The pandemic had not only shifted school from in-person to online, but AP exams from the College Board as well. Many students have been wondering how the AP exams work with COVID-19 growing increasingly serious as the months go on. And the College Board had presented a solution.

The College Board announced that if safety conditions allow, schools can offer in-person testing for AP exams. Though if not, the AP coordinator will authorize a full length AP exam that’ll be taken at home. More details are expected to be shared early February and a contingency plan will be announced during the Spring as the College Board and educators discuss for the future. 

Furthermore, the College Board prepared live session reviews between April 19-30 for students to review their courses. With more materials listed on AP Classroom for additional review of each course’s units. 

“I personally do not agree with the decision to give full length tests, because it has been very difficult to cover all of the AP topics in a virtual setting. I feel that most of us are self-learning a lot of the material, which is definitely not as effective as learning it in a real classroom setting. Also, online tests are prone to cheating so that will likely be an issue as well,” said Nicole Ju (‘21).

Despite the change from in person testing for AP exams to online, the 2021 AP Exam Calendar schedule is already announced to be from May 3-7 and May 10-14. And goes from the Morning at 8am to the afternoon at 12 noon, then 2pm in the afternoon. With world languages exams including AP Spanish, French, Chinese, and Japanese, in a slightly different format with it’s addition of recorded audio. 

Further on how the online at-home AP exams will proceed will be released late February by the College Board, administrators, and teachers. And one can only hope history doesn’t repeat itself next year.