<p>My apologies to everyone that had to endure reading my psycho-trip. I know that I'm a smart girl. If anyone wants to interpret it as otherwise because once upon a time they saw my AP grades on college confidential, that's okay. I know that I didn't know Calculus or History as well as I should've; excuse me could've. not "I should have looked at some review materail," but "if I would have looked at it I know, for a fact, that I have the capabilities to retain it." I know that Calc is heavily curved and a 2 is like getting fail stamped on your forehead. I knew for a fact that I would get a 2. I said it that day and I'm okay with it. I'm not going to attribute it to my teacher because I'm currently calm enough to know that it's my fault. </p>
<p>BTW MathProf, I didn't mean that I know my calc stuff, I'd kind of have to be an idiot-which I'm sure you and many others now believe I am- to insinuate that. I have gone through my entire 17 years of living being good at everything I have done. I know my scores are horrible, but I'll be damned if they pull me out of the running. If everyone on this site wants to tell me that every single time that I've ever done something someone has been holding my hand and making it easier, then that's fine. I'll be laughing about it when I pack my bags for Duke.</p>
<p>wow...everyone's jumping on oli right now. I (sort of) know how you feel. What you scored is what most people score at my school. Those scores could have very possibly been my scores if I hadn't done some outside studying. Since I scored well, I can prove that my teachers are doing their job. I think that your teachers are probably doing their job too if you gave them more of a chance and not basing your performance relative to others at your school and your teachers' performance relative to their passing rate.</p>
<p>You said you scored a 4 in bio because you studied. I bet you could have scored at least a 4 on your other two tests if you put in similar efforts. Colleges would not find it great that you received a high grade in the class but a 2 on the exam. The good thing is that SAT/ACT are the main focus for standardized tests, not APs. You have a decent score on your ACT, so focus on bringing it up a point or two in the short term, and you'll still have a good shot at a great university. Don't make the same mistake next year. Take APs seriously and study for them. You'll get better scores, and you can still get credit for next year's exams.</p>
<p>Thank God there's someone out there that doesn't use AP scores as a basis for intelligence and prospects for life success. I REALLY appreciate it. I'm trying to take all this with a grain of salt, but when 50 people tell you you're alot dumber than you think, it's sort of hard. Thanks for the support :]</p>
<p>You don't attribute it to your teacher, but I certainly think your teacher deserves some of the "credit" for this. If a 90+% is going to mean a 2 on an AP test, it's creating a disconnect between perceived performance and actual performance.</p>
<p>I know a teacher in my school who is guilty of similar grade inflation. (Luckily, this teacher has never taught AP.) These kids then come and take my AP class, and feel consistently like they got a raw deal, simply because this teacher was more interested in being liked and saving student and parent headaches related to low grades than doing the job that this teacher was hired to do. And the worst part is, this teacher doesn't suffer from it. Rather, this teacher is one of the more beloved teachers in the school... for now. But the students suffer.</p>
<p>I know you probably don't agree that I could have done better, but I'm neraly certain I could have. To you, this is just another excuse, but for me it's the truth. I didn't take the entire year seriously. I don't mean that had I sat down for an extra hour the night before the test I would've magically gotten a 5. Had I taken the class seriously instead of riding the notorious ease of the course, then yeah I could've. Numbers aren't my strong suit, but no one-including myself-would have looked at me and thought "you're going to get a 2" when I slapped AP calc on my schedule last year.</p>
<p>could we cut the elitism on this forum a tad bit?</p>
<p>yea, im sure theres some grad inflation at oli's school but theres no reason to get on her case. to suggest she deserves to go to a CC merits a big slap in the face. who are you sitting there on your computer to judge somebody else and tell her that her scores are meritless. im sure you have all 5's and thus have a right to talk.</p>
<p>and themathprof, "with all due respect", it sounds to me like you're insulting oli's intelligence by suggesting that merely "studying" would not be the solution. though you do claim that she merely "didn't understand concepts", you suggest that these could not be learned by studying. well, then how would they be learned? also, just because your school is not subject to grade inflation does not mean that theres a bitter diatribe that must be directed towards oli and her school. there may be other reasons for grade inflation and her subpar scores than you may assume true. as i have so often thought to myself, teachers DONT always know the full story. such is the case ESPECIALLY when you have never met this student before.</p>
<p>yea, the scores are subpar and there is the possibility of grade inflation, but one cannot just jump on the student's case. im sure themathprof has heard of lurking variables?</p>
