Now all this is probably trivial and well known to most people, but I keep seeing even major Let's Players struggling to keep their grades up, or even flunking. (Though I also think some of them are playing more for drama and keeping it interesting than for efficiency.) So in case it helps anyone, here's an easy way to graduate with an A, while keeping one's fun up and giving a total of zero fucks about studying.

It all flows from the simple fact that, as the game does say in the tooltip, anything that raises a relevant skill for your major will also raise the school performance bar. Well, I'd ammend that to: ALMOST any skill raising. There are a couple of exceptions. So:

1. Pick a major where you haven't yet maxxed out the relevant skills. Intuitively you might expect that someone with level 10 in Athletic and Martial Arts would have a trivial time getting good grades in Physical Ed, but you'd be wrong. Once the skill is maxxed out, doing skill-raising activities will no longer increase your grade. So yeah, a complete moron who can't understand even basic logic will have an easier time getting a good grade in Technology than someone who's already the chess grand master, and will need to study less too.

2. Wonderpetal is your friend, citizen. Stuff one into your face every morning, religiously.

3. At least in my game (though in LPs it seems to be the case too), sleeping in class seems to refill Energy faster than sleeping in your average dorm bed. I'd check that out as a possible time saver.

4. Pay to learn a relevant skill or two, if such tuition is available on the campus. This might seem to contradict my statement about the number of fucks given about studying, but it fills the study bar faster than anything else, so it actually frees time for everything else. If you have three relevant skills and can afford to learn all three on the campus, this will pretty much top off the uni performance bar for one of those 36 credit terms on the first Monday.

I repeat there: it's important to learn them on the campus. Going back home and learning a skill you need for college won't help. (And indeed it might actually hurt, if you end up maxxing out the skill that way.)

5. Now the purpose of this is to NEVER study hard in class or otherwise -- and indeed I routinely graduate with A while using the class (except during exams) only to sleep and socialize -- but if you insist on making your sims work hard, consider getting the Multi-Tablet from the store. Playing an online social game on it refills the Fun bar MUCH faster than anything in the game -- indeed, you can top off in half an hour more than you lost in 2h of hard work in class -- AND it refills a bit of Social bar too.

6. So now, how do you fill that bar fast and fun?

- Science: just watch the gardening or fishing channels on TV. Preferably call someone to watch with you, so you get that Social bar up too.

Also, fish in that campus pond ("Championship Lake") between classes. Now this might seem like actual work, but it's something you can do between classes to keep the fun up.

- Fine Arts: watch the Cooking channel on TV. Like above, best done with someone. Playing the guitar between classes or painting also help.

Don't bother with skills like drums or such, they don't seem to count.

- Technology: play chess with the roommates. Also play chess between classes as a way to keep your fun bar topped.

Don't bother upgrading stuff, except for your brain machine: it doesn't seem to count for school performance, even though it does raise handiness.

If you did upgrade the machine though, consider doing a "Genius IQ" with it every morning. Not only the activity itself raises your school performance, you get a boost for the next 12 hours too.

- Phys Ed: play kicky bag with the roommates. Seriously. You can skip classes and graduate as the world's greatest bag kicker.

Also it's one point where you might want to take that "Celebrity Body" opportunity, if you're bored enough.

- Business: hoo-boy, this one's easy. Just talking to people, telling jokes, etc, raises your performance bar. You can literally party your way through college.

7. Lecture: just being ANYWHERE in the building counts as taking part, as long as you don't sleep in the lecture chair. So cancel sitting down from the start and go do anything else in the building for the next 2-3 hours.

Play juice-pong upstairs. Dance with the llama mascot. Woohoo in the photo booth. Better yet, woohoo the professor. Play your guitar right in the middle of the class, in front of the professor. Take the podium when the professor is at the whiteboard and rant about what's wrong with the world, or give your own lecture about KamaSimtra. Flirt right in class. Better yet, flirt with the professor. Etc. Only your imagination is the limit.

