I’m taking PLTW Design and Drafting and my teacher is kind of notorious for giving out bad grades on a whim and long story short I’m already borderline passing third week in lol. I’m on my freshman year and I’m taking that class for my required art credit. I just wanted to know if getting say, a B or B- on that class would affect my college admissions later much. I want to know while it’s still somewhat under my control. Thank you.
Do colleges take a serious look at PLTW courses?
Yes.
That said, a B will not keep you out of college.
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Yes, and it depends. At top schools they will look at all of your grades and some schools are going to focus on certain core classes or things related to your intended major. Your overall GPA matters and this is a building block.
PLTW High School courses are a college level class. If you do well you call apply for college credit. That class is a version of this I believe: High School Engineering Curriculum Grades 9-12 | PLTW
Figure out with your teacher where you are struggling. The directions should be straight forward as this is the first in a series of classes, but you need to take time to work through the project. Most kids struggle in 9th grade because they can not just wing it any more. Things might have been easier in middle school and now there is more independent work, but if you show an interest in the concepts the teacher will help you. The teacher honestly may be tougher in this class because they wanted to teach engineering and were told this is an art elective or they wanted to teach art or graphic design and were told to teach this engineering course. Who knows, but you can do this.
It is interesting your school counts it as an art credit. Kind of cool, but do you have an interest in engineering? Or did your school just schedule you into an elective?
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So you are a HS freshman taking a college level course. It is not surprising you are having some trouble.
If you think they are giving bad grades on a whim either:
- You don’t understand the grading criteria and it is not whimsical
- It is whimsical and you need to get to know the teacher better to figure out what they want.
In either case, Ask if the teacher has office hours and go over a project/hw /test that you got a bad grade on. Ask what the grading rubric is and go over your project and how it was graded. REdo that project based on what you learn from that (not for a grade, but to understand what was wanted) and ask what the grade would it get now.
For the next few homeworks/projects go to the help hours and get help so you understand what is expected.
Better to learn how to do this now rather than too late in college.
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Sorry for the late reply. It’s a mandatory course for all freshmen at my school. I don’t have a particular interest in engineering and I prefer pure sciences. And yeah, I definitely will have to study for this class because middle school has given me zero work ethic.
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Thank you and sorry for the late reply. The very first assignment I did was as a group we all received a 50, and so did a lot of other groups. I asked her to go over it she said she doesn’t have time. No office hours either. Next assignment, paper tower project. A few groups received a zero because the teacher found their projects on the floor the next day for whatever reason. But all this is after she told an assistant principal she would “change her ways.” It used to be so bad a bunch of kids once joined up and reported her as a group. She’s one teacher out of around 300 staff members and 5 that teach the same class and it’s ONLY her that everyone knows immediately by name. That’s the kind of reputation she carries. This has become more of a rant than the original question so I think I should stop now. But yes, study, work, and get grading rubrics. I understand, and if I fail, I can be at peace knowing that there is absolutely nothing I can do. Thank you.
I would go up the chain of command…Dept head, Vice Principal, Principal… tell them the facts of what is happening. Is it a requirement that teachers have help time? That they make an appt with you if they don’t have regular office hours? Sometimes you get a bad teacher and you have to report it.