My S23 twins each had a different version of the AP Human Geo test. They both have AP Bio next week, will be interesting to see if they have different tests for that too.
S21 has AP Env Sci & AP Lang next week.
@jeneric and @TVBingeWatcher2 My kid had only two AP exams so far and she took pictures on her phone and then used it to upload. Happily, no issues. Itās an older iPhone. I heard that the default file type on the new iPhones (HEIC?) cannot be uploaded directly to CB. You have to change the settings on the phone so it saves photos as JPG or convert them before uploading.
Our internet service has had a number of interruptions recently. We figured the phone might be safer because the cellular data plan and hot spot provide some extra insurance if the wifi cuts out.
Well itās not an AP test, but my H had to design essentially five different equivalent exams for his chemistry class. He has no special background in test design so he had to wing it and TRY to come with five different problems of similar difficulty to test each concept he wanted to cover. He had a computer program that would shuffle the questions randomly so that few tests were exactly the same (not sure how many total questions or tests he had to create this way). Hopefully the random shuffling will mean that any one test is not significantly more difficult than any other if he somehow was not able to come up with equally-difficult questions. He said it was a LOT more work than designing his normal exams but it seems a necessary thing in this brave new world. Grading each exam is a bit more time-consuming too.
@3kids2dogs Two years ago, there were two versions of the BC Calc test and one was super difficult. S19 got that one as did many of his friends. They all got 5s. I think it was kind of a notorious test with Twitter and Reddit going crazy with comments about it. So no one should worry if their child gets a hard version of a test. It should turn out ok.
@inthegarden If your D isnāt going to use the credit, then donāt stress about the test! D21 will likely not use any credits from this yearās APs either. At her high school, there are hardly any honors classes for juniors and the honors level is AP so thatās just where she belonged. I havenāt checked but I doubt she would get useful credit for APUSH or AP Lang no matter her scores. S19 wasnāt able to get any credit from any of his APs when he first enrolled - Bowdoin just used them for placement. He now has credit just for APUSH since the rule is that you have to take a higher level history class and then the college will give you one credit for APUSH. But heāll never use that credit so it doesnāt matter. Kids take four classes every semester no matter what so itās not even useful to get the credit. Anyway, just a long way of saying I hope your Dās test isnāt stressful but I wouldnāt lose any sleep over it.
Thanks, @homerdog, Iām really not stressed about the results, just about the fact that she feels she has to go through the ordeal. She just felt she ought to have some 4s or 5s to report on college apps. I told her this might have been the case in the past but this year things are so messed up that colleges are going to put little importance on AP scores for admissions purposes. Iām sure having 5s would be something of a boost but I donāt think NOT reporting scores will really matter this year.
This afternoon I hugged her for a long time and she just cried. Not so much about the test but just everything. The world turned upside down. Not seeing her boyfriend or a single person other than mom and dad for two months (except for random people on the street from a distance on our walks). Not even any zoom classes. I think itās especially hard not having a sib. Do think she felt better after getting it out though.
Iām so sorry to all who had AP test upload problems! S21 had Gov, Calc, Lit, and Chem this week and his uploads were fine. However, from a class of 6 students in Chem, 2 couldnāt upload yesterday. Thatās a 33% failure rate, CB! And both were using high-end computers at homes that have high-speed Internet.
Just Stats left for the end of next week. I will be so-o-o happy when these tests are done. When S19 took his AP tests, I didnāt give it a second thought - he studied, went to school, and took them. This go around, I feel so much more responsible - support a productive study environment, make sure our internet is up to snuff, keep everyone else in the house QUIET and off other devices during the test. My H was horrible about this - he is a photographer, and 5 minutes into one test he wandered out saying he was uploading a large photo file to the access site. NO!!! CANCEL THE UPLOAD !!
An in the end, Iāll be advising him to closely consider what if any credit he chooses to take based on the disruption and uneven coverage of end-of-course material. His teachers chose to cover even the material excluded by the CB, but the intense reviews didnāt.
@TVBingeWatcher2 , both my
girls used their iPhones for their Calc exams. Exact same kind of phone, all software updated, exact same browser, with the photo default adjusted for jpeg. They both did the practice exam the same way. One had issues on the actual exam (D23) and one did not. So for many, it is definitely not the browser.
APUSH today and then D gets to rest for a bit before LANG next week. No idea whatās going to happen in class after that - if they take the AP exam they can opt out of the final, and then she can opt out of her last two non AP classes if her grade is high enough.
She never heard back from teacher 2 and 3 about letters of rec, but they had exams this week and were prepping pretty intensely so she plans to follow up this weekend.
S21 took his first AP yesterday, Chem. He doesnāt talk much to us about school, but he said it was ānot bad.ā No upload issues, but thankfully I learned (I think on this forum) that there are issues with native iPhone pic format if you upload pics of written answers, so I told him and literally 15 minutes before the test he confirmed with a friend and changed the setting to save as jpeg (I think).
After the test, he was on a group chat with his friends, and they figured out that there were at least 4 forms of the test, and that they covered somewhat different topics too. Maybe the cheating issue will not be as large as I expected given how little time there is to cheat in the 45 minutes allotted. However, I am hearing rumors of tutors taking tests for kids tooā¦
Cheating never surprises me, but what kind of parent actually encourages it by hiring a tutor to take the test??? Shameful.