For some of the majors, you can even do your skill-raising thing in that building, and actually get more of a bar refill than just attending the lecture. E.g., playing your guitar in the music lecture helps more than sitting down and taking notes. Or for phys ed, play kicky bag right there. Etc.

8. Nutrition: this should be really obvious, but carry a few apples and such with you. Not starving on one of those 3 class days will go a long way towards keeping the mood up.

Or, try this:

1. MasterController/Intermediate/Career/Academic Degree. And it gives you an A, so you start at level 4 with a higher pay scale from Day 1 in your career of choice. Which can now actually be Day 1, too. No beer pong juice pong or messing with coeds, though, which does kinda suck.

Well, obviously if you just want a degree, you can use MC or you can buy the lifetime rewards. I actually wanted to go to college, though. You know, see new places, get to know new people... in the biblical sense

Oh, which is why I did point out the disadvantage of missing out on all the campus activities. And your guide is useful to an enjoyable stay at Uni, but I did want to add one additional path for graduating the easy way, in even fewer steps, for the sake of completeness.

I will also say, though, that there is one mod from Nona that is a no academic performance decay (over on Simlogical) which stops the slow loss in performance if you're not constantly studying or leveling up in skills which, IMO, also makes the whole Uni experience far more tolerable, and allows you to have quality social time while in attendance. Not as cheaty as MC, but a bit of an edge IME to make the whole Uni experience a little more pleasant. Depending on your play style and feelings about using mods like that, of course.

Oh, and my other tip for a pleasant Uni experience, assuming your well to do family is sending Junior off and is feeling generous, splurging on a Bonehilda for the dorm/frat/sorority is really, really useful at ensuring a comfy stay for your future investment banker. But the really cool part to Bonehilda in the dorm/frat/sorority is there is always at least one or two students with either the coward or neurotic trait, and watching them freak out for two solid weeks every time Bones walks by never gets old. Then again, my daughter never fails to remind me how immature I can be.

I've always paid attention to these three. The sleeping in class is really cheaty. It greatly helps increase my Sim's energy need, but it also disrupts their sleep cycle! Oh well.


I didn't know about this! It's pretty useful tip, thank you!


Apples and other harvestables don't quite fill up the hunger a lot. Instead, carry a lot of candy bars and soda cans! They really come in handy! I suppose they also add up fat if you consume too much, but it's barely noticeable. If possible, bring shower-in-a-cans and morsels too.

In regards to MC, I don't really enjoy cheating my Sims into getting a free degree. I sometimes reward them with Honorary Degree LTR if I don't have time to send them to the university, but they get a B and it's still a rather expensive reward, so it's not exactly cheating. I have to work up to earn that many lifetime happiness points.

Hmm, well, admittedly I play a vampire, so I might be a bit out of touch with what mortals eat. A plasma fruit raises my hunger bar quite nicely.

I'm not a big fan of candy bars, in any case, since watching my sim puke afterwards. As I keep saying, the chunky surprise is that you blow chunks And the soda does bring a caffeine crash at some point. The dried food from WA is more useful there IMHO.

Or just skip class (at least partially) and get something proper to eat. There is a cafeteria with a barrista upstairs in the Conners Student Union right in the middle of the campus, so you don't have to skip class completely to get something to eat.

For those complaining about the Chunky Nougat Surprise candy bar making sims nauseous: get Twoftmama's Candy Bar Nausea Mod.
I think you need to register, but you'll find two flavors of the mod: less nausea and no nausea. I've got the "no nausea" one and it's perfect
Also, thank you for the tips! Will make sure to try the sleeping in class one today.

That's a very good tip. Personally I use DouglasVeiga's most excellent Housekeeper Service, and/or the butler, though usually both. But same idea. It saves a lot of time.



Eh, I dunno, I just spent the last couple of terms in a partially corrupted old sorority, because it never got old to watch the butler fall through the back wall when trying to clean the shower.

