The Friday after AP testing ended last May, math teacher Jennifer Mantle’s AP Calculus BC students watched the inspiring 1998 film “Stand and Deliver,” in which a Los Angeles high school math teacher named Jaime A. Escalante defies the low standards expected of his students and motivates them to excel.
After a year of rigorous coursework, Escalante’s students passed the AP Calculus AB exam with high marks, causing accusations of cheating from the fictionally named Educational Testing Center. As a result, the students were forced to retake the test to prove the validity of their results.
Little did they know that they would soon undergo a similar experience.
That same afternoon, hundreds of SHS students were called to the McAfee Center, where administration announced that the College Board had invalidated seven AP exams taken at the school after receiving a photograph of improper seating arrangements from an anonymous source. The College Board requires students to be seated 5 feet apart, while the administration had seated students 4 feet apart with dividers.
“We were so ready to chill out for the rest of the year and then they tell us: ‘These seven tests — you have to retake them,’” said senior Elicia Ye, who retook the AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC exams last year.
Other students reported being annoyed at the retakes as well.
“It was really frustrating because we thought we were done, but then it was right back into study mode,” said senior Ananya Chakravarthy, who retook the AP Chemistry Exam.
Retakes took place from May 18-26. In 2017, 530 students took 1,319 AP exams and almost 300 students had to study again for one or multiple of the seven AP exam retakes. Students’ schedules were altered to accommodate the inconvenience.
“No students were found to be cheating. No tests were found to be compromised,” assistant principal Brian Safine said. “But the College Board didn’t like the fact that our students were sitting closer to each other than prescribed.”
According to Safine, the school’s seating arrangements will be altered this year to completely comply with College Board specifications. Students will sit at their own individual tables or, in case of larger tests, may sit together at the edge of 8-foot tables.
This year, 562 students will take 1,280 exams. There will be a total of 21 tests, administered from May 7-18 in the Small Gym and the library.
Although AP tests do not determine college admission, some colleges award course credits and place students further on in the curriculum based on AP results.
“It’s a chance for students to show what they know; it’s a chance to demonstrate their mastery, but it's not something that should create undue stress in their lives,” Safine said.
The tests are not as important in the scope of things as one may think, Safine said, because GPA, extracurriculars and SAT or ACT scores play a much larger role in college admissions.
“We have many bright and motivated students who are interested in taking college level curriculums, and they tend to drive themselves really hard, and they want to demonstrate what they learned,” Safine said. “Learning is hopefully the goal for our students, and the test score is secondary to the actual learning that goes on in the classroom.”