That one letter grade bump is potentially a big thing, but only if the student is not a senior in HS, since you won’t know the score until after graduation!
Edit: never mind, OP is D21. Yeah that grade bump benefit is pretty uncommon, but at my kid’s HS in NorCal, the science departments (Bio, Chem, Physics C) does bump a grade to an A- if you got a B and subsequently got a 5 on the AP test.
I still see no con in taking the test - it’s not as if she has to drive somewhere on a Saturday morning to take the test. Studying for the AP exam will most likely help her in the regular exam.
It will depend on the college, of course, but my younger son was very happy to have science AP scores so that he wasn’t stressed out about having to take STEM courses as a requirement. (He did end up taking at least one as an elective.) Conversely, my older son was very happy to have an APUSH score so that he didn’t have to take as much history in college.
So, for those HSs providing a “bump” for an AP 5, is that based on a practice test, or the real thing? IIRC, AP scores are generally not available until July, well after most schools have closed out the school year. Do those schools “re-open” grades to provide these bumps?
Yes. I know one of my D’s teachers this summer reached out to her after receiving the exam results and joked something to the effect “I would bump your grade but you already have an “A” in the class!” In practice, I doubt many students in the class are able to get a 5 on the AP exam without getting an A in the class. Maybe a few “B” students could do it with lots of additional studying but my guess is the teacher rarely gives a bump as only her A students are the ones getting the 5s anyways.
I like the concept. If you can “master” the AP exam, you obviously know the material well even though the class grade may be lower.
B in AP class but 5 on AP exam may mean that the teacher is an (outlier) hard grader, or the student got a lower grade in class due to slacking on non test assignments. Based on score distributions, it is likely that most students do the same or worse on the AP test as in their course grade.
My kid got 5’s on two history APs with a B+ in the class. One teacher disliked him (and the feeling was mutual), in the other case my son adored the teacher, but he had very high standards.
The first teacher really was strange. He apparently predicted grades for the kids and thought my son would get a 2 or a 3. Meanwhile most of the A kids did not do that well. My kid brought in a lot of outside information - he’d been reading history for fun since elementary school.
My kid had a B+ in Calc B/C and got a 5 on the test. Also got 96% on the final - which I thought might just encourage the teacher to round the 89.7%. But, he learned the hard way that while only 15% of the overall grade, those pesky HW assignments can make a difference when you don’t turn them in.
My older son was lucky to have a calculus teacher who didn’t grade homework. He told them to do as many problems as they felt they needed to, to be sure they understood the material.
Off topic, but in 8th grade my D20 and a friend both had around a 89.5% in one of their classes and the parents of the friend argued for their daughter to get the A and the teacher complied. Our family did not argue for the A as we did not think it was appropriate and D20 ended up with a B+ that semester (her only B to this day) and did not get the “special” designation and recognition for 4.0 (uw) upon middle school graduation. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter at all but it still bother me a little…lol.
I agree that this “grade grubbing” is a problem. It’s even worse at my DD’s school as they don’t do + or - ’ s for grades. So 1 student with a 89.5 gets rounded up to an A while the 89.4 gets rounded down to a B.
I’ve observed a couple of instances where the parents swoop in and get the grade pushed to an A where it is very close as it’s not worth the teacher fighting with the parent.
Teacher using absolute scale grading should just announce at the beginning of class that there is no rounding (i.e. 89.9 is still less than 90). For example:
A means score >= 90
B means 80 <= score < 90
C means 70 <= score < 80
etc.
The OP has already indicated that there is no grade bump for taking the exam and//or getting a 5, so can we please move past the discussion of rounding an 89.5, which was OT to begin with?
In practice, I doubt many students in the class are able to get a 5 on the AP exam without getting an A in the class. Maybe a few “B” students could do it with lots of additional studying but my guess is the teacher rarely gives a bump as only her A students are the ones getting the 5s anyways.
My kid. Several times. He was learning the material, and what he didn’t know but needed to, from the tests in class. But our school didn’t give any bump for the AP score. (And yes, the grading was harsh, but accepted. )
haha my kid managed to accomplish this feat on quite a few occasions. Just mostly because he never studied, he crammed. Mostly in 12th grade when the grades didn’t matter much. But I’ll admit he was the beneficiary of getting that grade changed from a B+ to an A- in AP Chem in 11th grade after having gotten a 5. FWIW he also got a B/B+ and 5s in AP CSA(!) one semester, in AP Lit both semesters (even had a B- one semester), and in AP Calc BC both semesters. No grade changes on any of these.
For what it’s worth, there was a Stanford applicant on CC some years ago, who had a 5 an APUSH and a 2 on AP Bio. For Stanford specifically, I advised her to go ahead and list the 2 as well as the 5. As far as I can tell, Stanford likes resilience and the “growth mindset,” so not being too embarrassed to show the 2 as well as the 5 would be a plus with them. Whether this was good advice or not, the student was admitted to Stanford.
In most cases if a student had a 4/4/4/3 record, I would suggest that they go ahead and list all the scores, rather than omitting them all. The only exception to that might be if they come from a high school where 5/5/5/5 is the norm for the APs they took.
^ A 2 is never a plus. Nor a 3. Not in a ridiculously competitive situation. We can say what we want about what did or didn’t work for a tippy top, but it’s speculation. Anything that raises questions is a risk, especially, “What was she thinking?”
So was this kid a stem major?
In OP’s case, I agree to sign up now and decide later. Otherwise, she could decide against it, just one month into the semester…and have no option later.
Good teaching makes a huge difference in how students can perform on AP tests. My oft repeated story is how son got a 5 on the AP Chem exam his senior year while getting a C in the class- which ended a month after thos early May exams. A hard working relative in a different state got an A in the class but a 3 on the exam. Both had similar Talent Search scores years before. Son’s AP-USH exam score reflected his grade. Excellent teacher but son did not refine his essay writing skills when he could have
Obviously the student who had the 2 on AP Bio was not a prospective STEM major.
I don’t think a 2 would be a plus, but I don’t think hiding it from Stanford would be a plus, either. What, the student is afraid to fail? That goes totally against their Admissions Office’s big emphasis on the “growth mindset,” as opposed to a “fixed mindset.” (I don’t buy into that, but I know that Stanford admissions does, courtesy of Carol Dweck.).
If the student had not had a 5 on another exam, my advice might have been different. In any event, in this particular case it clearly did not hurt the student, since she was admitted to Stanford. Owning up to the 2 was not the reason for admission, of course, but it didn’t preclude admission either.
I don’t think it does much good to stir up anxiety that everyone is doing so well at everything that one needs to present a “perfect” record for admission to top universities.
It is ought to be well known by now that a student can have a “perfect” record: namely 800/800/800 SAT 1, 800/800/800 SAT II (one sitting each), 4.0 UW GPA, 8 AP’s all 5’s, Calc BC in 9th grade (A/5), and multiple university classes and still be rejected or at best waitlisted–while being a really fine human being into the bargain.