<p>If it’s any consolation, my D (Sr. in HS) has had one B since 8th grade. She has a B right now in AP Gov. Says it’s the hardest class and the toughest teacher she has ever had.</p>
<p>It’ll show on the midyear report transcript.</p>
<p>and yeah I’m just worried if they’re going to frown upon it and if it’s going to significantly decrease my chances =/ since I was planning on applying to some lower ivies.</p>
<p>Do you think I need to explain the situation to the colleges I apply to or is it okay to just leave it alone?</p>
<p>I don’t think one C will hurt your chances, but an explanation like “the teacher wouldn’t accept the work that I did while I was absent” might. It sounds like an excuse, unless you were absent for a really significant period of time. </p>
<p>Just one thing: Is work done while absent normally accepted by your teacher? Was there a specific agreement during your absence(s) with the teacher that s/he is now reneging on? If either of these are true, you should talk to your teacher or, baring any resolution, a GC at your school</p>
<p>yeah I know I’d have to come up with a better worded explanation. so it’s not necessary to explain?</p>
<p>and yeah i was absent a lot so all the work just kinda accumulated. once i turned in all my stuff, he only took some of it saying the rest was too late. so yes he does normally accept work and did. just not all of it. and no there wasn’t a specific agreement but i feel like he wasnt very consistent with his policy =/ oh well i guess. and yeah i talked to both my teacher and GC. My GC is going with whatever my teacher says and my teacher is set on giving me a C.</p>
<p>If your absences were excused and he generally accepts work done during absences, why would he arbitrarily choose to accept some and not the rest? That seems quite strange. I think you should ask your teacher to articulate the reasons that he will not accept the work that you turned in after being absent (provided absences were excused and the work was submitted in a timely fashion). If he cannot do it, you really should bring it to the GC. If the GC refuses to check out the situation, I think it merits further escalation. For a HS teacher to arbitrarily punish a student for excused absences, where the work is made up per usual policy, is ludicrous, and I’m positive that most educators would agree. At this point, I think it’s much less about how a single C will reflect on your college applications and much more about whether your teacher is treating you fairly.</p>
<p>eh I think the work that he didn’t take was partly my fault because the work he didn’t take was pretty late so it wasn’t in a “timely fashion.” But he wasn’t ever really clear on his policy of when “too late” was so it’s kind of an arbitrary decision up to him to decide when “too late” was. don’t think the impression that he didn’t really like me boosted my chances either. my GC just basically said it was my fault for not personally asking him his policy on absent work and finding out the deadlines and stuff. even said that some teachers dont take absent work at all(even though i’ve noticed in general, high school teachers are pretty flexible/nice about it) and i should be lucky/happy he even took my absent work at all.</p>
<p>i understand their sides but of course im not happy with it. i guess it’s just comes down to bad communication and odds against me i guess =/</p>
<p>I think that it’s unwise to “explain” the reason for the grade. It would have the opposite affect of drawing attention to the situation, and it will very likely be misunderstood as an excuse, or, worse, as an excessive concern about grades.</p>
<p>Since it was an AP course, perhaps the course is not required for graduation, and the school will let you drop it.</p>
<p>I wondered about this too, and when ED letters came in this week, the C will hurt your chances at a top university. Anywhere else, probably wouldn’t make too big of a deal. </p>
<p>I have friends with very high stats who were deferred EA because of their only C ever from AP Calc this semester, yet other friends with the same stats who were accepted by those same schools because they aren’t taking AP Calc BC. Now, I’m really worried because I really want to go to either Rice or Wash U, but I think I’ll get rejected RD because of the C. :'(</p>