It’s Monday, many schools across the country are out for the next three or more weeks across the country, and this is just the beginning. Over the next few weeks, teachers will be working on designing and implementing remote learning. Still, there is sure to be a steep learning curve that isn’t helped along by the fact that 19 million Americans don’t have access to reliable internet. With so much up in the air, it’s hard to guess what will come next, but it is entirely possible that schools will not invite their students back onto campus until fall. Yes, fall.
A lot of people are talking about what this means for classes. We’re also keeping tabs on all of the other stuff that happens at school that isn’t necessarily part of a students’ course schedule — extracurricular, sports, leadership roles, and, of course, standardized tests and AP exams.
College Board has already canceled the March and May SAT dates, but they’ve only put out a few sentences about the AP Program. On March 16th, College Board announced,
“The AP Program is developing resources to help schools support student learning during extended closures, as well as a solution that would allow students to test at home, depending on the situation in May. Additional information will be posted by March 20.”
This announcement puts students in a bit of a limbo. Luckily, we should have an answer (or, at least, that start of one) soon, but let’s play out the most likely possibilities in the meantime.
College Board Cancels All AP Exams and Does Not Reschedule
If the College Board cancels all AP exams altogether, everyone is in the same boat. Colleges won’t be surprised that you don’t have an AP score to show, but it does make it even more important that you keep your grade for the course up. If this is the scenario, we wouldn’t be surprised if colleges who offer credit for AP’s allow course grades to stand in for test scores. Some students may be able to retake the course so as to take the AP exam next year, but that seems like a bad idea. Your AP grade is less critical than a diverse and challenging course load, and taking a class twice is neither diverse nor challenging.
College Board Allows Students to Take AP Exams from Home
In the most recent announcement from College Board, they suggest that they are looking into at-home testing options for students. This sounds all fine and dandy in theory, but we can see a stack of potential problems a mile high. Some schools — those that have strict honor codes that students agree to each year — have had very favorable outcomes with self-administered tests. However, most students aren’t from educational communities where they have ever been given that must trust and responsibility over their educational future.
This isn’t to say that everyone would cheat, but we can imagine a world where students who would never cheat feel forced into doing so because they think everyone else will be — and they don’t want to end up at the bottom of the curve for being honest.
In addition, we already mentioned how many students in America don’t have access to reliable internet. Without those, home testing may well be a non-option. If only students who don’t have resources are required to go to a testing site, College Board risks criticism for creating a socially-tiered system that favors those with more and punishes those with less.
College Board Reschedules AP Exams for the Fall
We don’t think this will happen, but it’s not impossible. If College Board reschedules AP Exams for the fall, we hope that they will be a few weeks into the semester so that teachers can run after-school study crash courses for students who hemorrhaged facts and figures over summer break.
And what will colleges do?
In the end, colleges are going to have to roll with whatever College Board decides. Over the last few years, AP exams have been dropping in importance for the most selective colleges. We’re not in the business of predicting the future, but the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic could quite possibly topple them from the peak of the educational pyramid entirely.
Don’t get too hung up on what will happen if you don’t get an AP exam score to brag about to your friends and wave in the direction of your favorite colleges. We’re all in the same boat, and learning is about more than what you can regurgitate on a test. Now you have a chance to show it.
If you are looking for guidance navigating college admissions in an unpredictable time, send us a note. We specialize in helping high-achieving students find success, no matter the scenario.