I’m a junior in high school and I’m currently at a 51% with an F right now. I asked my counselor if I could drop my class when it’s been a month in school so far, and my counselor said it was too late. It’s my very first AP class but it’s one of the hardest classes in my school that even some of the students that took AP world history or APHUG last year has F’s. It was my mistake to take a rigorous class as my first one, expecting that I would pass. My teacher is never here (I can’t blame her because she’s going through appendix surgery and has breast cancer) but even if she was here, she would just do extra unnecessary activity in class and does not go through the chapter or anything at all. Even for writing an essay or the short answer question, she just gave us a rubric, expecting us to know it right away and understand how to write it. So would often get a 0 or 1 out of 3 points for the short answer question and fail the essay. It’s going to be so hard to go up from a 51% I don’t really know what to do. If I try involving my parents to confront the counselor, would it work? Is it worth a shot? I heard that even a C in an AP class would not be equivalant to an A in a regular class. Even if I drop the class and it’ll go on my transcript, it’ll be better than actually failing the class right? My friend has talked to both her guidance counselor and assistant principal when she tried to drop out, but they both did now allow her, so I don’t know if involving a parent would help. APUSH has been affecting me in my other classes too, I have a D in both Alg 2/Trig and AP Language. So, currently my GPA is 2.6. My past grades in freshman and sophomore year has been A’s and B’s and the commulative GPA is 3.7. I’m also planning to go into a UC (preferably UCI).
I will speak as the parent of a junior (who is not on CC).
When was the cutoff for dropping? If it was within a week or so, you might have a shot with getting your parents involved. At my daughter’s school you have three weeks. I personally would have no problem getting involved if it was important, but do not delay. Have you reached out to the teacher at all?
There are many resources in this forum on APUSH help. You can probably find sample essays online, or have someone read your essays for feedback. I will say, sadly, don’t necessarily rely on a teacher to teach. My daughter has a (regular) history teacher who quizzes on the chapter before he teaches it, and until she figured that out she was not doing well. She ended up taking her own notes and not relying on him - and, with my help, her notes are far better than anything she gets in class. I understand some APUSH classes are run somewhat the same, but I have no personal knowledge.
My daughter is not taking APUSH because I always felt it was way too much work for questionable gain - and I say that as someone with a history degree from a very good university who did just fine without anything resembling APUSH in high school. I won’t go into the many reasons I feel that way.
It’s now up to you to figure out if the class is worth fighting to stay in or get out of. Good luck.
@bearcatfan
The cutoff for dropping was within a week and it’s been 6 weeks into school so far. The progress reports have been sent out yesterday, would it be too late? I have not reached out to my teacher since she has been gone for about 2-3 weeks in a row so far.
I do agree that I should not rely on the teacher, since I’ve experienced teachers who don’t particularly teach. However, considering it’s an ap class, it was quite surprising that the teacher was not helpful whatsoever. We thought that she would AT LEAST review for the test or even give us a study guide or anything that would help us, but even that was not given to us. So, pretty much it’s just all for yourself.
I’ve been asking myself that same question: is it worth staying in and try for a good grade or to drop out? I’m not sure if it’ll say on my transcript that I have an F if I drop out, decreasing my chances of going into a good UC since I’ve given up on trying. However, if I keep going with an F, I don’t know if I’ll manage to get up or not, which looks REALLY bad if I end up with an F on my first semester. Anyways, thank you for your advice! It was quite helpful to me!
Please note: The beginning could be mean, but I’m just ranting, so take it with a pinch of salt
Not trying to be rude, but I just HATE people who take honors and AP classes that are too hard for them and complain later on about how they are failing it. Look, AP classes should ONLY be taken if the subject is relevant to the career you want to be in.If you want to be a doctor or engineer, you definitely DO NOT need an AP history class. There are tons of idiots at my school that aspire to be doctors, engineers, and computer programmers and take all honors and AP classes, get stressed out from the immense workload, and end up getting all F’s on their report cards. Honors and AP classes were made for those who want their career choice to be in that subject and are academically gifted in that field. You should not just be pulling off good grades to be in an honors class. You need to have a PASSION for the subject. Here are some ways you can tell that you don’t belong in advanced classes:
- You stay up until midnight finishing homework for AP ___________ or ________ honors. If you waste valuable sleep working on hw, you know that you don't understand the subject and/or the workload is immense. For someone who actually belongs in the class, it would feel like doing the 1x multiplication tables.
- You don't understand what the teacher is saying while everyone else does. This is quite self explanatory. You don't belong in the class.
- You study weeks before the test, and you fail because the questions look unfamiliar to you. Remember, tests force you to apply the knowledge you know, not just ask you to fill in the blanks.
