<p>Some schools have a policy of changing grades on AP classes IF the student scores a 4 or 5 on the exam. Does this school? </p>
<p>The grade average seems wrong…a D, a D, and a high B, should not average to a D. At a minimum, it should be a C or C-. I would personally ask the teacher to justify that grade. </p>
<p>Unless the D’s were really D- (almost Fs), I don’t see how he still gets a D for the semester grade. </p>
<p>He may have a problem getting into UF, not only because of his GPA, but his ACT is a bit low. The bottom 25% at UF have an ACT of 24 or below. He should try to get at least a 28. Have him take the SAT as well.</p>
<p>I am not in medical school or pursuing a phd. My son wants to become a medical researcher either attending medical school or getting a phd. My screen name is not in any way putting pressure on him as he does not even know about it.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t fire anything off to a GC. Wait for the AP test scores to come in and if there is a difference between the AP test score and the class score contact the teacher. How did the rest of the class perform (outside of the AP test scores), was your son on top of his homework, if so where was the deficiency…was in tests, quizzes, written assignments etc. Did he get in a hole early on and couldn’t dig himself out. My oldest struggled with one or two classes in HS and it was always helpful for both of us (so i could help) to understand where the weakness existed…typically it’s not an overall weakness but some aspect of the class. The takeaway was he learned how to recognize when he was in trouble and rectify the situation which is a valuable lesson. Regardless, understanding why this particular class and what the particular weakness was will help you son going forward with both the last year of HS and in college. Far better to grasp this and understand how to “fix it” in high school than to get to college and lose grip on a college class. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter what your son “wants” to do, if he wants it he’ll go for it. But lots of kids change their major or their interest when they get to college and are exposed to many things that have no exposure to in high school. One step at a time. Help your son figure out why this class kicked his a**.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities admit kids they believe can succeed and graduate. That is the business they are in. Make sure he applies to a variety of schools with at least one that has an assured acceptance and one that is a reach and let the chips fall where they may. In five years hopefully you’ll be attending a college graduation and that should be the correct goal for a rising high school senior.</p>
<p>Did he take AP World? Both are pretty similar in that there is a lot of info that a student just has to memorize. One can be naturally gifted in writing or math, but no one knows the names and dates just naturally.</p>
<p>My kids have done better in APUSH than in World and I can pin it down to one thing: their middle schooll US History teacher. The guy is amazing. He realizes what few seem to realize: history is all just stories of what people did. Every day was like stand up. Son would come home from school and “do” the teacher’s act. And when they get to APUSH with the dry teacher, they remember the stories from 8th grade, and it has more meaning than just memorization.</p>
<p>The teacher can have a profound influence. APUSH at our school is the only AP sophomores can take and it kicked my kids butt as far as the actual grade in the class. The kids said that although the teacher was difficult (boring and monotoned) they learned much…and they did ‘better’ on AP exam than they did grade-wise in the class. But they both said it “taught” them how to write for college. This particular teacher assigned lots of reading and lots of writing, far more than kids typically get in US public schools. The teacher would always admonish the kids when they whined and say “this is supposedly a college level class and this is what you’re going to have to do in college day in and day out.” Somehow this teacher also instilled a love of history into S1 not so much in S2. We don’t have alot of AP classes in our school, but the teachers seem to do their jobs and APUSH was definitely a wake-up call for my two oldest about what studying, reading and writing at a college level can be. I used to sit back and think ‘better him than me’ as far as kicking my kids’ academic butts in gear.</p>
<p>He did not take AP World. His school did not offer it when he was in 10th grade. He took AP Human Geography in 10th grade and did well. He also took AP Psychology and AP Language (English) this year. He did well in those classes. The amount of homework assignments is what killed him. He did well on the tests. He does not yet know about the grade. He is a counselor at a Boy Scout camp and was gone when the report card came in the mail. He will be coming home today (for 24 hours) and will learn the news. He had said in the beginning of the school year that most of the students in the class wanted out. With class size requirements (25 students max in a class), it is difficult for the school to reshuffle class schedules after school starts.</p>
<p>Seems like each of my kids have experienced one of those…the class that starts out with not enough desks for everyone but ends the year with 8 kids.</p>
<p>Here is my pet peeve with how some teachers teach APs: * Every test is timed per the AP exam time limits. In one of D’s classes - it was even pre-AP - every quiz was timed because “the AP exams are timed.” How about starting the year untimed, then taking away a bit of time throughout the year, esp with the freshmen and sophomores, to let them work up to it? It’s like taking a student driver on the interstate on the first day because eventually they will have to drive on the interstate. There are also teachers who grade the essays using AP standards from Day 1. Again, how about teaching *them something first, then seeing how they measure up to AP standards?</p>