<p>i think i shouldnt have sounded as harsh as i think i did. anyway, i agree with one of the replies-you shouldn't take it so hard. most of the time, AP scores mean little when it comes to college admissions. focus on your GPA and SAT/ACT. there are so many components to an application that there is little use losing sleep over APs, especially if the other parts of your application appear as strong and accurate indicators of your academic abilities</p>
<p>Just want to thank you for posting and not riding my case. It's good to know that the things you assume aren't that I'm just not capable of doing well but that extenuating circumstances or sheer lack of concern may have contributed to my low scores.</p>
<p>Have you ever thought of borrowing the books through the library? =] You can't write in them and only get them for a limited period of time, yes, but if you rent them throughout the year, every month or so, study from it, copy the pages (obviously not the whole book, though =P), take notes, I'm certain that could help. It should force you to manage your time well, and really absorb the material while you can.</p>
<p>Just a thought, though. =] And really, I don't think reporting the scores, or not reporting them will matter all that much, because I really doubt a college is going to question you not sending the scores. That's a lot of money to spend sending scores to all those colleges, and they know that. Sure, best case scenario it would help, but it should never hurt you to send or not send them. If all else fails, call and ask. They won't track you down.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think it's a big deal that you actually took the tests. Whether you passed or not, what does taking an AP class show if you didn't take the test? =] Not a lot, really.</p>
<p>Chances are, you'll be fine. Doesn't matter how you got your grades now; you know how to prepare better for this year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. It has dawned on me to do this before but I come from a pretty small town and the review books in our library are ancient. Instead of writing them off I would've been better checking them out and studying... obviously. All I know is that I have a lesson learned and I'll do better next time around.</p>
<p>Is your library part of a connected group of libraries? I live in a small town as well, but about four libraries from small towns are connected to three within a large neighboring city, and we can request books to be delivered to our local library from any of the other libraries. I guess you don't have anything like that, though?</p>
<p>Because it's true, an AP book from 2000, while it'll help, wouldn't necessarily help as much as the book from 2008, because the tests do change. </p>
<p>Best of luck on studying this year, though. =]</p>
<p>The closest library other than the one right in my town is about 30 minutes away and there's no connection. My whole city was built up by one man and his wife so everything here is privately funded by various memorials in his name and doesn't lead to anywhere else.</p>
and themathprof, "with all due respect", it sounds to me like you're insulting oli's intelligence by suggesting that merely "studying" would not be the solution. though you do claim that she merely "didn't understand concepts", you suggest that these could not be learned by studying. well, then how would they be learned?</p>
<p>also, just because your school is not subject to grade inflation does not mean that theres a bitter diatribe that must be directed towards oli and her school. there may be other reasons for grade inflation and her subpar scores than you may assume true. as i have so often thought to myself, teachers DONT always know the full story. such is the case ESPECIALLY when you have never met this student before.</p>
<p>yea, the scores are subpar and there is the possibility of grade inflation, but one cannot just jump on the student's case. im sure themathprof has heard of lurking variables?
</p>
<p>Actually, in my second post in this thread, I indicated knowing a teacher in my school who was guilty of gross grade inflation. I am 99% sure that I am guilty of "grade inflation", but to a much lesser degree than the teacher that I was thinking of.</p>
<p>To an extent, I think all schools are guilty of grade inflation. Some schools are more guilty of this inflation than others. Some teachers within schools are more guilty of this inflation than others within their school. I know that my building is guilty of this.</p>
<p>I work in a school building where 61% of all grades issued on a report card are A's. I understand that there are some classes where an A is going to be nearly automatic for showing up and performing your role as expected (my favorite of these is Office Runner), but it seems completely unreasonable that 61% of all grades issued would be A's. What does an A really mean when 61% of the population has one?</p>
<p>If we were to evenly distribute those A's among every class in the school, that means in a typical class of 30, 18-19 students would have an A. Think about a class that you were in this past year. Do you really think that there wasn't a significant difference between the achievement of the top student in that class and the 18th best student in the class? I would venture that in the typical class, there is a significant difference between these two students. And if that difference exists, shouldn't it be recognized? And how would we recognize it?</p>
