<p>My son worked really hard to maintain a B average in his AP Calculus class as a junior last term. We even hired a tutor to help him. We were shocked (in the best way) when he earned a 5 on his AP Calc test.</p>
<p>S told us that teachers at his school are reviewing whether to raise grades based on AP test performance. Of course, this would be a most welcome boost to GPA. </p>
<p>My question is how should we pursue this possibility and is it customary for schools to amend grades in AP classes based on test scores?</p>
<p>If they do raise the grade, great, but if they don’t the admissions committees will still see the great AP score and think the teacher was a tough grader.</p>
<p>I know that some teachers will raise the classroom grade based on the score on the AP test. Many of these teachers will state this up front and what the parameters are - for example, that if they pass the AP test (3 or higher) they’ll get no lower than a certain grade and that if they receive a 5 they’ll get an A, etc. I’m not sure what you can do to pursue it other than to contact the school, both the teachers and the administrators, and let them know you strongly support the idea. If you can find out the policies of raising grades based on AP tests at other good schools in your general area, especially the top HS from the top district, and if they base grades on the results of the AP test, then you can inform your school of that and use it for some leverage.</p>
<p>I would just contact the teacher to follow up on this. Junior year one of my son’s teachers was (shocked and) pleased by my son’s AP test score and sent us a note during the summer to my sons telling him he had gone in and increased his grade. If the teacher has mentioned this, just follow up. I don’t find following up on what your son said to be unreasonable or overbearing at all. Better yet, you could have your son follow up.</p>
<p>I agree that your son should follow up with his teacher. You should also check to see if the school and/or district has a specific policy already in place regarding this issue; otherwise, it is probably left entirely to the teacher’s discretion (which is why your son should follow up).</p>
<p>My son had his final grade raised from a B+ to an A in AP Music Theory, based on his performance on the AP exam. It was a pleasant surprise when we saw that on his official transcript the following fall. Hope your son is rewarded as well! :)</p>
<p>Are all of y’all at private schools? I am sort of shocked that teachers are able to go in and change grades. It takes a lot of effort in my school district. </p>
<p>I’m curious: Do they downgrade as well based on AP exam results? Are they using this score as the final and thus raising the grade? Or are they just going in and changing various grades to raise the overall average?</p>
<p>My friend would like this policy. He or she had a a C+ in the class and got a five on the BC exam. However, that class has an average score of almost 5, with only 3 to 5 students out of 60 getting 4 or lower.</p>
<p>Since AP scores come out in the summer, when do the teachers see them and go back and change the grades? Is it done in time for early fall apps/transcripts to go out?
This would never happen at our gigantic public sch/system.</p>
<p>AP exams have no bearing on final grades here except in the negative. Every student who takes an AP class is required to take the AP exam for that class. The school sys. pays for the exams. If a student does not take the exam, their final grade is dropped one letter grade.</p>
<p>Why would you be “pursuing” anything? Your son told you that the teachers are already reviewing the issue – stay out of it and let them make their decision. They’ve already figured out the issue, they don’t need parents to tell them what they already know. </p>
<p>If it’s really important to you, I’d point out that parental lobbying could backfire – they might just decide that they want to maintain some discretion and control.</p>
<p>FWIW, at my son’s high school, there was a policy in at least one class that a 4 or a 5 on an AP exam would raise the class grade by 1 point, if applicable (so a B would become an A, a C would become a B) – but that policy was in place before the exam – and I don’t remember whether it was for all classes or just one particular teacher.</p>
<p>I was involved in trying to get my school to count AP Econ (not the actual test, just the course) to fulfill a consumer econ requirement. I researched other local hs policies with help from CC members in my area, and drafted a proposal, but it all went through the school board, not the teacher. While I wasn’t successful, I feel I handled it in the best and most neutral way. This seems a board or district policy, not an individual teacher issue.</p>
<p>Packmom, in our case the “note” from the teacher came late in August when they were back getting the classrooms ready for the post-Labor Day start. Our school administrative offices and teachers are gone from the last day of June to about mid-August so it was not something that happened immediately after the grades were distributed. Of course for seniors it is moot (if the grade is raised) as they are all signed up for college and the final transcripts are sent. My guess is they don’t bother to change any senior grades. We don’t weight grades so the “boost” of a grade from a B to an A or a C to a B for high performance on an AP exam is nice compensation for the younger kids.</p>
<p>This bothers me–which is odd, considering I’m the father of a born test-taker who got 5’s on all three of his APs this year in spite of getting a B or B+ in two of those classes. The policy we’re discussing would obviously have benefited him (not that it would have had any practical effect, since he took APs only as a senior and all decisions based on GPA were made months ago). </p>
<p>But I thought a class grade was supposed to be about not just mastery of the material, but the quality and consistency of work done over the course of the year. It seems to me that basing the grade on the AP results is essentially the same as basing it on the results of an exam. And if all grades at my son’s school were based strictly on the results of exams, he would have a 4+ GPA and probably be Ivy- or just-sub-Ivy bound. I suppose I shouldn’t object to this, but I do wonder why there should be one grading philosophy for AP classes and another for all other classes.</p>
<p>Every teacher at our school sets his or her own grading policy. Class participation, homework, # of quizzes, papers, etc, used for the grade can be different, even for different sections of the same class if taught by different teachers. However, I have never heard of any class at our school in which a course grade was affected by the AP test score.</p>
<p>The reason that a teacher might consider the AP score in raising a grade might be to add incentive for kids to take the AP and do well. The rationale is really no different than offering a student to improve a grade with an extra credit assignment. Factoring in the AP score does not necessarily mean that it determines the entire grade.</p>
I suppose it could be fair as long as the AP exam has a clearly defined weight in relation to the rest of the grading rubric. What bothers me is the idea of saying, “If you get a 5, it’s an automatic A, if you get a 4, it’s an automatic B+,” or whatever. If you do this, then smart kids who are confident in their ability to ace the AP will punt the coursework and trust in the test to bail them out, while kids who are less sure of their test-taking abilities will work their butts off.</p>
<p>Schools that use a weighted GPA scale for certain classes AP or rigorous or honors, whatever you want to call them… are doing exactly this - saying that there is a different philosophy of grading.</p>
<p>^^^ That’s why I asked whether the AP exam score just subs for the semester of work, or how it factors in. Seems silly to let one test determine the grade for the whole semester, though, yeah, ds would have happily taken his 5 on the BC Cal test last year rather than the 86 he got in the class.</p>
<p>this practice (one i’ve never heard of before reading this thread) seems unethical. having a teacher go in and change a grade after the fact (presumably in late august or september) just seems wrong. </p>
I disagree completely. Saying that class A is inherently more rigorous than class B, and that therefore a given relative level of performance in class A should be worth more than the same relative level of performance in class B, is entirely different from saying, “in class A your grade will be determined by a rubric that assigns a particular weight to each piece of graded work you are assigned, while in class B your grade will be determined that way UNLESS you get a certain score on a national exam, in which case that score will overrule everything else you’ve done.”</p>