Staff Editorial
EA students, especially seniors, should not be required to take AP exams. Forcing students to sit for many hours of exams is completely unnecessary, especially for seniors who will not gain any benefits for taking an exam. While this is true every year, the burden of taking the AP exams is especially high this year.
The entire point of seniors taking an AP exam is because certain colleges award college credit to students who earn a score of a 3, 4, or 5. By March 8th, however, the deadline for AP exam registration, many members of the senior class already knew where they would be attending college. This will become a frequent occurrence as universities are increasingly no longer giving credit for AP exams. Many universities do not give credit for certain AP exams, and according to a report by the Progressive Policy Institute, “Nine schools give students no credit for AP work. These institutions include some of the top schools in the country: Dartmouth University, Brown University, the California Institute of Technology, Williams College, and Amherst College.” If a student knows that they will receive no credit or placement advantages for scoring well on the AP exam, why should they be forced to pay $95.00 and sit for the lengthy test? As Micheal Letts, Head of Upper School, acknowledges in an email to Honors American Literature students on February 19th, 2020 regarding the optional AP English exams, “certain universities and colleges will give credit to students who perform at a very high level on an AP exam, but this is very spotty and school dependent.”
Additionally, the AP exams have no bearing on a student’s class grade. Therefore, the requirement for a student to take them does not make sense. A student will pass the class whether they score a 5 or a 1, so why does it matter if a student sits for the exam? In addition, if students are required to take the exam, it gives the impression that the entire point of the class is the exam, which contributes to the notion that teachers are “teaching to the test,” which is illogical if the exam does not affect the student’s class grade.
Although a student could simply sign their name and take a nap during the exam if they gained no benefit from taking it, this would inaccurately skew EA’s class AP results. If EA wants to use AP scores as a measure of quality of its AP courses and teachers, a student who throws the exam and scores a 1 or 2 would bring down the class average for the AP exam, giving teachers an inaccurate report of their class’s success and their own performance in preparing their students. If this happens, teachers will also be unfairly penalized because the administration evaluates AP teachers in part based on how well their students do on the exam.
AP exams are costly, and with many students taking multiple AP classes, $95.00 per exam adds up quickly. Additionally, the average exam is three hours long and the extensive material it covers requires many hours of studying on top of that, making them incredible wastes of time for students who gain no benefits from the exam.
While we believe strongly that students should not have to take APs any year, removing the requirement is especially important this year with its unique and challenging circumstances. Firstly, AP exams were optional last year, and although virtual learning has improved this year, it was still a very tumultuous year with lots of disruptions as instruction jumped between in-person and online. All that disruption has caused the administration to add an extra two weeks of class time at the end of year putting even more of a burden on students. Adding many hours of extra standardized testing on top of all that is frankly ridiculous. For example, Eliza Aldridge ‘21 is taking five AP exams this year, adding up to 15 hours of testing.
Finally, the pandemic has altered many families’ financial situations, so forcing students to pay for costly tests can be a burden this year. In addition to her own five exams, Aldridge notes, “my brother Bo has to take three and my younger sister Evie has to take one, so my family has to spend a lot of money on exams. It’s an especially significant amount of money this year with the pandemic.”The administration is placing a burden on students by forcing them to spend large amounts of time and money on exams that will bring no benefit to them and may harm teachers in the process. Scholium is asking the administration to reverse a decision which seems to have no merit and will only add an unnecessary burden onto the community this coming spring.