loans. As of July 1, the federal government has a new system that will limit monthly payments on federal student loans to a reasonable percentage of the borrower's income. Those whose incomes are below 150 percent of the poverty line for their family size will not have any payments due; others will owe no more than 15 percent of the amount by which their incomes exceed this level.

This system is not perfect. The government will pay the interest for some borrowers whose payments don't cover it, but others will see their debts grow as interest accrues. After 25 years, remaining debt will be forgiven, but unless Congress makes a change, this will be a taxable event. And it's important to remember that only federal loans—not loans from private lenders that don't come with a federal guarantee—are covered by this important new program.

Many college students are in serious trouble and don't even recognize it. They think that nothing is really wrong, that everyone else is in the same boat, or that college is just supposed to be hard. Other students are just not sure: "Am I doing bad or doing really bad?" they wonder. "Should I take some decisive action or just wait it out, hoping it'll get better?"

In order to help you decide whether you're in serious difficulty or just caught up in the ordinary ebb and flow of higher education, here are 10 signs that you're in real trouble at college. If you, or someone you know or love, exhibits any of these signs, it's time to do some major reassessment and make some big changes:

Grades are the measure of college success. Like the salary at a job, the batting average in baseball, or the price of a stock, your grade-point average is an objective indication of how you're doing. And yet, there's surprisingly little good information—least of all from professors—about just what you should do to get good grades at college. Here are the 15 best tips from our Professors' Guide to Getting Good Grades in College—with our best wishes that you get all A's as you start your college year:

1. Take charge of this thing. College isn't like high school. There's no teacher or parent to remind you every day of what you need to do. So step up to bat and take responsibility. What grades you get will depend on what you yourself do.

2. Select, don't settle. To get good grades in college, it's very important that you pick the right courses. Pick classes that you think you can do. And be sure to pick the right level in required courses such as math, English comp, sciences, and languages (in some colleges, there are five courses all bearing the name "college math"). Most of all, don't accept some "standard freshman program" from your adviser. Pick your courses one by one, paying careful attention that some fulfill distribution requirements, some count to a possible major, some satisfy some interest of yours, and at least one is something that somehow "sounds interesting." You'll do better if you've made the right choices.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., President Barack Obama, and Police Sgt. James Crowley have certainly done their part to get race relations into the national discussion. But diversity is hot on college campuses, too—not only race, ethnicity, and gender but also religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and age. But why is diversity important in college at all? Visiting blogger Aaron Thompson, professor of sociology at Eastern Kentucky University and coauthor (with Joe Cuseo) of Diversity and the College Experience, offers eight reasons why diversity matters at college:

1. Diversity expands worldliness. College might be the first time you have had the opportunity to have real interaction with people from diverse groups. Whether we like it or not, many times we find ourselves segregated from other groups in schools, churches, and our own neighborhoods. A college campus is like opening the door to the entire world without traveling anywhere else.

For many college students, the math requirement is the single biggest obstacle standing between them and their cap and gown. Believe it or not, some students take the same math course two or three times and by the end of their ordeal have just barely passed. It doesn't have to be this way. College math is easily manageable and might even turn out to be fun if you follow our 10 tips for acing the math requirement:

1. Get in—and stay in—the right level. Colleges often have several levels of calculus and up to five versions of algebra. Select carefully to avoid taking classes that are too hard (or too easy) for your level of ability and training. Double-check after the first test, and switch classes then if necessary. Why torture yourself if you're never going to able to master delta-epsilon proofs?