<p>My D is taking AP Environmental against my better judgement. She has always struggled with critical thinking questions and that is the majority of the tests in this class. There is a tremendous amount of independent work and they are expected to master the details of the chapter. The teacher is not available for extra help as he says "its a college course and they need to work independently." I went to college and my professors were available.</p>
<p>Anyway, she's running a shaky C. Our school will switch her into regular environmental and it will not show a withdrawal, but D has already applied to some colleges and is told she'll need to explain why she dropped.</p>
<p>Yikes!! Which is worse - do poorly even risk a D in the AP class or switch. Then how do you explain without setting up red flags of doubt to admissions counselors.</p>
<p>She applied to Towson that says they make a decision based on grades 9 to 11 so I'm not sure what that means. Other schools are UMASS, URI.</p>
<p>IMO, none of those three schools will particularly care about an AP class v regular; but they may care about a D…I actually do not know one person at any of those three schools who ever took an AP class at all…</p>
<p>I remember when my D1 was a senior and decided to drop her fall sport, as a starter and a potential captain. She had some really good reasons, but we ran it by the GC, feeling as if there would be a giant blinking red arrow drawing attention to her app showing her to be a quitter w/o sufficient senior ECs.</p>
<p>Now, nearly 10 years & 3 kids later, I can honestly tell you, your kid really needs to do the right thing for herself and not worry about some Adcom at some school. Be authentic and present a strong overall picture and the specifics are not as important.</p>
<p>So, yeah, I would tell my DD to drop the AP. As a matter of fact, in our small schools most seniors take 1 free period because they are so busy, a select few take all periods and DD was one of them. Subsequent kids did not do that and it was all around better, that one course was not only not any help in admissions, but because of the way our school was structured, she would have had a much better year without that class.</p>
<p>I am confident that she doesn’t need to let the colleges she applied to know WHY she switched, just THAT she switched. A brief memo saying something like -</p>
<p>Update on courses in progress: currently enrolled in Environmental Science, not AP Environmental Science.</p>
<p>A switch is much better than a D grade and will make for a more pleasant senior year for your daughter.</p>
<p>Ummm… Rodney… I know plenty of people at UMass who took AP’s. </p>
<p>I’d say a switch down is clearly better than a D. Hard to say if it’s better than a C. I don’t think a C in an AP class is a killer at these schools at all.</p>
<p>Who told her this? And, at what point would she have to “explain”? After admission? when she submits final grades? I wonder if they would really notice (or care) since the class is more of an elective than a solid college prep req’t.</p>
<p>My DS2 dropped a class senior year after the first semester (he was doing fine, but it was taking too much time), and no one asked him “to explain.” As long as overall he had enough classes for admission, what’s the big deal? Is she applying to ivies or similar?</p>
<p>My initial inclination would be for her to switch, but first you should find out how the grade transfers. D’s friend switched to a lower chem class from the one she was in and her “D” went with her. If she had taken the lower class from the start, she probably would have had an A, but she wasn’t able to pull up a D to better than a B- because of how late she switched. Granted, a B- is better than a D, but a B- in the lower class didn’t look very good. At D’s school, how they treat the grade in the class a kid is switching out of varies by teacher.</p>
<p>Didn’t realize you could ‘drop’ classes in high school… but as others have said it’s important to see what will happen in regards to current work to date and how it appears on a transcript. </p>
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<p>Well he is right. I had plenty of college courses where we were expected to cover sections of material on our own to focus class time on other topics. Being told “we’re not going to cover the second half of the chapter but you’ll be expected to know it for next week’s exam” is not uncommon… especially in more advanced settings.</p>
<p>Obviously we don’t know all the details of this situation, but assuming that the entire class isn’t getting Cs and Ds then perhaps it would be a good idea to take a step back and assess what others are doing that your D is not.</p>
<p>Lafalum: thats because you must live in a geographic area where it is commonplace for open access to AP courses; around here, only the top of the class is permitted to even attempt an AP course(honors too); therefore, the kids who are attending the schools the OP has listed have not had any opportunity to do that…wasn’t trying to be rude or condescending; just trying to help…</p>
<p>and since UMass is not our state flagship, many top students here attend Rutgers Honors on full scholarship if they were to go public…</p>
<p>For the schools she has already applied to, she or her school has sent a list of what classes she is currently enrolled in. If that changes, she needs to update the list and send a correction to the schools she has already applied to. She does not need to elaborate on the reason why. I mean, she can if she WANTS to, but an explanation is not necessary.</p>
<p>Is she going to major in math or science? If not, then drop down to the regular class. Even if she is, and it will not show on transcript then I would have her transfer. </p>
<p>My S, who is very good in math in science, but doesn’t particulary care for math or science is taking regular physics and honor calculus instead of the AP versions. He is taking AP eng and Euro hist. Based on his grades and what he is telling me he is the smart kid in physics. He thoroughly enjoys school this year vs last year when he struggled in honors chem with an A** for a teacher. </p>
<p>I seriously doubt that, for most colleges, the level of one class will make or break admission to a school. Let your D enjoy her sr. year and encourage her to switch.</p>
<p>Is this necessary for a class that sounds like it’s an elective? It would be one thing if her acceptance would be “teetering” on when she took or didn’t take this class. We never thought to send in such a thing when DS2 dropped Accounting (an elective) mid-year because it affected nothing. It wasn’t required; it didn’t affect his college prep curriculum.</p>
<p>It is was something like AP Cal, and she was dropping down to Cal, that would be different for a couple of reasons.</p>
<p>Rodney, you’re right - I’m in MA, where AP classes are fairly commonplace. And since UMass Amherst is our flagship, there are a lot of kids there who have taken them.</p>
<p>When “dropping” from an honors class to a college prep class, at our school your grade follows you but you get a 10 point boost. So if you have an 67 in an honors class when you decide to move down to CP, you come into the class with a 77. Don’t know how much of a boost they give an AP grade. Also don’t know how common this practice is at other schools. It seems pretty fair to me, though.</p>
<p>I agree with other posters that it is better to get a good grade in the non AP class than a low grade like a D. @post 17 above, it is amazing to me what complex structures there are for weighting grades. In my own HS experience, nothing was weighted, not AP, honors etc. I think gym was not counted in your GPA, but I think things like art and music may have counted. My D’s school does not weight grades for honors, etc. or calculate an official GPA.</p>