<p>When a student doesn't necessarily have to work hard in order to get an A, that's where some trouble can eventually lurk down the road. I was ranked #2 in my HS class with a 3.99 GPA (got a B my sophomore year, so the pressure of the cumulative 4.0 was never really on) and got a 2.7 my first semester of college. I had no freaking idea how to study, because I never had needed to really do so before. So I "studied" for the tests, but I really didn't do so effectively. I had never learned how to study, and the expectation that I would learn how to study effectively, independently, was a frightening, frightening concept. But it was also a necessary evil.</p>
<p>And this is what I'm talking about when I say that merely studying is sometimes insufficient. In a lot of these cases, studying becomes insufficient, because it's merely assumed that this is something we know how to do effectively. This isn't always the case. In fact, in a lot of instances when the grades/results come in against what is expected, it's an indicator that what you've been doing hasn't been working.</p>
<p>That doesn't mean to stop trying, and there's no magic way of understanding what needs to be done. If I knew that kind of thing, I wouldn't necessarily be a teacher; I would be on a book tour making millions and delivering speeches. :) The truth is, what needs to be done is different for each student, and is something that each individual needs to determine for him/herself.</p>
<p>So when I speak to oli12306 and tell her that she's really going to need to step up her game, it wasn't intended as an insult to her intelligence, although I can see how my original message might have come across that way. Quite the contrary, I believe that school systems -- through grade inflation -- deliberately set some bright students up for failure by allowing them to breeze through high school. I believe that this kind of mentality, set up in part by parental expectations, in part by increasing collegiate focus on higher and higher academic numbers, and in part by the willingness of high schools to increase their grades in order to appease the masses, has severely disadvantaged all of our students to a degree.</p>
<p>As a student myself who has seen the effects of breezing through high school, I would much rather have had the kind of rude awakening that a 2 on an AP test would have brought me in high school. I would have had the advantage of the support network of parents, counselors, and teachers that was present, and had the better ability to expect that assistance to figure out what's going on. It has to be significantly easier to figure this out in high school rather than in college.</p>
<p>My post was meant as encouragement not to dismiss the test scores as "I could have done better if I had tried". And yes, sometimes I do believe that the best thing we can do for kids is to offer them a much-needed wake-up call. Students don't always like that, but I think it's irresponsible not to even try.</p>
<p>oli & others, honestly reread my post. i wasn't suggesting CC as your school for life or anything. I was suggesting it for one year of classes so you could catch up & learn to study efficiently. </p>
<p>as i've said many times, I don't think a CC is an insult. A lot of people in my family have done 1-2 years and come out much better from it. Others who've gone straight to good schools have struggled because they didn't know how to study and high grade inflation</p>
<p>yeah bad ap scores are NOT the end of the world. So many other things are considered in college admissions (SAT, GPA, extracurriculars, etc.), I know that at my school, everyone who took AP Chem last year got 1s (one guy got a 2). This was the cream of the crop of the senior class, yet they did fine on their college admissions despite their 1s on the AP Test and simultaneous high grades in the Chem class. What a lot of them had going for them was that other aspects of their academic record were excellent, some got 4s and 5s on other AP's. Colleges will realize that there is something called inadequate preparation by your teacher, and if they see that you do really well in your other classes or AP's, I think that your 2's really won't matter much AT ALL</p>
<p>colleges know that some schools inflate scores like at my school...extra credit is banned and people rarely get A+ in classes...scores in classes do not really correspond to grades on AP tests...
2s don't look good but i don't think it matters...you are just not going to get college credit and if you take more APs and get good grades..it might help :]</p>
<p>Question, if your family is low on money, how do you already have your scores? Don't you have to pay $8 to get them by phone? I mean I don't think my family is that badly off but even I am too cheap to pay $8 to get my scores early.</p>
<p>whosthat, some people have received their scores in the mail already.</p>
<p>oli, I can relate to you. I worked my ass off all year and have an A in APUSH, but I ended up with a 3 on the AP exam. I actually did study outside of school, not as much as I should have, but I read over the whole Princeton Review book. And my teacher decided playing music and movies the week before the test and not reviewing AT ALL was a good idea. Maybe this is why none of her students have ever produced a 5.</p>
<p>There is a certain amount you can learn from reading review books, but if you didn't have the in depth instruction in school, it's a lot harder to get a good grade.</p>
<p>From what I have read, adcoms will look at the fact that you took the AP class and did well in the class. Exam grades are used mostly for placement purposes. Anyway, I don't really have advice, just wanted to let you know you're not alone, and it's not always grade inflation that leads to high class grades and low AP exams.</p>