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This thread is a microcosm of what is wrong with parenting in the United States in 2018. If you sign up and commit to an AP class, you should take the exam. That's the responsibility you have as a high school student once you commit to taking and finishing the course. It's communicated from the outset that the exam costs about $100. If you don't take the exam, you dropped the ball as a young adult. It is of course perfectly rational and common sense that many AP teachers will attach some sort of repercussions to your grade if you drop the ball in this fashion. What in the world do you expect?
So now in this thread, we have adults trying to play attorney and seeking out ways we can blame the teacher for the student dropping the ball and not doing what she should have done. Stop blaming adults for the mistakes your children make. Your excuse-making and failed parenting strategies do not help your own children and contribute to the general deterioration of life skills among younger generations.
And, in anticipation of the obligatory defensiveness and passive-aggressiveness, I am a parent and I am also an AP teacher.
Nonsense.
The issue at hand has nothing to do with AP courses, putative exams, or portfolios.
The teacher is extorting money in exchange for a grade.
Pay the fee, get a B.
Don't pay the fee, get a D.
It has nothing to do with anything else. It is about being required to buy a grade.
Now if the grade was going to be assigned REGARDLESS of whether or not the parents pay the extortion fee, that would be different. You MIGHT have a leg to stand on (probably not though).
But the reality of the situation is that this teacher is extorting money from the parents in exchange for a grade. This should not be allowed. The grade should be based solely on work done in the class. Whether or not the student's parents pony up shouldn't enter into it.
https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/home might offer some answers. My understanding is that College Board makes the rules, and that a teacher can't change those rules to suit him/herself.
What the teacher is saying does not sound right to me. My daughter took AP Music Theory, did NOT take that exam for credit, and still got an A in the class. She took several other AP exams, but didn't need the Music Theory credit for her chosen major so opted to skip that one.
Who told you AP credits would let you be a part time student? They provide credits not exceptions to federal student loan policies.
I didn't need to take out a federal student loan, given my financial situation. Even if I did, federal student loan policies require that the borrower carry 12 credits per semester, not 15. The mandatory 15-credit policy came from the university I attended.
I've already explained to my son - starting HS this fall - that AP classes won't shorten his time in college, they will allow him to skip some of the basic courses and start taking more interesting advanced level classes sooner.
I do know some students who graduate earlier based on AP classes - usually a semester, not a year unless they really push themselves and take summer courses. But since my son has a summer birthday, and will already be on the younger side, I wanted him to internalize the concept that AP classes, even the classes he may end up taking via a community college, are about enhancing his college experience with more interesting classes, not about shortening it.
You couldn't have said it better. I wish somebody had explained that to me all those years ago. I was also on the younger side myself, having been born at the end of October; I was still 17 when I started college that August.
I did take one summer class while in college, but by then I knew it was only so that I could complete my major sooner, and wouldn't reduce my workload the following semester.
The university I attended (Fordham University in New York) had a very strong emphasis on its mandatory liberal arts curriculum and distributive requirements, and students weren't able to even take one course toward their major until the spring semester of their second year, and possibly not even until the fall semester of their third year.
I don't know. She has already been accepted into college. This would just have given her college credit if she had passed it.
I would just not pay the fee and let her get a D. Big deal, just make sure the college has no repurcussions (though I see no reasons why it should, seems rare).
I would just not pay the fee and let her get a D. Big deal, just make sure the college has no repurcussions (though I see no reasons why it should, seems rare).
I've heard of colleges retracting admissions for bad senior year grades.
I would agree if this were about grading the work done. But the quality or completeness of the work appears to be irrelevant to this class. It's clear that the grade depends on paying for the money. If she pays, she gets a B. If she doesn't pay she gets a D or F.
Actually given where things stand now, I'd more likely tell her to "pay the man the two bucks" -- IE pay the fee, get the B, graduate and get the heck out of high school. Just be glad to be done with it.
The lack of morality on the teachers part does not excuse the lack of morality that would happen to the student by paying for the grade that by their parents own admission, they did not earn.
The issue at hand has nothing to do with AP courses, putative exams, or portfolios.
The teacher is extorting money in exchange for a grade.
Pay the fee, get a B.
Don't pay the fee, get a D.
It has nothing to do with anything else. It is about being required to buy a grade.
Now if the grade was going to be assigned REGARDLESS of whether or not the parents pay the extortion fee, that would be different. You MIGHT have a leg to stand on (probably not though).