So Iām annoyed with a couple of Dās teachers. You may remember she got a new physics teacher around Christmas break. She had a sub for a few weeks, now a new teacher (this might be her first full time teaching job). Our district merged marking period 3&4, so all grades for both will be combined and your grade will show twice - once for 3rd and once for 4th. Well, physics hasnāt posted a grade since mid-March!!! And D complains sheās the teacher overloading them with work at home. Not one thing graded.
Then her AP psych teacher - for a while all her grades from pre-COVID disappeared and it showed she had a 0. D questioned and teacher said she would fix it. So then D has had a 95 for the longest time, today she has an 85! Teacher put in one grade that she gave daughter a D on! No other grade is under an 85. But then I realized she only has 5 grades - this is for all of 3&4 marking periods??? She had like 10 grades before COVID closure!
@NJWrestlingmom Oh that is so annoying! And stressful! I feel for your daughter (and for you!).
Grrrrrrr!!! @NJWrestlingmom
Luckily no AP submission issues here in 3 tests. Our son takes them on my wifeās Windows 10 desktop computer that she uses for her business. Itās connected via ethernet to eliminate potential wifi issues. Iām in IT, supporting Teams among other things, and one the biggest problems folks regularly face is due to poor wifi, so ethernet was key for him. He takes photos of his work with his phone, emails it to himself, saves the picture into a folder that he created in advance on the desktop, then uploads the picture. He was issued a chromebook from school but there is no way I would let him attempt to take the test on it. I just donāt trust them for anything important.
@NJWrestlingmom ā ugh, thatās frustrating. My S also lost a teacher in Jan right after the break and had few grades in the system for a while b/c a sub was taking over. The replacement teacher started after moving to online so theyāve never even met. Fort., she did a pretty good job, all things considering.
Grading is so disparate during COVID. I think college admissions folks should not look at this semesterās grades at all ā or it they do, compare them to GPA up through Fall semester Junior year b/c any drop is likely do to the pandemic in some way, shape or formā¦
S has two APs today ā APUSH and Computer Science.
Sending good upload vibes to all!
@NJWrestlingmom Oh do we feel your pain. D21ās AP Lang teacher has told her that there will be no grade improvement for Q3- which is really counting as a semester and .5 credit in her GPA. They had 4 grades! None of the work they have been doing since we left will count. She also sits as at an 85. But if you were failing the class- you get help.
On top of that the teachers are telling them they should take the grade instead of pass/fail (we have the option to pass/fail any class) and to explain about grades in their essay for college! I just about lost it as I listened to the teacher- thank goodness my kidās mic was off!
@jenric ā That really makes me mad! Itās like suddenly calling the game over when you thought you had more time b/c, well, there was lots of time on the clock!
Iām not sure, but my first thought is to do the opposite ā take the P for the class for GPA purposes and then your D could explain in the Additional Info what the grade was on the day schools were closed (so they donāt assume it was a truly bad grade), but there were limited grades in the books, and based on last semesterās performance, she expects it would have gone up, etc.
Grades for D21ās dual credit college classes are in. She got As, which is a relief because her Am Govt course had only four grades to itā¦two essays, a midterm, and a final. The final was worth most of the overall grade. D21 had been dreading it because the midterm was difficult and she got a B+ on it after studying like mad. Well, thanks to COVID-19, the final was changed from the original difficult timed exam to two simple essay questions, open-book style, and students could work on it over four days. So in this one instance, her class definitely got easier in terms of grading due to going online and COVID-19. It worked out for D21. However, the all-over-the-place nature of grading everywhere for everyone makes me feel like it is only fair for admissions to throw out all grades for spring 2020, good and bad - just throw it all out the window and take into account all other semesters and fall 2021 grades when evaluating students. Some of our teensā lives were actually made easier while others were made much harder. So just toss it all and take spring 2020 grades completely out of the evaluative process. If I were head of admissions somewhere, thatās what Iād do.
I know that would be a bit of a shame for those who worked hard and earned their good grades (as D21 did, I feel, even if she did catch a huge break in her AmGovt class). But there is something to be said for education being its own reward. Spring 2020 could be just that. Whatever any kid got out of it academically, in the end, is reward unto itself.
@NJWrestlingmom ?
I hope you and your daughter can get things straightened out with the grades. D23 had a teacher on maternity leave for the first half of the semester. The sub neglected to tell her first period class that they were having a midterm the next day. She remembered in time to tell all her other classes of the day. Of course, D23 was in the first period class. Sigh.
@jeneric we donāt have the pass/fail option. But my husband teaches in the district (but middle school). Itās ridiculous - he has a student who hasnāt handed in one assignment. At first, he was advised to notify the parent and give them a 0. Then the parent reported him to the administration for bullying them by sending her emails letting her know her son hasnāt done any work! Now heās been told nobodyās grade can get worse, so he will pass the class having not done 1 assignment since March!!!
Thatās what really makes me mad - D21 is working hard. Her AP Psych class is all seniors. I highly doubt they have all been working as hard. If youāre going to grade, it should be real grades.
@AlmostThere2018 We are in Wake County- so I know you appreciate how important GPA and rank is. Add to that we are 1 of 3 IB schools. My first thought is the same as you- take the Pass for anything that is not an A or an unweighted class. The county made the decision not to combine semester 1 and Q3 for a yearlong grade as well- that was a killer for a lot of kids.
Good luck to everyone taking APUSH- may all the kids type/write fast and uploading go seamlessly!