News

Unpreparedness causes uncertainty

AP students face delays in exam schedule

Friday, May 20 was the final day of Advanced Placement exam late testing. Seniors Luca Jarquin (left) and Lucca Martinez (right) sit in the Bonita Vista High front officie and wait for the proctors who will take them to a quiet room to take an afternoon exam.

Jose Solis, Podcast Manager
June 13, 2022

Throughout the month of May, various students prepared for Advanced Placement (AP) exams at Bonita Vista High (BVH). Some students had their exams rescheduled or delayed due to registration, scheduling or administrative mistakes on the AP Collegeboard website. Furthermore, some students were forced to either take their exams at a later date or offered a refund.

“When students start an AP class at the beginning of the year, they work with their teachers to sign up for Collegeboard. Once a student signs up to Collegeboard for their AP class, their exam automatically gets ordered,” Assistant Principal and AP exam coordinator Dr. Jason Josafat said.

The AP Collegeboard website is designed to enroll and register students into their AP classes and exams. Once a student is enrolled in a class, they are automatically ordered an AP exam to take, but not obligated to take the test. Although the process is simple, students can sometimes struggle signing up for their class and their account will need to be revised by Josafat in order to both enroll in the class and take the exam.

“[In case there is a student who is not enrolled], I’ll email the teachers and ask them to double check their rosters because they also get a list of the students who are signed up for the exam. Then I will follow up with those students individually if I don’t see their test ordered ,” Josafat said.

With the testing season coming up, students whose exams were not registered got a chance to refuse to take the exam. One such student is junior Emily Miranda.

“For my AP US History exam, I paid for it but they said that it wasn’t on file. I could’ve taken it later sometime later in May, but I didn’t choose to take it because I would have been with a lot less students and friends. I didn’t want to stress about that later on,” Miranda said.

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I didn’t choose to take it because I would have been with a lot less students and friends. I didn’t want to stress about that later on.

— Junior Emily Miranda

Students who are taking International Baccalaureate (IB) exams also faced these challenges. In contrast to AP exams with later dates, IB exams have only one date and time offered at BVH and cannot be administered separately. To combat this, Josafat had to create a solution.

“[BVH] is unique in that we have more late testers because we have the IB program. The IB program doesn’t offer late exams but the AP Collegeboard does. It took some work with Mr. Phelps and I to organize facilities with IB and AP exams. Understandably so, we’re limited in facilities here in Bonita Vista High so we had to create a calendar of schedules for IB and AP exams [so there would be less double bookings],” Josafat said.

In addition to Josafat’s efforts on recent AP exams, students had to deal with the smaller errors while taking exams, such as mixing up the AP English Language and AP English Literature tests. These made the testing time period longer, though not hindering them significantly if caught early.

“[AP proctors] tried as fast as they could to address the problem and identify it before it was an issue. [AP exam takers hadn’t] opened the packet yet or anything,” junior Chelsea Shum said.

As opposed to a smaller mistake caught early, failure to enroll in their AP classes caused some students to take their AP exams much later. These new dates caused trouble with students’ schedules or led them to ask for a refund.

“I took AP United States History but that [test] got delayed. Now I have to take it on the 18th instead [of the 6th]. I’m not sure if I’ll take it yet,” Shum said.

Students who take the later exams would often be met with different exam environments. They were also surrounded by those who had already taken the exam and saw them celebrating. These circumstances led some to not want to postpone their exam.

“I’m just going to get my money back. [The AP exam] was something that I was planning to do all year and then it just didn’t happen for me,” Miranda said. “I think [it’s better to take an exam on time] because when you’re taking a test with other people, you can talk about what questions you had and it just makes you more comfortable than doing it alone and studying alone.”