But the reality of the situation is that this teacher is extorting money from the parents in exchange for a grade. This should not be allowed. The grade should be based solely on work done in the class. Whether or not the student's parents pony up shouldn't enter into it.
"Extorting." Get a grip and stop making this dramatic. You have no idea what "extortion" means, not if you're misapplying it as you do here.
A. The parent and child knew there was a cost to taking the exam.
B. The entire point of an AP class is to take the AP exam. Every AP class is predicated on every student taking the test. Those teachers who do not expect all students to take the AP exam do so to improve how they look in terms of percentages of students scoring 3 or better.
C. None of that money goes to the teacher. Your "extortion" claim is ridiculous and emblematic of the thinking among the sort of parents I referenced.
The failed parenting strategy of finding other adults to blame for your kid's mistakes teaches them some really deleterious habits and thinking patterns:
1. "When I get in a pinch, I can just get my parents to intervene and intimidate the adults who are holding me accountable for my mistakes." And I'm telling you, unbelievably, this sort of stuff happens even with parents of college students. Mind-boggling.
2. "It's not about my obligations, it's about my 'rights.' Even when I knowingly commit to something, in the end, it's about what you are going to do for me. And if it turns out that I don't want to do what I agreed to do at the outset, I can just walk away from it without any adverse consequences."
Of course, once these kids leave the cocoons, the world does not afford them these privileges. What a disservice parents who parent like this do to their kids. If I had created a situation like this as a young adult, it would've been unthinkable for me to enlist mommy and daddy to do something like this to a teacher. I would've been held responsible for creating the situation, because I created the situation.
Why do many parents use these failed parenting strategies? Because, as my mother said, it's much easier to be that sort of parent. Blaming others is always easier.
"Extorting." Get a grip and stop making this dramatic. You have no idea what "extortion" means, not if you're misapplying it as you do here.
A. The parent and child knew there was a cost to taking the exam.
B. The entire point of an AP class is to take the AP exam. Every AP class is predicated on every student taking the test. Those teachers who do not expect all students to take the AP exam do so to improve how they look in terms of percentages of students scoring 3 or better.
C. None of that money goes to the teacher. Your "extortion" claim is ridiculous and emblematic of the thinking among the sort of parents I referenced.
The failed parenting strategy of finding other adults to blame for your kid's mistakes teaches them some really deleterious habits and thinking patterns:
1. "When I get in a pinch, I can just get my parents to intervene and intimidate the adults who are holding me accountable for my mistakes." And I'm telling you, unbelievably, this sort of stuff happens even with parents of college students. Mind-boggling.
2. "It's not about my obligations, it's about my 'rights.' Even when I knowingly commit to something, in the end, it's about what you are going to do for me. And if it turns out that I don't want to do what I agreed to do at the outset, I can just walk away from it without any adverse consequences."
Of course, once these kids leave the cocoons, the world does not afford them these privileges. What a disservice parents who parent like this do to their kids. If I had created a situation like this as a young adult, it would've been unthinkable for me to enlist mommy and daddy to do something like this to a teacher. I would've been held responsible for creating the situation, because I created the situation.
Why do many parents use these failed parenting strategies? Because, as my mother said, it's much easier to be that sort of parent. Blaming others is always easier.
Really? It seems you do not have an adequate understanding of the situation to be making such statements. It also appears you have not read enough of the information provided in the discussion to be passing judgement.
It looks like it will come as a surprise to you to learn there is no exam to be taken. It also appears you missed the part where the teacher involved indicated his concern is not with this student but with the ongoing continuance of the class in general and the possibility it may be cancelled.
The issue at hand has nothing to do with AP courses, putative exams, or portfolios.
The teacher is extorting money in exchange for a grade.
Pay the fee, get a B.
Don't pay the fee, get a D.
It has nothing to do with anything else. It is about being required to buy a grade.
Now if the grade was going to be assigned REGARDLESS of whether or not the parents pay the extortion fee, that would be different. You MIGHT have a leg to stand on (probably not though).
But the reality of the situation is that this teacher is extorting money from the parents in exchange for a grade. This should not be allowed. The grade should be based solely on work done in the class. Whether or not the student's parents pony up shouldn't enter into it.
Are you sure about that? My reading of the OP is that taking the test is a necessary condition, but necessarily a sufficient condition to getting a B. Does taking the test guarantee a minimum of a B grade, or does it just allow a B to be earned?
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