My reply might come out as mean spirited, but I really can’t sugarcoat this. I’m not aiming to insult or discourage you by any means. I just find it annoying that people who don’t need the class to get them where they want to go take it anyway for bragging rights or under the false assumption that it makes their transcript more attractive. My gc put it this way, an A in regular is always more attractive than a B in honors to colleges. I think that unless you are extremely smart, the highest number of APs you should take in hs should be 3. As for you, you actually are alot smarter than most people. You realized that you made a mistake taking a class you weren’t prepared for. As of right now, there is still a chance you can end up with a good grade in APUSH. You could get a tutor. And I might be wrong about you, maybe you do belong in the class. You mentioned your teacher being out alot. That could be the source of the issue. If more students are underperforming in the class, then the history dept. supervisor might need to check out the situation. You might get moved into another teacher’s APUSH class or something. If you still have a 51, the only thing left to do is work hard next quarter. If your grade stayed at a 51 this quarter (which is unlikely), but you worked hard and got 90s for the last 3 quarters, you would end up with an 80 average. As for involving your parents, it’s worth a shot. As for the grade on the transcript, it probably would show as dropped, and would not get factored into your overall GPA. So, it would be better to drop than fail. Like I said, it’s still the beginning of the year, your still getting back into the swing of things, so your gpa will go up from the 2.6. Oh and congrats on the 3.7 gpa you have currently, that truly is a feat!
TL;DR: Not everyone should take honors classes, but in your case, the teacher being out could be the reason your underperforming.
I do think that if you can get out of the class, you should. If you cannot…
adam norris’s youtube channel has great review videos. Try to find example short answers and essays, and go through them while looking at rubrics. I got the princeton review book for the course, but some of the information regarding how the test is graded and the format of the exam itself was just wrong. the actual review and content is good. Especially when answering multiple choice questions, go with your gut and remember that if 1 part of an answer is the slightest bit wrong, the entire thing is wrong. I also think that when writing the essays, connecting everything to the thesis is very important. imagine that you are weaving a beautiful web of history with plenty of examples.
Good luck!
WOW @NewByzantine that is pretty harsh. Would that everyone could be as clever as upi/
First: don’t panic. Second: You have time to pull things together.
There’s about 24 weeks before the test. Here are resources for you:
- The REA APUSH ALL ACCESS, not the crash course. Figure out what chapter you're on, apportion out the reading for the rest of the weeks in this book. Take notes on this book.
- Take the quizlets (online and on your phone) http://store.rea.com/0738611727.html
- Watch jocz videos for each chapter
- Watch videos for how to tackle the free response
- Free response questions for the past are on the AP archives College Board site. Review the topics and answers
- Review the jocz review videos 1 week before the test, the FR strategy and your notes.
You’re going to be fine, but you really need to sit down tomorrow and plan out your study schedule and stick to it. If you plan correctly you can plan in the reading from the REA book AHEAD so taht you knwo the stuff before the class gets to it.
Passing an AP exam will fulfill the US History requirement for the UC’s but the F grade will be included in your UC GPA calculation unless you repeat the class.
@Itjenni I believe most of the country is using the same APUSH text book. What I remember about my son taking APUSH, it is a whole lot of reading. My son loves reading and history and is a fast reader so he skated through. His best buddy is a STEM whiz. Not a big fan of having to read 50 - 75 pages of a textbook a night and would rather be working on math problems than history. Point being, it’s not for everyone and when you enroll in classes for senior year, don’t focus on enrolling in a class because it is an AP class, make sure it is a good fit for you and your academic goals.
Seems you are too far into the year to drop the course. Generally, a school will not let you drop if you are far into the semester but may let you move down to the regular class. Discuss this with your parents and have them schedule a meeting to discuss the possibility of moving to regular US History and a broader discussion on a plan to get you into the right classes. I suspect your statement “APUSH has been affecting me in my other classes too, I have a D in both Alg 2/Trig and AP Language. So, currently my GPA is 2.6. My past grades in freshman and sophomore year has been A’s and B’s and the cumulative GPA is 3.7” is not exactly accurate. It could be that AP Language is also more difficult and time consuming than you realized it would be. You don’t want to go through the whole year with a D in Alg2/Trig and AP Language so be open to moving down to regular Language and USHistory as an option. Do everything you can to try to catch up in these classes. 6 weeks in is better than being 12 weeks in so just get clarity from your counselor on what options are available to you so that you can get control of this situation so it’s not controlling you. Good luck!
I’m sorry
Your parents may not be able to get you out of the class, but they may be able to lobby the principal to get you put with another teacher, or getting the teacher an aide or long-term sub that would give the class some coherent teaching.
Yes, a teacher dealing with breast cancer treatment deserves sympathy, but the school has the duty to make sure there is a capable instructor for your class.
Also, agree with buying some AP prep materials, checking out youtube videos, etc. If you don’t get a new teacher, you’re going to have to learn the material some other way.