As many high school students prepare for next year’s Advanced Placement testing, they are learning about the recent move by the College Board, the not-for-profit organization that administers the annual exam. Beginning in May 2025, 28 of its AP exams will move to an online testing format.
Last summer, The College Board announced its plans to move away from paper AP testing because it was “vulnerable to theft and cheating.”
College Board will be using the Bluebook digital testing app to administer tests. But despite the tech-savvy move, responses from students who plan to take the exam next spring are mixed.
Tabetha Godley, a freshman at University of California, Davis, said she feels that no matter what measures are taken to prevent cheating, there would always likely be a student who would find a way to cheat, which would defeat the purpose of switching the testing format and ultimately prove the transition to be more of an hassle than needed.
Many interviewed students had conflicting opinions. Some said the switch was abrupt and poorly announced, while others said it is an important measure to take in order to remain current.
“Switching to computers could slow down student response time, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal if we were doing it on paper,” said Anastasia DiBartolo, a 12th grader at Liberty High School in Brentwood.
DiBartolo also brought up the issue of resources that would be needed to administer online testing, something that she said had likely gone overlooked during the decision process.
“We simply don’t have the infrastructure currently where it would be plausible and sensible to do online AP exams,” DiBartolo said in regards to Liberty High School. “Unless [the] College Board or the government is willing to input better wifi networks across the country, it just doesn’t make sense.”
Conversely, Rachel Lei, an 11th grader at Heritage High School in Brentwood, believed that an online format would benefit the program, allowing students to have an easier time responding to test questions.
“Typing things out is a lot easier than writing them out,” Lei said. “But I’m still skeptical about how things like FRQs (Free-Response Questions) are going to work.”
Teachers said they also have noticed the affect AP classes have had on students, and have addressed the problems as well. Katherine Macedo, who teaches AP Environmental Science at Heritage High, discussed the issues that online testing could bring.
“I absolutely hate that. It makes total sense from a test security standpoint, but you need the infrastructure to support that,” said Macedo, echoing others’ concerns.
When asked about her opinion of the College Board as a company, Macedo mentioned her thoughts on setting a limit on the number of AP classes a student is able to take.
“I’ve watched multiple kids year after year where they have almost mental breakdowns because they’ve taken too many APs,” Macedo said. “There should be a limit.”
With a mental health epidemic among today’s teenagers, high school students have expressed that AP classes are a large source of stress and burden in their lives, specifically due to the rigorous nature and particular formatting of the classes.
“The way that they would probably change the proctoring of the exam would add a lot more stress and learning how to take the test online would probably add an extra aspect of stress to it,” Godley said.
Ishita Khanna is a 10th grader at Heritage High School in Brentwood.
