<p>My situation is kind of strange. I received an F in my AP Chemistry class last year, but I ended up with a 5 on the AP Exam and an 800 on the Chemistry SAT II test. Would the standardized exam scores offset the F?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, first of all, how the hell did that happen?</p>
<p>I don’t think so. GPA is more important that SATIIs and AP exams scores. They might think you’re lazy (hence the F in the class) but got lucky on the tests. It’ll help if you explained the F in the class.</p>
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<p>An F in a class implies either a total lack of comprehension or that there was something personal between the student and a teacher. You can’t get an 800 and a 5 on luck; that is absurd. He obviously extensively comprehended the material but perhaps did something to offset the teacher. Did you cheat on exams multiple times? Did you have attitude problems in his class? If there is no rational reason for the F then you really should have it resolved with your dean because that simply wouldn’t be fair. Otherwise, yes, the F will hurt you, as it could show disciplinary/ethical issues. I’m just speculating right now.</p>
<p>Colleges know what *failed the test, aced the SAT exam * means. It generally means you didn’t do your homework. Now, undoubtedly the homework was ridiculous and stupid. But colleges are reluctant to admit students who don’t do the work - at some point, homework stops being ridiculous and stupid, and students in the habit of not doing it hit a brick wall.</p>
<p>If you have all As except this one F, I expect a little tapdancing will get you into some pretty good schools (not, probably, elite ones, though, unless you have something else going for you besides good test scores). But a bad or soso GPA, even with high test scores, will doom you for a lot of schools.</p>
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<p>The school I went to had a policy of failing someone with more than 10 unexplained absences in a class. Perhaps the OP’s school has a similar policy.</p>
<p>What was the class average? My HS’s AP Calculus class has a pretty tough curve (not this bad, mind you), but the kids have a pretty damn impressive record on the AP test.</p>
<p>In the beginning of the year I refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance, which resulted in the teacher berating me, kicking me out of class, and then me consulting with the ACLU and a civil rights attorney. The problem with the tests was that the teacher subtracted points off of my tests for frivolous reasons such as using blue pen, using incorrect punctuation, or not skipping enough spaces on a lab report. As frivolous as these reasons were, the principal of my school could not do anything about it and neither could I. Another interesting thing about the class was that no one besides myself received higher than a 3 on the AP Exam even though they had A’s, B’s, or C’s in the class. </p>
<p>I had no problems comprehending the material or even solving with specific methods. Points were not deducted for minor errors such as the ones mentioned above on the AP Exam or the SAT II, so my scores were higher.</p>
<p>I’m typically not for excuses, but in this case, I think you should explain the situation in a letter and get your principal to sign it, or possibly even ask your principal to write a letter of explanation for you.</p>
<p>An F in a class implies either a total lack of comprehension or that there was something personal between the student and a teacher.</p>
<p>I disagree. There are a lot of other reasons I can think of for someone to fail a class even though they understand the material – maybe they were lazy and didn’t want to do any of the work in the class, or perhaps they missed a lot of days because of illness, for example. As an admissions officer if you didn’t explain otherwise I would assume that you were lazy and didn’t do any of the work in the class, as I personally believe that’s the most common reason for high test scores and low grades in a corresponding class.</p>
<p>I would NOT assume that a student had a problem with the teacher – a student would have to explain that, and then I would still be skeptical unless it were an airtight story (like I sort of believe Structur3, but I didn’t say the pledge of allegiance all through school – although I did stand – and I never once had a problem with a teacher. A lot of kids don’t stand for or say the pledge anymore.)</p>
<p>Using a blue pen? I have never heard of an exam that will allow black pen but not blue pen. Are you sure there’s nothing you can do? Couple years back, there was this teacher in my HS who was extremely sensitive to gay comments (he was gay). If he so much as overhear someone talking to their friend about how “gay” the math homework was, you are immediately in trouble. A student’s grade dropped 30% in a term for no apparent reason other than p***ing him off. After serious complaints, he had to leave the school.
I would take my parents and talk to the teacher, threaten to complain to the district or even file a lawsuit (not that you should or even have a lot to stand on, but most teachers would not want that kind of trouble). Teachers can actually still change your report card.
Unless you really slacked off in class, didn’t do the work, and most of the marks taken away on tests were you not knowing how to do the question. If you were going to get a D anyway, then there’s not much you can do talking to the teacher.</p>
<p>Do try to fix it though, because it will matter. It’s one thing to get a C, but completely failing a class does not look good to the adcom, no matter your other exam scores. Not only may they think that you are someone who is lazy and have a bad attitude, but someone who is good at theory but not at practice. SAT and AP exams are all theory, while class mark will include experiments and lab reports. It’s no good to be able to just know the theories. The focus of science is research and experiment.</p>
<p>“I’m typically not for excuses, but in this case, I think you should explain the situation in a letter and get your principal to sign it, or possibly even ask your principal to write a letter of explanation for you.”
Will this be the only grade that needs an explanation on your application? If so, then I think it would be better if your HS College counselor wrote the letter.</p>
<p>I agree on getting the counselor to write the explanation letter.</p>
<p>There’s another possible issue. Some high schools require N years of science-- which is to say, N science classes taken and passed– to graduate. If yours is one of them, you may have to take an extra science class. Similarly, some colleges require applicants to have taken *and passed *N years of science class. </p>
<p>If your grades are otherwise stellar, this might not harm you in admissions. If I were an admissions officer and I read your story from a counselor I trusted, and I looked at an otherwise outstanding application, I’d assume the teacher was a jerk and think nothing of it.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses as they were filled with encouraging advice. I will definitely ask my guidance counselor to write a letter explaining the situation. She even called me because she was dumbfounded as to how I received an F in a class while having higher scores in the correlating tests.</p>
<p>This is a good approach. I believe you, some teachers do go ape over students not saying the Pledge, particularly older ones for whom it was the standard to get kicked out of class for unpatriotic acts. I personally never had a problem, but I just never had one of those teachers, I guess. A letter from your guidance counselor will be more persuasive and believable than one for you, because of their more unbiased position in the situation (and they’re older).</p>
<p>Also, like Cardinal Fang said, check and make sure that failing this particular class won’t make you ineligible to apply to some schools that might require a certain number of units int hat subject.</p>
<p>Other than just explaining it, I would go out and try to do something about it!!! Even though you may thoroughly explain it through your guidance counselor, the fact is that F will lower your GPA to a point that even all A’s besides it will barely reach the 3.8 level. Now, I believe that is totally unfair that one class would put you in a situation from being the top of the class to not even the top 10 percentile. I would file a complaint, or even talk to the guidance counselor about taking an online or separate chemistry course and replacing the F with it. Then explain the exact reasons why you had to re-take it through your guidance counselor while still maintaining a high GPA.</p>
<p>You’re quite the rebel…</p>
<p>You’re more than smart enough to understand what was expected in the classroom. Seems like you chose to do a bunch of stupid little things just to annoy the teacher. I’ve seen kids like that in classrooms and their academic intelligence is overshadowed by their obnoxious behavior. </p>
<p>Using a blue pen doesn’t sound like a big deal unless you knew full well that black ink only was the policy. I’m guessing that the class was informed to use black ink.</p>
<p>Skipping the wrong number of lines in your labs doesn’t sound like a big deal unless of course, the class was informed of the required format for the labs. I’m sure the students were aware of the required format.</p>
<p>Do you have a reputation for irking people? Some kids love doing this kind of stuff just to get attention.</p>
<p>^ No need to be accusatory. We weren’t there so we can’t make assumptions about his character.</p>
<p>serves you right…</p>