I am currently a junior in high school and have enrolled in AP Biology. However, I am extremely concerned as I am looking at top colleges and have a C in the class. I have failed, like straight F, the most recent test, as well have many of my friends. The AP test apparently only takes a 30% to get a 3, which is good and all, except that the teacher uses AP questions and doesn’t curve the tests so my GPA is suffering. Furthermore, AP and Honors classes are weighted the same in my school so students in honors chem have like As and A+s so my C makes me look especially bad. I am in the top 5 students in my class, and even the current valedictorian is struggling nearly as bad as I am. I am afraid a C will ruin my chances at top colleges. I have spent upwards of 15 hours in one day studying for another test earlier in the year where I pulled a C, one of the higher grades. It is taking a toll on me and the rest of my classes, extracurricular, etc. I was thinking of going down to my guidance office to try and do something, but I don’t know what I would say. It is too late to drop out without it looking bad on my transcript. Also, this is only the first year the teacher has taught the class so nobody has had to go through it yet, last years kids had significantly higher grades. Help please?
P.S. Sorry if this isn’t the right thread for this, I didn’t know where else to put it.
I’m not sure what this has to do with AP chem but maybe a typo in the title? I’m sure one of the site administrators will move it to the right forum.
My daughter went through this with her AP chem teacher. New teacher, didn’t curve, etc…
Here’s what my daughter did - she went to the teacher first to share her concerns about the grading. She also shared how the other AP science teachers were doing their grading. She also talked to the department chair who she had for another class and he sat in a few times and gave the teacher some suggestions. By then a large group of students, DD included, spoke to the teacher again, more so from the perspective of asking for help on how to succeed in the class.
While I personally didn’t get involved, I know other parents not only went to the teacher but also to the principle.
After two months of advocating, students were allowed to do test corrections for partial credit, she allowed students to drop one bad test grade (the first test of the year was 75% on material that wasn’t covered anywhere in the text or in class so most students dropped that one), and she started running helpful study sessions before class. It was never great because she didn’t really know what she was doing and my daughter got outside help from other teachers and friend’s older siblings studying chem in college, but she got through it without a hit to her GPA.
Thanks for your input! Also this thread is about Chem, I don’t know why I wrote Bio, I took that as a sophomore. I just wrote it instinctively I guess.
talk to her to get some help. I highly recommend picking up a prep book and try to supplement what you have learned due to AP especially being heavily reliant on application instead regurgitating what you learned