I’m sorry about this and for the bad teacher. My son was in the same boat but it was really on him since he prefers to straddle the 89.5 line (min effort, max result). He would end up with 89.46 every semester for AP Chem. D24 is at 90% but she has a make up final after break. I told her that her brother got a few B’s and still got into an Ivy and Berkeley.
If your D ends up with a B and it’s her only B, don’t fret. If the rest of her application is great, they will value all of that over one B.
He had more than a B. From freshman year to junior year— (by semester) 5. The Spanish teacher was an asshat who fell asleep in class and didn’t teach much. The math teacher who broke down because she was getting a c- trying to take her own darn test (she’s no longer there). That was just freshman year! But he ended up with a 3.86 and 4.41 by time of application. UCLA tends to want 3.9 unweighted+ or that’s my theory (and they went test blind so his 36 ACT didn’t help). The other colleges seem much more flexible in terms of grades + total app package.
The math teacher couldn’t pass her own test? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. My daughter had to sit down with her Chem teacher to find out what she missed (he only gives a score. They don’t get to see what they got wrong unless they make an appointment because he reuses his questions and doesn’t want students to pass on the questions) and on the third question, he couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong. 15 mins and Google later, he determined that a couple of the numbers should have been rounded to whole numbers because of the type of numbers they were. He admitted the question shouldn’t have been on the test, but he didn’t change her grade or anyone else’s and I have no doubt he hasn’t bothered to remove the question from his test bank.
Bad chem teacher is a common theme. When I said I helped S24 with the chem final, I really helped. I when through the semester material and worked out the final review questions so that I can answer his questions.
The chem teacher posted 120 multiple choice sample questions and answers. I found 10 wrong answers in the answer key. When I sent her an email, she replied saying she updated a day later. However, she never sent email to the kids that she updated… and in the update, I still found 3 wrong answers and she added 5 last min questions. This was all done the night before the final 10pm.
I’m sure a lot of students were confused as heck if they trusted the answer keys.
Sigh I wish some of the teachers put more effort into what they are teaching. I have no problem with hard grading/Tests if they teach the concepts well. With out teaching and unable to answer there own questions is wow just can’t imagine what they are thinking.
Glad to hear that your son did ok with a few B’s especially at Berkeley and Brown. Interesting observation about UCLA.
Son does not show much interest in college yet but if he were asked to name one school we would love to attend that would be UCLA (though he keeps changing). I think UCLA has been harder to get in than Berkeley the last few years
I’ll have more data point this year on UCLA. I think the 3.9 gets some validation when I look at old UCLA admit samples on CC threads. It’s been like that w/ the kids’ high school. However, with the 9-13 criteria the UCs use, UCLA seems to veer towards leadership while Berkeley seems to veer towards a balance of leadership and passion/curiosity. The 3 kids we know who got into UCLA, one (URM) got into Berkeley. The others were rejected so go figure. Our HS counselor says that the UCs are very vague in the meetings that counselors attend. They give generalities and when the counselors ask for examples, they never share it.
When you get more info after this years admits do share. I am really eager to see how things shake out.
I have a friends daughter who go into UCLA but not in Berkeley and they were surprised. She had UW GPA of 3.96 and Weighted GPA of 4.6ish. She did have a lot of leadership so may be that did play to her advantage as you say at UCLA.
My D had a terrible AP chem teacher too. First year teaching that class and she was clueless. The students ended up teaching themselves and spent the majority of the class correcting her mistakes. The first exam she gave them the previous year’s midterm even though they were only three weeks in. My D felt like she learned nothing. I personally don’t think that’s true because she was able to find other resources and figure it out.
She did repeat the class in college and has five very successful semesters under her belt as a chemical engineering student.
There are no schools that require a UW 4.0 . . . none. A single A- (or even B+) will not eliminate your child from consideration at any school. Also, a perfect UW 4.0 will not assure entry at super selective schools. Every year I read about kids with the perfect 4.0 being rejected (and just as often students with great, but not perfect, gpa’s being accepted).
agreed! If you look at the ED and REA posts for highly selective schools there are posts of kids with “perfect stats” being rejected and non-hooked kids without that are accepted. There is more than grades and if kids spend their entire high school career obsessing over a b it is going to be a long and tiring 4 years.
Exactly! It’s an unhealthy attitude. It also puts the focus on performance instead of learning which I think is a shame. My older kiddo (who is only a good, but not top, student) often comments that the primary focus of high performing kids in his classes are their grades and not what they are learning. He remarks they are quick to drop any class where they don’t think they’ll get an A - regardless of how interesting it might be to them. I think that is really unfortunate and inhibits intellectual curiousity.
@momofboiler1 Have your daughter save her Gen Chem and Organic Chem books. She can use them to teach her future children. Im sure we will continue to produce chem teachers who are mediocre 20-30 years from now. As a chemical engineer, myself, I have spent the first half of each AP Chem year teaching both my kids. Our school only has one AP Chem teacher. She’s very kind. When she teaches, my daughter thrives. However, for some reason, she doesn’t have time to teach them. That’s what the kids all say so it’s baffling. So I review my college book sections, teach my daughter, D24 goes over the examples from my college chem book, and then she turns around and teaches her friends.
They had summer work when S21 was taking the class. Imagine giving the kids a stack of AP Chem work BEFORE the start of the year and expecting them to know how to start. Chem can be a total foreign language in the beginning. I reviewed the material that summer and thought it was so overwhelming for a 10th grader that I took a week of vaca and S21 and his friends came over that week and we spent 10am-5pm doing AP Chem summer work (the parents donated meals :)). This last summer they had a week of enrichment in school. Partly because maybe parents complained and partly because virtual schooling in 8-9th grade didn’t allow them to have proper in-person lab prep.
Interesting to know that there is an issue with chemistry teachers besides at our school. My older kiddo had a honors chem teacher that was checked out last year (a lot of personal struggles) and he had to self teach a lot - it was a bad match as the hard sciences are his weak point. For him getting a B+ in that class was really a proud moment as he really had to work hard and seek out the answers on his own. I tell him it is a good skill for college!
Yes, this theme of bad Chem teachers has been eye-opening. I’m sorry for everyone who has had to teach their kids themselves or whose kids struggled.
Grading is a topic that can really tick me off. I absolutely despise the practices that clearly impede learning and either demoralize or penalize the students. I’m in a DBA program right now and since I teach at the CC level, I’ve chosen CC’s as the industry I’m studying, and grading for equity is the problem I’m researching. So I spend a ton of time researching various grading methods. I’ll give you one interesting statistic: 98% of teachers think that their grading practices are fair and are an accurate reflection of what the students understand of the topic. But when asked whether the grades given by their peers are an accurate reflection of students’ knowledge and readiness, only 52% agree.
That’s really interesting! I have mixed feelings about grading - on the one hand I’m not a big believer in everybody gets an “A”, on the other hand I’d love more student attention on actually learning instead of a hyper-focus on grades/performance.