During last week’s online Advanced Placement (AP) exams, a wave of students experienced technical issues that prevented them from being able to submit answers. So for this week’s exams, the College Board announced it will be accepting submissions via email if students run into problems.
The College Board informed students by way of an email on Sunday and further explained the change through a post on its website.
“This option will only be available for students who were not able to submit in the standard process – and they must then email their responses immediately following their Exam,” the College Board’s post states.
Students who run into trouble submitting their AP exam response can see instructions on how to respond via email on a page that says “We Did Not Receive Your Response.” The email address that shows up on that page will be unique to each student.
The change does not apply, however, to students who had trouble submitting answers last week or those taking World Language exams. For those students, their only option remains to retake their AP exam(s) in June.
“To protect the security and validity of Exams, we’re unable to accept submissions from students who tested May 11–15,” the College Board’s post states. “However, these students can feel confident that the email option will be in place for them during the makeup Exams.”
In the event that this week’s test-takers run into problems uploading and emailing their responses, they will also need to take a makeup test in June.
Waiting until June for a makeup test, however, is less than ideal, as students are not likely to retain all the information covered on their AP exam for a month and have to study and repeat the stressful test-taking process all over again. Some are asking why students couldn’t, instead, retake exams within a week.
And there’s no guarantee that students won’t run into technical problems or have trouble emailing responses the second time around. In that case, the College Board says students will be reimbursed.
“If a student has a technical issue during the makeup exam or is unable to retest in June, the AP Program will waive all fees for that student’s Exam,” the College Board’s post states. “Fees for these exams will be automatically removed from the invoice sent to schools. Students can contact their schools for information about refunds, if applicable.”
AP exams for students in the United States, U.S. territories and Canada start at $94. At international test sites outside of these countries, the exam fee is $124 per exam.
The College Board has stated that only 1-2 percent of last week’s test-takers experienced technical problems, which is something it claims to have anticipated.
But the uproar on social media, led by students who experienced technical problems and their parents, suggests those percentages are off.
“Given that more than 15% of my school ALONE had similar issues as me, waiting for the buffering of the submit button after successfully uploading pics/all work, this statistic makes absolutely NO SENSE,” one student tweeted.
Another tweet reads: “I think your 1% is off by double digits. Good thing your work isn’t being graded for college credit.”
