<p>I can see counting the test as part of the grade, but for the whole grade? I don’t know. I’ve heard some of these AP exams are notoriously generous with the 5s, often requiring 80% or even less for a 5 (someone correct me if they know better).</p>
<p>I don’t think giving a kid an A in a course solely for getting 80% on one exam is a good idea. Plus, especially with calculus, kids really need to work problems and know it as well as possible. Anything that can encourage them to take the material more seriously, ie both classwork and the standardized exam, is a plus as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>In my school (a public school), it’s a really widespread practice to change grades after AP scores. However, a few of my teachers (for example, my AP Calculus teacher) refuse to do it. That teacher also refused to round any grades (even an 89.99%). Also, teachers that teach AP courses taken mainly by Seniors would offer to change grades but know that they won’t have to because, well, the students would be graduated and wouldn’t care. Teachers at my school that changed grades did it as an incentive to take the test and do well and study for the AP test (and therefore actually know the material, somewhat at least).</p>
<p>Other than that, though…I felt it’s a pretty silly process, but it automatically happened for my Chem grade and I didn’t complain (kinda just take what I can get). It’s wrong, but it happens, and I don’t see it changing soon (would that many kids really complain about a method that’s letting them get A’s? Sure, it’s not exactly right, but people don’t often complain about things that give them an advantage).</p>
<p>the first time I had ever heard of this practice was here on CC; this is not a common practice here in NJ (or at least I have never heard of it)…I wonder if the school profiles reflect this; sounds not only unethical, but also grade inflationary…if this is a widespread national practice, I imagine that schools around here might want to put on their school profile: “final grades are not adjusted based on AP scores”…</p>
<p>I only skimmed this thread, but your original question was, “should I let the college know?” My answer: why bother? Colleges don’t really look at a student’s transcript except to ensure he/she hasn’t nose-dived. The do care about the AP score. </p>
<p>I do wonder about transcripts that change based on a score. My bias is that that’s really terrible. Goes to show the teachers are only teaching to the test. I’m not a fan of a zillion APs in the first place, but now the teacher doesn’t have a chance to actually grade the student? Ridiculous.</p>
<p>No, not at all. With weighted classes they’re not saying there’s a different philosophy of grading…simply that the material is more rigorous so the letter grade (A, B, C) packs a slightly bigger whallop (4.5, 3.5, etc). That’s not at all a different philosophy for how the grades are earned.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of the OP’s situation, and it doesn’t sit well with me.</p>
<p>As an example, my D worked like a dog to earn and maintain an A- in AP Chem 2nd semester. Disappointingly, on the AP exam she scored a 3. Should her semester grade be lowered to a B or C? That would be crazy, but it’s the same principle.</p>
You need to look at it differently. Some schools require that the AP test be taken as part of the AP course so in that case it would make sense to include the score as part of the grade but that can’t be done until after the AP scores are in. Since grades need to be turned in before that point one could consider that grade as tentative until the AP score is in.</p>
<p>And as calmom stated, schools that don’t require the AP test be taken in order to get credit for the course can still use it as a part of the grade and incentive for the student to both take the test and attempt to do well on it. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the goal of most of these AP classes is to teach the material to enable the student to do well on the standardized across the country AP test. Various teacher’s teaching styles, content, grading policies might vary widely but since all students across the country essentially take the same AP test then if they achieve a ‘5’ on it, which means they’ve mastered this material, then why shouldn’t they receive an ‘A’ in the class?</p>
<p>So if you think of this as ‘including the AP test score’ as part of the grade via a necessary adjustment due to the timings of grades being turned in vs when AP test scores are available, as opposed to ‘changing the grade’, then IMO at least, it’s not unethical and even makes sense.</p>
<p>As I wrote earlier, I can see using it as part of the grade, but simply giving someone a grade based on only this exam presents numerous problems, as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>What about the kid who self studies 10 APs but doesn’t actually sign up for the classes? If they get a 5 on all these exams should the class just be added onto their transcript with a grade of “A”? They did exactly what the other kid did.</p>
<p>Should a kid who gets a 5 on an AP Physics or Chem test also be given credit for this without having ever had to conduct an experiment or write a lab report? </p>
<p>Since most kids report their AP scores along with their GPA, they are in essence being given credit twice for the exact same accomplishment. They get a weighted A on their transcript, along with a reportable score of 5 on an AP test. This would only be fair if every school accross the country did exactly the same thing. </p>
<p>And, as I wrote earlier, an 80% on a test with a lot of MC questions doesn’t indicate mastery of the material. I would certainly not want every kid who merely scored a 5 on an AP test to think they have adequately mastered the material and can just skip the college class. Some can, some can’t, but performing well in the class gives them another indication of their actual mastery.</p>
