AP Exam Registration Date Moves Up to October
Aarya Vaidya
Staff Writer
It’s happening now. You may have hoped to wait several more months before even thinking about it, but AP Exam registrations are here, right at the start of the school year. Many students are familiar with signing up for AP exams in February, but due to the change in a College Board policy, students at American need to sign up for their exams by October 25th.
“Their rationale is that … if students commit early they are going to try harder on their AP exams,” assistant principal Mr. Reibenschuh explained.
On the other hand, Mr. Reibenschuh understands that an early registration date may not be the ideal option for many students.
“It’s kind of thrown all of our students and families into kind of a turmoil,” acknowledged Mr. Reibenschuh. “You don’t want to spend that much this early in the year, particularly for a class you may not necessarily want to take an AP exam for 6 months down the road”.
With the limited spacing at school for students to take AP exams, those who planned to self-study seem to be impacted the most.
Initially, students who were planning to study independently were not allowed to register for AP exams at school this year. However, due to the large demand, the administration is now allowing these students to be put on a waitlist while the administration decides if they will be able to accommodate all students in the testing locations at school.
Even with the change in the exam registration, Mr. Reibenschuh is hopeful that there will not be too many negative impacts.
“We’ve already got people registered,” Mr. Reibenschuh said the day after the exam registrations opened. “We’ve got a culture here that wants to take AP Exams … I hope the College Board decision doesn’t change too many people”.
As the registration opens, some students have expressed concerns about the change in policy.
“It does not give students enough time to see if they really want to take the test or not,” said Iffat Pathan (11). “Later in the year if the class gets harder, they can’t back out of it. They just spent a hundred dollars to fail a test.”
Haritha Rajasekar (10) is taking her first AP exam this year, and she too agrees that is problematic to have students making the decisions to sign up right now.
“I think it makes it kind of stressful because you have to recall the information and you don’t really know what you are signing up for,” Rajasekar told.
However, both students seemed to agree that their course selections play an important role in how they feel about their AP exams.
“I feel prepared because the classes I [am taking] are not that bad,” Pathan said.
Rajasekar, who is taking an AP European history exam this year, feels that it is important for students to understand their perspectives on the subject when deciding whether or not to take an AP exam.
“I think that AP classes like AP Euro depend on your attitude [towards] history in general,” Rajasekar explained.
In the meantime from now until May, it’s best to keep a positive attitude in all classes.
Caption: Some students feel that with later registration, they can better gauge if they should or should not sign up for an AP exam. “[With] a later date, students can see the grades they had and decide not to take the test,” Iffat Pathan (11) said.
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