For the first time, The College Board, the company that administers the SATs and APs, have moved AP tests online. Every AP test is 50 minutes long, most of which consist of just a few short or long response questions.
It’s understandable why AP tests are online, because obviously having them in-person was not an option. But the way that College Board is handling them is hurting the very students they are supposed to be helping. The tests cost $94 each, often for just one question, and it can pile on students who are taking more than one AP exam. Essentially, The College Board, a “non-profit” organization, charges students almost $100 to sit at their own computer, in their own home, and complete one or two questions. If you take the exam outside the U.S., you might have to pay up to $142 per exam.
But on top of the absurd price, many students can’t even turn in their exams. Anna Galer and Ava Kelley, both students in AP Physics, finished the whole exam only to find the Submit button wasn’t working. The College Board did nothing to help them, so now they have to retake the entire exam in June.
Anna Galer talked about her experience with the AP Physics exam. “It was a really frustrating experience. I submitted the first question with no issues and felt super good about it. When I opened and completed the second question, I was so excited, again feeling good about my answers. But then, it would not submit. It was almost as if the computer wasn’t sensing me clicking the submit button. My sister came and tried to help too, but nothing worked. We tried all three ways of submitting. But in the end, just had to sit there and watch the clock tick down to 0, eventually seeing the message that said my responses weren’t submitted.”
Ava Kelley also disagrees with the way The College Board handled the glitches. “Personally I think that College Board should take some responsibility for what is happening. Thousands of kids who have prepped for months, including me, for the exam have been unable to complete them due to malfunctioning submit buttons at the very end. College Board’s only response to this issue is to makeup the exam because they think it is student error. i think this is not a fair response to because it is clearly not student error.”
According to the official College Board Twitter account, 2% of students taking AP Physics could not submit their responses. That adds up to at least 1,000 students that have to retake an exam that they already completed. If you had any technical problems at all, the College Board is forcing you to retake it or you lose your money. They have not said anything about reimbursing students for the tests, even if they have to take it twice.