*scrub* *scrub*
"AAAAAH!" *flop*
*trot, trot, trot around the house and back through the front door*
*inspect* *scrub*
"AAAAAH!" *flop*
*run, run, run back*

Slapstick comedy gold.

So, yeah, immature doesn't bother me :p

Update: yeah, sleeping in class is super cheaty. With a near-empty energy bar, my sim was able to restore his energy completely in about 2/3 of the class's duration (note: this was during a rabbithole class, not a lecture).
Apparently, going around woohooing half the female population, attending only half the classes (and even then, sleeping through them) and partying daily makes for some great academic performance.

Then again, I hate having my sims study all the damn time without the performance meter going up, so I use Nonamena's No Academic Performance Decay mod. Interestingly enough, I still experienced some decay - I think it was when I sent my sim to the bowling alley during class, but I'm not sure. Will try it again today.

I prefer icarus_allsorts' Vending Machine Tweaks mod. Moar freedom! Accidentally bought Chunky Nougat Surprise? Your loss.

Just as a small addition:

9. Transportation: on one hand, being on route to, say, the lecture still counts as taking part, and the meter will go up while the sim runs around. So it's not the end of the world.

On the other hand, the jetpack from ITF is free and can get you anywhere pretty much instantly. So if you want to sleep until 7:30 AM and still be in time for class, or go eat something between classes and still make it back on time, the jetpack opens a whole world of possibilities. Downside: it's involving a lot of manual clicking.

Second best: the hoverboard from ITF, also free, AND can be used along those footpaths. Now this thing is actually slower than a bike, AND stupidly enough it precludes you from using your favourite vehicle, so normally I'd rate it as beyond useless for any other purpose than fire-and-forget grinding the Advanced Technology skill to 10. But for moving along those twisted paths between the university buildings, it's actually a little faster than even a vampire or werewolf run, once you get your AT skill up. And again, it's fire-and-forget: set it once per term to be used instead of walking, and it will stay so. Even when your sims are auto-sent to class, they'll hoverboard automatically to class.

Caveat 1: the hoverboard IS slower than a bike, so it only saves you time if you live in one of the dorms that are right on the university grounds, or some house/dorm that's adjacent to them. If you live in the normal sorority, or even farther away from the university quad, you may actually need more time to get to class if you hoverboard all the time.

Caveat 2: at least in my game, wearing the backpack seems to prevent my sim from using the hoverboard (and a few other things). I just sell the backpack from the start.

Thanks for all the tips. I got UL just before Christmas and grinding the heck out of it so that all my sims can finish college. I don't use mods so I was doing it the hard and long way. This helps a lot

NP. Just a couple more random ideas:

- carrying a flame fruit around is pretty much a permanent +5 mood boost. This isn't really university specific, but if you go for 3x credits you'll need all the mood boosts you can get.

- Phys-Ed: although the tooltip only says training your Athletic skill increases school performance, actually Martial Arts count too. Not that it's much fun to train that one instead, but if you already maxed out Athletic or wanted to train MA anyway, it's another choice

- Phys-Ed: the football counts for your school performance too, not just the kicky bag. And the football makes you a jock, as opposed to the kicky bag making you a rebel. So basically you have more choice which group to advance in. Also having more such ball types in your inventory will make your sim more likely to play with them and have fun in the practical activity class instead of using the boring skeleton.

For anyone who truly does not give a crap about studying, there are mods to give your sims all the 'benefits' that a UL degree bestows, without having to bloat your game save by traveling to Sims University and without having to take up space with a community college in your town.

Well, indeed, but some of us still wanted to go to college just to do something different now and then. Kinda like going on world adventures, so to speak.

Plus, you don't necessarily have to go full tilt with the "not giving a screw" theme. You can mix a little from column A and a little from column B, if that works better for you. Like for example skip the unrealistic sleeping in class, but still play with an IPad in the break, like millions of teenagers actually do. Or some other mix.