<p>I’ll take a contrarian point of view. It’s good for the kids to ‘learn’ different styles for teachers. They will encounter this in college. Some classes, the kids will live and die by 2 tests and maybe a paper. So it “hurts” their GPA alittle in high school…the important thing is for the kids to learn how to deal with different teaching styles, with classes that don’t have a grade curve, with classes with varying “loads” of reading and writing, all sorts of things that they may not encounter in a public high school. What better time to learn this than while in HS with parents to guide them through the lows and highs and high school teachers, principals and GCs that can add contextually things you may not be aware of about your student. HS is foundational and a good strong foundation of successes and failures only makes for a stronger more successful college experience. I worry about 3 because he has sailed through high school with a transcript full of As and a B here and there…I will worry more about him heading off to college than I will #1 and #2…because #1 and #2 each had a class that where they had to work mightily hard to get that one C that was on their transcripts. The teacher that taught APUSH at the high school retired before #3 could have him as a teacher unfortunately because i would have encouraged 3 to take that class with him simply because it was “very hard.” As far as the analogy, if you take AP seriously it SHOULD be about ‘driving on the interstate’, otherwise it’s just another high school class like any other high school class where your grade is predicated on a whole lot of pop quizzes, homework and “class participation” with extra credit to “boost” the grade and nobody fails. I honestly didn’t want my kids to sail through high school. I wanted them to stretch themselves academically without fear of repercussions from my H and I and to learn from mistakes when there wasn’t financial cost involved which sounds selfish, but it is what it is. Better to struggle in a free high school class than come out of a college semester with zero credits in a class that cost thousands. I wanted them to be prepared for college level work not just academically but emotionally.</p>
<p>The original question was: how bad will this be for college? I assumed you meant for admisisons. You have to show it’s a fluke in his record, not be overly defensive or aggressive, just let adcoms have faith in him despite this stumble. </p>
<p>I’m curious what his major might be. You don’t mention AP math or hard sciences. Human geo and psych are not considered as challenging as the upper maths and sciences. </p>
<p>The interstate analogy is good. Adcoms look to see you can manage the leap.</p>
<p>He plans to major in biology or chemistry. His school does not offer AP science classes. He will be taking AP Calculus this coming year. He does very well in math and science classes.</p>
Except for take home tests, and even some of those, I never took a test or quiz in my life that wasn’t timed. Certainly not in high school. That seems like an odd complaint.</p>
<p>I’m talking about 11th grade AP exam timing for the first 10th grade pre-AP on-line quiz. I think the teacher should start modestly and help them work their way up to the short time frames allowed on the AP exams. It makes no sense to expect the students to be totally proficient at what the final in the course requires from the moment they walk into the course.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, son must take ownership, accountability and responsibility for his performance in class and ultimately his grade. </p>
<p>If he cannot learn to do this now where there can be a level of interdependence and a safety net for high school, when will it happen?</p>
<p>Remember, there are no parent teacher conferences in college and your son is going to have to be accountable, advocate for himself and learn how to work with people that he may not necessarily like or who he feels can not necessarily “teach”.</p>
<p>Where was the plan to turn things around when son got the first D and there were still a good 10 weeks left in the term? </p>
<p>If he got an 89 for the 3rd marking period, apparently he has the tools needed to turn the situation around.</p>
<p>Why didn’t he do this sooner? </p>
<p>Does your school offer tutoring or resources for students taking APs (or any classes)? </p>
<p>At any time did S meet with the teacher to ask for help in turning things around?</p>
<p>When you attended parent/teacher conference did you ask how you could assist in helping your son turn this around?</p>
<p>Placement exams in junior high/high school I attended were all timed for students at all levels. Sometimes much more tightly than the actual final exam itself. </p>
<p>Moreover, if such a request had been made at any high school I knew of…especially the one I attended back in the early-mid '90s, the teachers/admins would reply that if a given student cannot cope with taking timed exams in AP classes, they have no business taking such classes. </p>
<p>Only concession that would be given is extra time if a student has documented disabilities…but they’d never give untimed exams.</p>
<p>The whole point of AP classes is not to ‘ramp up’ students but to give students who need a more rigorous challenging environment in HS access to those classes. Until the OP and the son figure out why he bombed this particular AP class there really isn’t much to discuss other than the original question of how will this affect his college chances…the answer to that is that it is difficult to say. Whether it should be a D or a C or a C-…only the teacher can answer that question… The OPs son will be “judged” by unis and colleges for lack of a better word on the entire transcript and resume and essay and national test scores in the context of the OP’s son’s peers at his high school. If I were the parent and those were the three schools as I said earlier I would certainly tell him to apply to all three. Why not? Don’t we “preach” reach, match, safety every day?</p>
<p>OP–is your son’s ADHD documented? Sounds like he did realize the problem with this class early on and was not allowed to withdraw.</p>
<p>As far as driving on the interstate, one of my nephews was taken out on the interstate on his first driving lesson. He’d never even driven around a parking lot before. I was horrified, but he survived. The interstate in VT, though, has little traffic and mostly courteous drivers.</p>
<p>Ironic is the fact that, at least in AP Calculus, a D on the exam–somewhere between 60 and 70–will net you a 5.</p>
<p>I suspect that APUSH varies from school to school. My son is taking it this fall, and a great deal of the course will be devoted to interpreting and analyzing primary sources, a foundational skill for historians. These will include sources such as the Mayflower Compact and conquistador diaries. Fortis summer reading will include books such as The Jungle, The Scarlet Letter, and The Autonoography of Frederick Douglas. Sounds like a course I’d like to take, but I suppose you could just teach to the test and make it very boring, which may have happened to the OP’s son.</p>
<p>The ADHD is documented but the school system has refused to write an IEP since he is normally very high achieving. He also has an IQ of 130 with a math subscore of 142.</p>
<p>Did you submit a written request for an initial evaluation for your son from the school? What was the out come of the evaluation? They are still suppose to write the outcome of the evaluation and meet with you to discuss the outcome.</p>