my school ruined my college applications :(

Applying to College
1

First time user here in a big dilemma. I am a full IB diploma candidate enrolled in SL Chemistry. However, my school handled the class (and overall IB experience) in just about the worst way imaginable. Last year, our teacher allowed the entire class to earn an A by simply dumbing down the material and handing out tests/assignments that clearly weren’t prepping us for the IB. We repeatedly told on her but they waited until the end of the year to fire her. It is now senior year and we receive a better teacher, but unfortunately, they have been tasked with teaching us two years worth of material in 8 months before the IB test. Seriously, we did not get to year 2 material until DECEMBER of yr 2 and we were forced to spend extra time during and after school hours to catch up but it was still not enough. I had a tutor on the weekends and she could not comprehend how she was to teach me all this material in such little time. It was clearly an impossible situation that was bound to self destruct but they made us go along with it anyway. I sat through first trimester and received a pretty low grade (not failing), but trimester 2 I had finally had enough and dropped to a lower level class that was mostly teaching the same material, just at a slower pace, and didn’t have to complete an IA or take an IB final. At that point, there were only 7 people left in IB chemistry and they were asking us to teach ourselves multiple units before the mock exams in February, along with finishing our entire IAs which we started late. The culmination of all the Chemistry work was overbearing on my mental health and causing me to have unnecessarily low grades in my 5 other IB courses. Trimester 1 I had finished with multiple Cs after having all As last year and i was desperate to show colleges that I could bring my grades up again but it felt impossible with this situation on my shoulders. I am a 4-year varsity athlete who spent 2-3 hours everyday after school practicing until about a week or two before the trimester ended and I commute 4 hours in total to and from school everyday. As you can probably imagine I barely had time for full IB before all of this was thrown at me. After a long battle with the school and my parents, all parties agreed to let me drop and forego pursuing my IB diploma, which really sucked because I had already completed TOK and the EE. My guidance counselor informed me that she had explained, in her letter of rec, to colleges back in September the situation in hopes of softening the blow to my transcript as I was applying to many selective schools and felt I had a decent shot before this. This made me feel better but she still said I needed to tell them myself before they see my trimester 2 and 3 grades that I had chosen to leave the class. Trimester 2 grades are going to be sent shortly and I still have not informed them but have received acceptance to all of my safeties and targets as well as being waitlisted at a top 10 LAC. I really want to get a call from them and would attend in a heartbeat because my family is having some financial trouble, due to my parents divorce, and that is the only college on my list not asking for 50k we simply don’t have. I am really worried I will immediately be written off for dropping IB, even though I had valid reasons to. I am just very worried now what is going to happen to my acceptances and my waitlist, as they can obviously rescind or just not call. Maybe I should have stayed to save face but I think I would have very easily failed the course if I did, which probably looks much worse than leaving tbh. Has anyone had an experience like this before and know how these colleges will respond.

TLDR; full IB diploma candidate forced to drop IB Chemistry because our school screwed us over by letting our teacher teach us nothing year 1 then hired a new teacher who had to cram 2 years worth of material in one. spent additional hours after school to catch up and it still wasn’t enough. started the IA late and they did not care that there was an entire trimester worth of material unaccounted for by the time mock exams came around. I left the class, opting for a standard high school Chem class while keeping my other 5 IB classes and recently got into some pretty good schools and waitlisted at one elite school, but do not know how they will respond to the change.

2

The real issue I took from your post is that you don’t have a school that is affordable. Don’t worry about the WL school, it is highly unlikely that you will get a spot from the WL.

3

Your parents are in the middle of a divorce. Your family’s financial situation is in the middle of a drastic change. You have no affordable offers right now. Even if they would suddenly become affordable, they might not still be next year.

Did I get that right?

If so, what you need is to define with your parents the amount of money that indeed is actually available for your college education. Then you need to get yourself over to the financial aid forum for some advice on identifying places that are still taking applicants for the fall, and that are likely to be affordable for you.

Given the divorce situation, my guess is that you want out of the house, so commuting to a cheap local CC or public U, or taking a gap year to rework your application list while living at home, probably aren’t options to consider.

4

Your family problems and financial concerns are the issues, real ones you need to work with. I think you are otherwise blowing the bad Chemistry teacher issue way out of proportion. Every school I have ever seen, or attended, or taught at had a few really bad apples. Blaming bad grades in your other courses on this one class may seem reasonable to you, and there may be some truth to it, but it will not seem reasonable to other people. When you get to college, believe me there will be a few doozies of horrible professors—professors are not hired nor promoted on teaching ability but on research, and once they get tenure all bets are off. You need to learn to compartmentalize these problems in individual classes or else you will have further problems down the road.

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but that is the reality.

5

When something like lots of colored Lego’s fly all over the floor, you must gather them up by color without kicking stepping on or losing Lego’s. You too have hit a time when lots is haapening that you must sort out now. If your parents are divorcing you need to think about where you will live and cope with lots of social, emotional and practical concerns. Concurrently, you have issues with financing college. While your parents may be able to contribute to costs, right now money is probably tight. You must have realistic conversations about how much each will contribute now and in the future. Think about how much added debt you can absorb now while the financial cabtpicture clarifies. About the class. Truly it sounds like a terrible mess for you and other students, but your GC can vouch for the problem and potential impact. However, really bad teachers can slow academic progress, but can’t screw you up as much as you think. That class problem was happening when there was distress from the divorce.

You must scrape together your Lego’s to find out where you are. Eliminate colleges that declined, or put you on a waitlist or are simply too pricey. Get existing applications under control and then maybe find some more that fit existing criteria. There may be some commuter state universities and find out about options for housing. Perhaps look at community colleges. You want a means of satisfying graduation requirements for college or even earn a specific degree. If you have high school classes where you not only earned lower grades, but also mastered less content, find out how you can catch up. When life is a mess, it helps to identify what you can control and form a plan. Get mesy problems organized enough that you can supervise and interview. Your post was so scattered that you need to exert control over each piece and do what you you can to control what you can and let what you can’t simmer. As long as you are swirling with problems, you can’t act. Hope it works out for you, but it will take time. In the interim, take control when you can. Best wishes.