<p>as bovertine said with respect to fairness, if it isn’t happening at every school, it shouldn’t be happening at any school. and for transparency’s sake, i also agree that there should be somewhere on the school profile that indicates that this is taking place. college admissions offices should have this information when reviewing the transcript. </p>
<p>i need to ask my son if he heard of anything like this at his high school. all i can think is ‘wow’.</p>
<p>^^ But there’s no parity anyway between different districts, between different schools within a district, or even within a school since there can be a big variance in grading with one teacher vs another. This is one reason why bumping the grade based on the standardized AP test might make sense - especially if it’s for a grade of a 5 which isn’t a grade one casually receives.</p>
<p>The fact that some colleges don’t care about this is unfortunate. IMHO, Kids need to take labs. When I took Freshman chem, years and years ago, the chem lab was a separate 1 unit from the Freshman chem class. As I recall, they would have given me credit for my AP score, but not for the lab. But I’m not sure. I took the class anyway, and the lab, which convinced me I was neither a chemist nor a lab tech. And my AP score was pretty much of a fluke.</p>
<p>My D’s high school doesn’t weight grades at all - I don’t know if any public HS in the state do, for that matter. The highest GPA she can get is a 4.0. (The school doesn’t rank or have a V or S, either.)</p>
<p>Her APUSH grade can move up to an A for both semesters with a 5 in the AP test or to an A for 2nd semester with a 4. It is a disclosed practice within the HS.</p>
Like I said, bumping for the test, or including the test. But only the test?</p>
<p>Some of these kids are masters of the standardized test. Calc BC is a tough test, but like all comprehensive, broad based exams it allows kids to specialize. Because there are so many diverse subject areas, you could probably get through the exam and even score a five without ever being exposed to certain subject areas. Especially when the curve requires you to only answer 80% or so correctly for a five. You could skip all the integration by parts, or Taylor series, or whatever, and just concentrate on the subjects in your wheelhouse, and try to pick out the easy problems.</p>
<p>That’s why I still think the best combination for an important subject like calculus is a good course and a good standardized exam.</p>
<p>It’s actually closer to 60%. You could get a 5 on BC if you completely mastered the AB material and only learned a small amount of the extra stuff (you could completely skip series for instance). I don’t have a big problem with bumping after the fact, but I think the AP tests would need more detailed grading to do it fairly.</p>
<p>There’s also the problem of English and History classes, which would often have long reading/writing assignments. Obviously the respective AP exams teach a completely different skill.</p>
<p>I don’t really see how mastering this skill can land a 5 on APUSH or AP Spanish Literature. I don’t think a kid who performs well in SAT I would perform well in the essay part of the exam. APUSH, for example, has about 10% test takers scored 5. I imagine a typical HS class would have more than 10% of students getting “A”. Think about, a class of 30 would have 5 “A” students easily. Hence, the AP sore can be used to boost the border cases (89-90, 79-80 etc.)</p>
<p>^^^
Yeah, that’s fine by me. I’m fine with giving it more weight than that. I’m just not in favor of using it to entirely replace a grade in a class.</p>
<p>If somebody wants to self study for the AP grade and credit, fine. But if somebody wants an A in a high school course, possible weighting for the GPA, a reportable score of 5 for admissions purposes, and possible college credit all from the results of only one test and nothing else, I’m not in favor of that. That’s just way too much power in the hands of the CollegeBoard.</p>
<p>I think there is a big difference between giving an auto-A for scoring a 5 on the AP test and boosting a grade for scoring a high on the AP test. I see absolutely no difference between a school that does not weight grades for AP classes boosting the score one grade (C to B or B to A or whatever) for the test performance (which is and should be a part of the total class measurements) and boosting the GPA for an AP class. In fact the GPA boost in high schools that weight GPA gets boosted no matter what grade the student gets in class or on an AP test. I do not believe a student should get an auto-A for a 5 on the test.</p>
<p>The concept of “good testers” in my opinion matters not. There are kids that are “good testers” in a typical classroom and get the boost from scoring well on tests even if they are mediocre at turning in papers, participating in class etc. etc. So I’m not sure why good testers has bearing on the discussion.</p>
<p>I don’t think self study comes into the picture at all. Kids that want to self study and take AP tests either to increase their college apps or for the credit in college they get is an entirely different situation.</p>
One difference, of course, is that for schools that weight AP classes the boost is across the board, regardless of one’s performance on the test or in the classwork. You could get a D in the class and a 1 on the exam and still get that 1-point weighting boost at my son’s school. And that’s as it should be. The weighting boost is a recognition that the class is harder than others–harder for those who do poorly in it, as well as for those who do well in it. </p>
<p>Also, I think saying the test performance “is and should be a part of the total class measurements” is begging the question. Is an AP class essentially an exam prep course spun out to school-year length and shoehorned into the school curriculum? Or is it an integral part of that curriculum–a class like any other, and for GPA purposes, assessed like any other–but specifically designed to cover the material that is tested on the AP exam?</p>