I am very nervous how colleges will interpret this grade. I do not believe that the class was fairly graded. My grade was based on 70% test 25% labs and 5% homework. My teacher gave very difficult tests that were more advanced than what she taught the class. The final exam was an AP test, including my 1st semester when we had not learned all the material. Is it worth it to explain this situation to colleges or will I sound unprepared for college by complaining?
Admissions officers are very used to seeing bad AP Biology grades. Don’t waste your essay on trying to explain it, because there is no point.
Complaining about a teacher is NEVER a good look. Don’t do it.
Unsolicited advice: AP Bio is a difficult class but I’m guessing that some students did fine. It is too late to change this grade but going forward and as you move to college level classes please understand that you should not expect that every piece of information that ends up on an exam will be fed to you in the classroom. You will be required to read and retain information from textbook reading assignments, homework, and other course materials. If you find yourself struggling in another class in the future try to seek out help early on – from a teacher, online resources, review books etc.
You were taking a college level class. You’re in high school. It was supposed to be hard.
Once you hit college, and college level courses, the onus is on you to learn, to take responsibility for your own education. It’s not about how the teacher chooses to weigh the grades, or whether or not think the tests were of appropriate difficulty. It’s about you finding a way to learn the material, period.
I would not mention it in an application. It does nothing to convince an Admissions Counselor that you’re a good student for their campus.
Yup! That’s what a college class is like. Now, you know. Expect that your college profs will do the same. They will test on concepts not even discussed in class. They will test on concepts that can only be found in your textbook.
If there was an extenuating circumstance that your counselor is willing to vouch for, then ask him/her to address the issue in your counselor recommendation. If not, just take your lumps and move on. Your instinct that bringing it up yourself will do more harm than good is correct. This is a situation where the French proverb, “Justifying a fault doubles it” applies.
You will convince the adcoms. That you’re not likely to do well at their college, that is.
In HS a lot of classes spoon-feed the material to you, including an in-class review before the test where you see the exact same problems from the upcoming test but with the numbers slightly changed. College, it isn’t like that. You’re responsible for learning the material in the book, mentioned in class or not. My first year at a large public often mentioned on these forums I was in office hours when a girl came in to complain about the first test. “Unfair”, she said, echoing your complaints, including not hearing the material in class so she didn’t think it was important. “Unfair” bellowed the red-faced prof in return, who went on in that vein; she left the office in tears.
You wrote in other threads you are planning on med school so you’re going to be taking more Bio and Chem classes. Trust me on this, once you’re in college you’ll look back on this class and think out of the bunch it was the easiest. You had about 200 hours of class and a full year to learn the material. In a quarter-system college you’ll cover the same material in 20 weeks and about 60 class hours, probably in more depth too.
How did you do on the actual AP test? Are you considering retaking the class?
I would suggest taking the equivalent class at community college for grade recovery, but that might not be a good move given your premed aspirations (grade will count for med school admissions no matter what happens, and often cc classes aren’t preferred)… but you could consider an online grade recovery option such as BYU’s UC-approved AP Bio class. Obviously in-person is better for lab sciences, but you had that experience already; the online class could at least solidify the material for you and hopefully replace the grade(s) in your GPA. You’re going to have to knock bio out of the park sooner or later if you want to go to med school, so maybe getting back on the horse in the coming year is a better plan than just letting it lie 'til college…
I agree with the posters above.
Another thing you may not have realized is the goalposts have been moving. Let me explain.
You weren’t doing great in this class and then one morning at the end woke up to find that you had a D+. You write “My teacher gave very difficult tests” which implies you weren’t doing so great on them all year long. The question is, what do you do in response? They don’t hold an assembly to announce expectations are changing as you move into higher grades, nor do they tell you in class. It’s something you’re supposed to pick up on your own and not everyone does (or they don’t grasp it completely).
But the point is that when you noticed you weren’t doing well in this class the expectation now is that you will do something about it. Preferably several things. Talk to the teacher about things you don’t understand. Talk with classmates who are doing better. Form study groups. Use online resources like Khan Academy. A quick web search shows there are lots of online material for AP Biology.
When you write in a college essay to “explain” how unfair this class was, what they will hear is you had a problem and did little or nothing to fix it. And even at the time of applying to college still haven’t learned anything from the experience. Probably not the message that is in your best interests to send…
There are many many prep books for AP Biology if you can’t afford to buy them your local library probably has some. If you take AP classes in the future I suggest you check them out and make sure you learn any material your teacher hasn’t covered.
I don’t receive my AP scores until July. I thought about doing dual enrollment but I cannot afford it. I may take an online course like the one you described.
@mathmom I bought a complete AP Biology set with a book, flashcards, and a question booklet at the beginning of the class. The material in the books was a simplified version of the material my teacher included in the tests.
Was the D+ for one semester or the entire year, what was your first semester grade if the school breaks it out like that? At this point, just hope you get a 4 or 5 to counter the grade, if you do, you can try to explain the difference between the grade and test score, without complaining as other have also noted.
On the labs and homework - had you typically gotten A’s on those? It is one thing to perform poorly on tests, and another to also perform poorly on assigned classwork. This is not me trying to judge your character at all, I am just trying to help you via what I see through the post. I took AP Bio as a sophomore and AP Chem as a junior, so I hope that if the work was also an issue, that I can provide you with some sources that I think may help you with whatever science you pursue next year 
I did great on the assignments and labs but assignments were 5% of my grade and labs were 25%. Next year I’m taking AP Chemistry
I ended up getting a C- in the class and a 2 on the test.
Looks like your teacher grades slightly more leniently than AP graders. 2 on the AP test is like a D grade, but D+/C- is slightly higher.
Grading based on mostly tests which include problems that require thinking to apply what was taught in class to new problems, rather than just relying on memorized information with very little based on homework is typical in college courses, so it looks like your teacher is trying to emulate a college course in grading format, rather than just teach college-level material in high school format like many AP course teachers do.
That’s just the reality; you can’t complain because it IS supposed to be a college course (although many teachers in the US fail to meet this standard). For you, it may have been frustrating and you weren’t able to learn the material; that could have partially been the teachers fault, but also yours. My calc teacher was very similar this year; the class average was the C- range.