Help With AP Bio

Hi, I’m a junior in hs and i take ap bio. Recently, the tests have gotten very hard for me and i haven’t been getting good grades. The highest I’ve gotten on a test is a C. This makes me sad because I want to major in biology and become a doctor, and my grades aren’t reflecting how much work I put in. I spend days and nights studying, reviewing, and studying some more. Yet, I see my friends getting Bs and As, and it makes me very frustrated. I’ve already talked to my teacher, and she has given me some tips on studying, however, they haven’t helped me (as of now). My average right now is a 75%. How do i get my final grade up? For any students who are taking AP Bio or who have taken it, please tell me your study strategies and general tips for doing well in the class. thank you

I am in the exact same situation, where I got a B last quarter and currently have a C.
Let me put it this way: When you go to your first job as a doctor or biologist, are they going to pull out the krebs cycle and ask you to label it perfectly or you won’t be hired?
Just do your best to improve. Read the content over the weekends, try explaining the material to your friends, get into a study group and you’ll be fine.
Remember, colleges would rather see a C in the class, but a 4 or 5 on the AP Exam rather than an A in the class, but a 1 or 2 on the exam.

thank you, but i know i am very capable of getting a B in the class…i’m deifnitely not settling for a C!

No, Im certain that they prefer high grades over high ap test scores

I agree with @BiologyMajorHere Colleges ultimately prefer high grades AND high test scores. If you have an A in an AP course but a 1 or 2 on the exam, schools will view it as major grade inflation. So even if you got an A in the class it was probably just because of extra points and what not b/c you really didn’t know the material.

In my opinion decent grades with high AP scores ultimately looks better because you really understood the material.

@pizzalover2001
I was not trying to say you aren’t capable, but what I was more trying to say was that you should definitely do your best to improve it (same with me) and not be overly stressed about it.
@idkscreennamewha
Not sure if it is just me, but I feel idkscreennamewha is the same type of person to say they would hire someone who went to Harvard, but was awful in their field and in the bottom 25% of their class rather than someone who went to UMass Lowell and was an honors student, excelled beyond, and was in the top 10% of their class only because person #1 went to Harvard and #2 went to UMass Lowell (I am not saying this school is bad at all, especially when I am applying there to save some money and someone who was in the top ten at our school went there with a 4.4ish GPA, but Harvard is probably more well known than UMass Lowell). I am not saying that they would prefer it, but every college must take into account that courses are different from others. In fact, the AP exam allows the colleges to know who is best prepared for a subject, while Honors courses can make it more difficult.

For example, at our school, AP US Government and Politics is a ridiculously hard course, with many people ending with C’s and B’s. However, the average AP exam score is around a 4 or 5, because the teacher makes sure the information is drilled into their head. Same thing with AP Calc, where nearly everyone gets a 5, even though most people get a B in the class.

In my opinion, I would rather get a 4 or 5 on the exam and have a C rather than get a B or A and get a 2 or 3.

@WayOutWestMom can you confirm/deny some of the info being given on this thread?

getting a low grade in a class but a high test score looks like you didn’t put in the effort. true you know the stuff, but can’t put in the work for a college level course. And chill, I’m literally just saying what I’ve heard countless school counselors tell me and I trust their opinion more than yours. if you got a 1 or 2 on the test just don’t send it lmao. I’d rather get a A in the class and a 1 on the exam than a B and a 3. You know why? because you dont have to send the scores. Idk if biologymajorhere knows that but youre not stuck with your ap test score.

@idkscreennamewha
From multiple guidance counselors? How about from multiple members of my family who got a B in the course but a 4 or 5 on the exam and got into a well known school?
Now, if it is a 3, I would agree that I would rather get an A and a 1, especially when most schools don’t recognize a 3. Though, if it were a C and a 4 or 5, that I prefer any day.
Chill? I wouldn’t call someone aggressive by not supporting a certain side of an argument with evidence unless they were being extremely rude. And please, nearly everyone on this website knows you don’t have to send all your AP scores to colleges.

lol wait you know on naviance (college info website) they have a chart of parts of the application that are “most important” “important” “considered” and “not considered” and on basically every college the GPA is very important and the AP test score is important (although it says “test scores” so im inclined to believe they mean sat/act or subject tests, as they are much more important than ap tests). but to answer the OP’s question you should join a study group, because I think that talking and discussing the stuff helps me learn A LOT more than looking at flashcards and stuff.

@idkscreennamewha
Last time I checked, course rigor was also up at very important because if not, anybody would be able to get accepted into Boston College by taking all CPs.
I doubt test scores include AP exams because none of them are mandatory at any college as far as I know, especially when some high schools don’t offer them. However, SAT/ACT are required by nearly every college, with some also requiring the writing and subject tests.

I think that posters on this thread are conflating several different issues

  1. the value of the grade in the AP bio class in college admissions

  2. the value of the AP score for AP bio class in college admissions

  3. the effect of a poor grade or a poor score on potential future medical school admission.

Grades are important for college admission. So the combination of the perceived rigor of the class and the grade earned will be considered by the admission officers when making a decision on whether to admit a student.

AP scores are often not reported or not available to the admissions offices as part of student’s college application so score results are usually not considered during admission decision making. Typically official AP scores are sent from The College Board directly to Registrar’s Office of college only after a student has made an enrollment decision. The scores are then evaluated by the Registrar and a decision to award credit or not is made. AP scores are never sent to the admissions office. (Some high schools may record AP scores on high school transcripts, or students may self-report AP scores on their application, but because these are not official scores so they don’t carry really weight. Afterall, the report could be wrong…)

A poor grade in a high school class or a poor AP score has zero influence on whether or not a student will be admitted to medical school. Med schools never ask for high school transcripts and any AP credit awarded (which is recorded on your college transcript as credit/no credit) is not included in GPA calculations, and, in fact, is not even looked at by adcomms during the medical school admission process. All courses for which a student are awarded AP credit must be supplemented by additional upper level coursework in the same discipline if the student wants to be considered for med school. (This means that even if you score a 5 in AP Bio and get 4 credits for intro biology 1, adcomms still expect the student to take 2 additional semesters of graded bio coursework in college. And it’s those grades adcomms will be looking at.)

Debate aside, I am a junior currently taking the class. You may already be doing the things I mention, since you’re already working hard, but here’s my meager 2 cents:

This might be different for each school, but my ap bio teacher places heavy emphasis on knowing the concepts instead of memorizing specifics, because it’s pretty much impossible to memorize all the examples they give on the actual ap exam. As a result, my teacher provides practice AP problems before each test that we can practice with. I practice these problems, then email the teacher with the questions that rose from the practice. When doing homework assignments, I also take notes when I encounter something that I don’t know but seems relevant to our class.