<p>My D is taking AP Environmental against my better judgement. She has always struggled with critical thinking questions and that is the majority of the tests in this class. There is a tremendous amount of independent work and they are expected to master the details of the chapter. The teacher is not available for extra help as he says "its a college course and they need to work independently." I went to college and my professors were available.</p>
<p>Anyway, she's running a shaky C. Our school will switch her into regular environmental and it will not show a withdrawal, but D has already applied to some colleges and is told she'll need to explain why she dropped
Yikes!! Which is worse - do poorly even risk a D in the AP class or switch. Then how do you explain without setting up red flags of doubt to admissions counselors.
She applied to Towson that says they make a decision based on grades 9 to 11 so I'm not sure what that means. Other schools are UMASS, URI.</p>
<p>If she doesn’t enjoy the class, she should drop it. Suffering through a year of instruction that she will not enjoy is not pleasent, nor will she retain anything from the class in such an environment (currently in this situation in my science elective…arrgh!!!)</p>
<p>As for an explanation, just have her write an note to prospective colleges in the “additional info” section explaining how it was just “not her style”. I’m sure they will understand.</p>
<p>None of the Maryland public institutions look at the senior grades when evaluating applicants. If you want your senior grades to count, you need to wait and apply later, not for a fall freshman slot. Towson really is not that hard to get into, so I would drop or downgrade the course and not worry about it. She could just say that the focus of the course was not what she expected or something like that. (Too much field work, not enough, too much lab, not enough, etc)</p>