Students Push Through Two Weeks of Advanced Placement Exams
By Katie Marber ’10
News Reporter
From Monday, May 5th to Friday, May 16th Choate students took Advanced Placement exams on campus. At the pre-AP meetings of the first week, students learned about the process of taking an Advanced Placement test and filled out the preliminary exam. The purpose of these meetings is to reduce the amount of time that the actual tests, which occur over the following two weeks, take. Anyone can sign up for a fee of one hundred dollars for each test he or she chooses to take-- a substantial tariff that may deter some lower income students even in the face of a fee reduction offered by the College Board.
The majority of students who participate in AP week are juniors. Last year, about fifty sophomores, over 200 juniors, about 110 seniors, and few eager freshmen took at least one AP exam. Choate provides many corresponding AP courses, which require that the school follows the AP curriculum.
An exam is either at 7:45 in the morning or 12:30 in the afternoon and lasts four hours, (although because of lab complications the AP French Language exam took 5 and a half hours). Students taking an exam are excused from classes and do not need to be in dress code for the exam.
The number of APs taken differs for each student. Many sophomores only take one, the most common choice being AP World History for students in the Honors Chronological or Thematic courses, whereas juniors average two or three. Some students opt not to take any APs at all. Most seniors take only the APs for which they can receive college credit, as their AP scores will not affect college admission decisions—although a few take an AP to test how well they have mastered course material. Students taking one-term AP courses such as Macro and Microeconomics can have as many as seven APs.
Students often take tests for which they are not enrolled in a corresponding course. Choate does not offer an AP Biology course, but according to Kathleen Wallace, Dean of Academic Affairs, “we don’t feel the need to offer an AP course, but students feel well prepared to take the AP.” The vast majority of test-takers, however, have taken an AP course for the exam.
Sharon Delvecchio ’09, who took the AP Biology exam, commented on the pre-exam administration session. “I thought it was a little bit overrated, but I guess it took some of the anxiety away just so we wouldn’t have to be bubbling in all that stuff before the test.”
Students in AP classes take exams during AP week, and do not have an exam during exam period at the end of the year. Although AP week is stressful for many students, they feel they reap the benefits when exam week rolls around.
Kathleen Wallace commented, “We are not a school that mandates students taking them,” so it is not required. Sophomore Rachel Rattenni said, “I am taking it [the AP World History exam] by choice, not because I’m forced, which takes some of the pressure off.” Students voluntary participate because some colleges provide course credit for some AP exam scores of 3 and above. However, in recent years, many competitive colleges to which students from Choate aspire have stopped giving AP credit or have increased the score number for which credit is allowed.
The most subscribed tests are AP US History, AP English Literature, and AP Macro and Micro Economics. If a student wishes to take a test that Choate does not provide, such as AP Human Geography, the ETS Office of Disability will order it.
In June, ETS pulls professors from all across the country. These “AP readers” are a group of both college and high school professors who hand-grade each test. Although most Choate teachers opt not to spend hours reading student exams from across the country, a handful, including Djang, Droel, Doster, Stowe, Webb, and Stuart, have served as AP graders. Students receive scores from zero to five (optimal) in July once all the tests have been graded. Last year, 93 to 95 percent of the student body that took APs received either three, four, or five, numbers well above the national norm.
