Next year, I will be a senior in high school. All the seniors have told me that the senior teacher is awful. It is not because she is a bad teacher; she just plays favorites. If she likes you, she will give you a good grade. If she does not like you, she will give you a failing grade. As you’re reading this, you may seem skeptical, and I was at first, but they told me of two experiments that were done in order to test their theory. On one instance, a student turned-in a research paper his cousin typed-up and got an A+ on. The senior English teacher gave him a D-. And just today, this student told me that a girl turned-in the same paper another boy turned-in and got a D on. She received an A+.
I’m afraid that if this teacher does not like me and gives me bad grades, it will affect the college I want to get into. So far, I have gotten all As except for the first semester of my freshman year when I got two Bs. I currently rank 11 our of 109 in my class. Will this affect my chances if she gives me a D (which is considered a passing grade in my school)?
Uh, just spitting here, but have you considered the 2nd student got a bad grade for plagiarism? Since they turned in the exact same paper as a previous student?
Heres my advice: don’t turn essays as grading experiments. Do you work, and if she gives you an unreasonable grade, take action from there.
Be her favorite. Turn in essays so great that they can’t possibly deserve a poor grade, and as MITer94 said, go visit the administration if you still get unreasonable grades.
Generally speaking, most teachers have “favorites”, but obviously most will not take this into account while grading (except possibly for participation grades). If you feel unfairly treated at any point, administration is the way to go. But for a much more stress-free solution to the problem: try to find out what makes her pick favorites, and position yourself in a way that lets you take advantage of this. It doesn’t solve the problem in itself, but for you personally it’s the easiest way.