<p>Hi CC folks,
I'm looking for opinions on how I should react and how colleges would react to this.
I'm a junior entering senior year. In my junior year, I took AP Calc AB. My teacher was a bit hard on us, but my grade suffered the most out of everybody's. I was only one of 3 people to get a C, and the other 2 were seniors. Worst part was that I had an F for most of the year and it really stressed me out and pretty much ruined my junior year. The 3 other APs I was taking were fine. I never had any doubts about my math skills before, but she kept attributing my poor test performance due to poor Algebra notation and skills.
Anyway, fast forward during AP registration time. My teacher had forced me to have a conference with my parents. She told them I was the second worst student she's ever had, and that taking the AP would be a waste of money.
...so I took it anyway and got a 5, along with all As in 5 other classes, a 5 on AP Bio, and 4s on APUSH and Lit. I also took my SAT Math II in June and got an 800.
Right now I don't know what to think. It's been on my mind for the past month. She's a reputable teacher, no doubt- she's much loved by some. But I can't help but thinking she was somewhat partial after all these contradictory results. Maybe because I skipped Pre-calc? Should I tell my counselor? What would colleges think? I'M SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW.</p>
<p>She’s obviously crazy. I’ve had teachers like this and you just have to ignore them. You should ABSOLUTELY tell your counselor who will be able to address that C in her letter (maybe not directly, but certainly by highlighting your AP score). </p>
<p>It sucks that you had to take the C but sometimes people are really close-minded and stubborn in their bad impressions of you. Is your Calc BC taught by the same teacher? If not, a solid BC grade in the fall may help convince adcom that you’re not in fact a disaster at math.</p>
<p>I would so stick it to her face with that AP report. But then again I’m 12 inside so w/e</p>
<p>Perhaps the course was a lot harder than the AP test, and really depended on the precalculus material that was in the course that you skipped?</p>
<p>At least you are probably going to get a quarter or semester of subject credit when you enroll at a college or university.</p>
<p>If you want to check your math knowledge against what a university expects, you may want to look here:</p>
<p>Calculus (see the Math 1A sample final exams): [Choosing</a> an Appropriate First Math Course — UC Berkeley College of Engineering](<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/new-students/choosing-an-appropriate-first-math-course.html]Choosing”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/new-students/choosing-an-appropriate-first-math-course.html)</p>
<p>Precalculus (try the on-line placement test): [Choosing</a> the First Math Course at UC Berkeley - UC Berkeley Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses_1stcourse.html]Choosing”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses_1stcourse.html)</p>
<p>Anyway, fast forward during AP registration time. My teacher had forced me to have a conference with my parents. She told them I was the second worst student she’s ever had, and that taking the AP would be a waste of money.
…so I took it anyway and got a 5, along with all As in 5 other classes, a 5 on AP Bio, and 4s on APUSH and Lit. I also took my SAT Math II in June and got an 800.</p>
<p>lol…</p>
<p>My younger son was told by his (@#$%^ AP Euro teacher) that he wouldn’t do well on the AP exam (he was running an A in her class, but got a crappy grade on her crazy mid-term exam.)…when he got a 5 he called her up at home and told her…lol…she’s the type who HATES being wrong, so the phone call was sooooooo sweet.</p>
<p>He ended up being the Sal of his class and in his graduation speech he made a joke that being in her class was like Dante’s ninth circle of hell and the crowd went crazy clapping. She left the school after that. </p>
<p>She had a horrid history of having favorites and being unreasonable to others…</p>
<p>Some schools have a policy of changing AP grades after the exam results…does yours?</p>
<p>What would colleges think?</p>
<p>they probably will think that you didn’t do your homework…that’s often the reason why some AP kids get lower grades.</p>
<p>You get a 5 and your grade automatically gets changed to a B [if lower] in my school. Have you asked your counselor/anyone at your school if that is possible?</p>
<p>^Take that back, only for some classes.</p>
<p>Thanks, folks!
I’m going to definitely ask about that automatic score change.
mom2collegekids, that sounds like some awesome revenge lol. Unfortunately I’m way to intimidated by her to do something like that, but much respect to your son for doing something so awesome.
I spent the most time on my AP Calc homework. It was priority over my other ones. Our teacher never graded homework anyway, but I just felt so inadequate that I felt the need to study 10 times harder than I did for everything else.
I skipped pre-calc but I’m pretty sure my foundation is pretty solid. I switched schools and they put me in College alg/trig, even though I took Alg II/trig the year before. The next placement was honors calc, but I felt confident to get back ahead and go to AP.
