Due to the widespread school closures and extended period of distance learning, CollegeBoard has made the unprecedented decision to administer all Advanced Placement (AP) exams online for the 2019-2020 school year. Advanced Placement courses allow high school students to earn college and high school credits simultaneously, by passing the now online end-of year exams. 

Advanced Placement programs are extremely common in most high schools, both in and out of the United States with a total of 1.17 million students taking at least one Advanced Placement exam in 2018. Typically, exams vary in timing and question number, but due to the change in exam administration, every AP test will be a 45-minute exam with no multiple-choice questions for any subject.

“I feel like the online exams are going to be a lot harder than we presumed,” senior Claire Wisth said. “I am worried because no one really knows what the exams are going to be like. I do not blame anyone, I feel as though teachers and administration are doing everything in their power to help us through this unprecedented time.”

In an attempt to help ease the confusion and answer any questions, Senior Vice President of Advanced Placement Trevor Packer testing held an online webinar with over 75,000 high school teachers in attendance. During this time, he discussed major changes to specific Advanced Placement courses, such as the AP art portfolio requirement being cut from 15 to 10 pieces, and AP research students no longer having to deliver the presentation portion of their exam, as well as addressing the set up for all other exams. In addition to many students feeling heightened concern about the uncertainty of the exams, students also experienced varied responses to the changes in requirements.

“Finding out that all of our hard work we have put into our team presentations and individual presentations was not going to be shown made me very upset,” junior Paige Knipfing said. “Especially with the team presentation as all of our work is submitted the grade should be counted and not pushed aside. I think only doing FRQs [Free Response Questions] puts a lot more pressure on students which does not seem fair.”