AP Chem crisis

CTScoutmom
Sat, 05 May 2018 01:09:14 +0000

Your situation really isn’t as unusual as you think. My daughter’s school brought in a new Chemistry teacher this year, to teach both General and AP Chemistry. Half a dozen sophomores ended up testing out of General Chemistry and into AP. Students from both classes didn’t care much for this teacher, and then she took a leave of absence in January (unexpected - at least you had warning). A professor from a local college was brought in to take over the AP class, and a long-term sub took the other classes. DD almost gave up on this class (thankfully marking period grades do not show on her transcript, on final grades), but in a practice test this week she and another sophomore had the highest scores, she earned an estimated score of a 4, and this was before completing 2 chapter in the Princeton review book. These 2 students had NO exposure to chemistry aside from basic middle school science classes (they took biology last year), while the Juniors had a full year of General Chemistry with the previous teacher - and one of his students had one of the 3 perfect scores last year.

The College Board isn’t going to do anything about this, it’s not their problem, nor is it a unique situation. Take the exam, review for it this weekend, you might find you know more than you realize. A “bad” score isn’t going to hurt you, a “good” score might help. Your school will figure out how to grade you. If necessary, they could give you a final grade based on the work during the first semester - the College Board doesn’t really care what is shown on your transcript; you won’t get college credit based on your course grade. When my oldest daughter took it, only 1 student out of 20 in her class got a 3 - the majority didn’t even get a 2, but most of them had an A or B in the course. If you end up with both a low grade and a low score, your GC can address that as part of your applications.