I’m positive BC is not the same teacher.I’m thinking about switching to it (because I signed up for stats). Let’s hope they let me.</p>
<p>I got a D in AP Calc and a 5 on the exam</p>
<p>It isn’t that common, but not so rare for a student to do poorly in an AP course or any course, for that matter and score high on the exam, and vice versa. It takes more than knowing the material and being able to do all of the problems to do well in a class. </p>
<p>You ask about the ramifications of a “C” in a major course your junior year which is a year when your grades are scrutinized. The answer is that,yes, it will hurt you in the top schools, no way around it. Why should HPY and other selective schools look past this when they have enough kids who have no C’s in that course and also have 5s on the AP exam? For most schools, it won’t make a difference, as they do not have that many students in that situation, but, yes, for those schools that need to look for anything to distinguish students because they are only accepting 5-6 kids out of a batch of 100, that is a ready made reason to cross you off the list unless you have some compelling skill/hook that they want. In that case, they would be willing to overlook it.</p>
<p>charl1esh33n: You’re clearly good at Math. Some teachers just hate their lives. </p>
<p>Example-
I had a AP Bio teacher who decided to drop everyone’s grades 10 percent. Basically, he started moving assignments/taking them out of the online grade portal. I was the only one to complain. He went against his syllabus a day before semester grades were due. So what did he do? <- I was the QUIETEST girl in that class.</p>
<p>He made sure everyone though I was LOUD, disrespectful, stupid [he showed the vice a test marked 70% without the 25% curve since highest grade was 75%], and just made up plain lies. He even got a girl from my class to print out something I said about him on facebook. I got suspended and he kept asking people to check what I write. In the end, my rep wasn’t ruined with any of the faculty and even the head of discipline [who was in charge of my suspension] loves me.</p>
<p>Some teachers act less mature than students.-_-</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant.^</p>
<p>If you feel your work was graded differently, then ask to see it. If she can’t provide a record, then have your parents talk to the principal. I was in a similar situation once.</p>
<p>Grades have more to them that knowing the material and doing well on tests. There’s this little matter of turning in assignments on time. My DS (rising HS sophomore) got all As in his honors bio course but a D overall - totally justified. </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>What kind of schools will you be applying to?</p>
<p>Do look into the grade change at your school. What scores did the other C students get? </p>
<p>As Cpt noted above, at top schools that C will probably hurt you. It will appear to them that you didn’t do homework or turned in stuff late or something. I’m not quite understanding what were the low grades that resulted in a C…quizzes? tests? mid-term/final exams? </p>
<p>Anyway…be sure that you apply to a good variety of match/safety schools as back-ups. :)</p>
<p>Good luck with the grade change.</p>
<p>you got lucky. or cheated on the ap test</p>
<p>The other people who got Cs didn’t take the AP, either because they were talked/scared out of it or because of other reasons. My friend did have a C most of the year, but he was inexplicably bumped to a B- by the teacher at the end of year (I had a 76, he had a 78. I didn’t get bumped a single percent.)
I should clarify a few things. 0% of my grade was composed of homework, meaning it wasn’t for a grade. The only grades were tests. I had a hard time understanding why I would do so poorly. I failed over half the tests. It had me pretty depressed, I never failed a test before in my life (to which she responded, “There are firsts for everything.”).
Looking back, I think it was her grading style that really destroyed me. I would rarely get partial credit on even the most minor of errors. I lost 15% on a test solely from a line in my slope-field being less than 5 degrees off. Really minute notation errors cost me whole problems as well, and when there are on average 7 or so problems on a test and only 10 tests a semester, those points matter huge. Maybe it’s my bad for not adapting, but I tried unsuccessfully. Putting too much attention to detail gave me time issues and put me in the same predicament grade-wise.
About what I’m going to apply to, my reaches will be JHU, WashU, and UC Berkley. I’ll apply to a lot of schools between that and UNC Chapel Hill. My safety is McGill and others in Canada. If I get into none of these I’ll leave the country. I even got my Canadian citizenship already if I decide to stay and settle. HYP is way outta my league (as are probably all of my reaches). I might as well shred money instead of applying.
SeniorIndian, my God, that teacher should be in an insane asylum! That kind of conduct should be illegal! Good job for having enough self control to not beat that &*#%$@ with a ring stand, because I sure would!
Thanks again to all you folks for your help, except for azndarklord or whatever he is.
■■■■■ harder, mate.
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<p>My friend got a C junior year in IB Math HL and still got into Columbia the next year… :P</p>
<p>never say it’s not possible.</p>