As the end of the school year draws near, many students are once again faced with their last great hurdle before summer break: the AP exams. Year after year, the testing season has left many students feeling jittery. Will their year-long efforts pay off at long last, they wonder? Or will the long-dreaded assessments only lead to disappointment?
This year, students have more cause for worry than usual. After last year’s abbreviated, 45-minute tests, it came as a surprise for many students to hear that College Board has decided to reinstate the AP exams in their original, full-length form. While imperfect, the testing alterations of 2020 were an amiable effort to reflect the challenges of the pandemic. But after more than a year of online instruction, many of these challenges remain and, in many cases, have only been amplified. With open-note tests, reduced participation requirements, and incomplete class content becoming the norm, students are now more unprepared than ever before for the notoriously-rigorous AP exams.
In response to these concerns, Sara Sympson, a College Board representative, told Evanston Now that colleges “expect exam scores to reflect the full scope of AP coursework.” Citing approval from AP teachers and last years’ high scores (averaging 3.03, the highest since 2000) College Board will continue to give exams in a form that creates “unprecedented flexibility,” according to Trevor Packer, a senior vice president leader of the College Board. For most subjects, exams will be offered both in-person and online on three different dates. As for the digital exams, which caused a plethora of problems in 2020, the new digital exam application is more tolerant of Wi-Fi disruptions. Students will no longer be able to use a smartphone to take the exam, toggle between questions, or upload their work using pictures. Along with these technical changes, students will test for the full three hours and will thus be held accountable for the full scope of the course.
Pete Bavis, a longtime advocate for the AP exams and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction at Evanston Township High School District 202 in Illinois, works at a school that has been nationally recognized for increasing the ability of students of color to find success with AP courses. In response to College Board’s claims that “the majority [of AP teachers] urged us to stick with the full exam,” Bavis reported that his conversations with AP teachers have shown otherwise. After receiving many calls from frustrated parents after the 2020 exams, Bavis was cautiously hopeful this year’s exams might run more smoothly. But after receiving the information for this year’s exams, Bavis was again disappointed. In an article for Education Week, he writes, “The College Board’s insistence that this school year is normal has transformed the AP exam from an instrument of upward academic mobility to one of our students’ greatest mental-health risks…”
As Bavis indicates, the mental health of many students has continually deteriorated over the course of the pandemic. A combination of social isolation, loss of day-to-day support from friends from family, upending of life structure, and increased anxiety have led to higher rates of mental health problems among teenagers. According to the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, from April through October of 2020, the proportion of children between the ages of 12 to 17 visiting an emergency department because of a mental health crisis has climbed 31 percent compared to the same time period in 2019. But this statistic only accounts for those who visited emergency departments. It does not include those who sought help elsewhere or had mental health problems below the crisis level. Whether the impact has been large or small, the pandemic has affected the mental health of everyone. According to a national survey by the JED Foundation, children from ages 13-18 reported increased challenges with social isolation, anxiety, trouble concentrating, difficulty handling emotions, depression, difficulty coping with stress in healthy ways, lack of family stability or support, self harm, substance use, and suicidal thoughts. Considering the palpable impact that the pandemic has had on mental health, College Board should have adjusted its exams in correspondence. At the end of the day, students’ long-term mental and emotional health is too important to be traded off for a simple exam score.
But unfortunately, the stress of the pandemic isn’t the only factor placing students at a disadvantage for AP exams. This year, class time has been cut drastically short due to scheduling shifts for online instruction. Many teachers have been forced to condense or even cut content, which is especially problematic for already fast-paced AP courses. Science classes have been hit especially hard with the complete loss of the hands-on lab component. But in all courses, the virtual setting makes it more difficult for students to engage meaningfully with the material and to get the support they need from peers and teachers. With many hard-working, straight-A students reporting lower or even failing grades, it is clear that virtual school has created numerous learning barriers, many of which have persisted even a year later. Last year, teachers lost the last four months of school to virtual instruction, causing exams to be reduced in length and content. This year, teachers have lost an entire year of in-person class time, and yet the exams have been restored to their full length.
The expectation for students to take the full-length AP exam covering the entire course content is incongruent with the realities of student life and virtual learning. As was stated by Assistant Superintendent Bavis, “let’s at the very least acknowledge it is essential that the content of AP tests appropriately represent what is taught during the pandemic. This is a pillar of good assessment practice.” Due to circumstances beyond their control, students are clearly left unprepared for the full content and format for their exams compared to a regular year. Rather than serving as an accurate measure of student learning, the full-length 2021 AP exams become yet another additional, unnecessary stress for those already struggling to cope with the challenges of virtual learning.
Furthermore, these challenges are exasperated for minority groups and low income families, who have been hardest-hit by the pandemic. According to a EdWeek Research Center survey in 2021, mental health struggles are more pronounced for those who qualify for free or reduced-price meals as well as members of Black and Latinx communities. And this year’s AP Exams, which have placed these groups at a distinct disadvantage, have done nothing to acknowledge the added stresses or accommodate for the inequity. As one example, a national-level Pew Research study conducted in April 2020 found that 40 percent of low-income families reported unreliable internet connections at home. As for minority groups, 54 percent of Hispanic broadband users and 36 percent of Black broadband users worried about paying the bill for their home’s Wi-Fi, according to the same study. Based on the College Board exam requirements, students with poor Wi-Fi or improper technology will need to take in-person exams, which will increase the risk of these students and their families of exposure to COVID-19. This oversight by the College Board only creates further inequities for groups that are already historically disadvantaged by standardized testing.
In order to voice concerns over equity, loss of class time, and the effects of the pandemic on education, a group of Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Philadelphia students formed social media accounts with the name @students4examequity. The group created a petition demanding that College Board cancel the current policies preventing students from returning to previous questions, make the tests open-note and based on the accessible study materials, and cancel all AP test fees for this year with refunds for those who were already charged. As of late April, the petition had approximately 40,000 signatures out of its targeted 50,000.
And yet, despite numerous criticisms, College Board has stood firm with its plans for this year’s AP exams. The organization claims that they are working to follow feedback from teachers and students despite the @students4examequity petition and the statements by Pete Bavis, both of which represent significant opposition to the current exam format by students, teachers, and administrators. As for the claim that colleges expect students to take a full AP exam, it seems unlikely that colleges would be unwilling to adapt to a modified test given the pandemic-related modifications that colleges have already made, such as the new test-optional policy that is sweeping the nation. Most notably, colleges pledged to fully accept last year’s shortened AP exam format in recognition of the challenges that the pandemic creates for students.
Across the country, final exams are being cancelled. At IHS, most Regents exams have been called off, with many teachers deciding to forgo finals. However, there are still many students who wish to take the AP exams—91 percent according to a College Board survey from last year. Given this high demand, it is commendable that College Board has responded, creating a system for students to continue to obtain college credit in the virtual world. But aside from fixing the technical problems from the 2020 exam season, the format and expectations for the 2021 exams are far from “flexible.”
As College Board’s justifications begin to crumble under the protests of students and teachers across the country, it becomes clear that AP testing has neglected the mental health crisis of many students and the lack of preparation provided by online classes. Treating the 2020-2021 school year as if it is a normal year is a bewildering response to the challenges that many students have faced. AP exams are intended to help students—to open doorways for the future and create new opportunities. But when the test becomes an inaccurate measure of student learning, perhaps the College Board should reassess its own standards.