SoCo saves the worst for last

Local high school chooses to delay AP exam testing dates

AP exam dates may seem set in stone, but that’s not the case, at least if you go to South County. They opted out of the regular exam dates and instead took theirs on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during the week of May 19th, a full two weeks after the rest of the country.

South County wasn’t the only school to make this decision, a few others scattered within Fairfax County appealed to College Board to delay the exams. Students at these schools were granted extra time and preparation to face the tough exams.

“It’s really unfair because they had more time to prepare and they could look at prompts being released from the original test date exams for practice,” said junior Lauren Catington.

Although this could have been an option for WS, administration decided against this option for many reasons, keeping student’s best interests in mind.

“The original tests were administered in ten days and the makeups were all given in three days so do the math,” said Knox. “Also, trying to cram in all the tests from a building space perspective, we barely have enough room as it is, so at the end of the day there are not enough advantages to delay it.”

Since the makeup exam schedule only allots three days to take the tests, students taking 4-6 exams would have at least one day with two exams. This would actually be a large drawback as students would not be fresh or at their best with two tests on the same day as opposed to having the exams spread out among two weeks like the original schedule. It also causes mayhem within scheduling as multiple tests may be scheduled on the same day at the exact same time.

“My son had to take the computer science test on the original date because he had two AP exams scheduled for the same period,” said chemistry teacher Diane Wootan who has a son attending one of the few schools to delay their AP exam dates. “This was a disadvantage for him because there were only about six students who also had this so the teacher hadn’t started review yet because all the other students weren’t going to have their test until the makeup dates.”

While at first glance the exam date delay may seem like a gift, under further examination setbacks surfaced that ultimately convinced WS to keep the dates as originally planned.

“Having [AP tests] loom over me for another two weeks would be agonizing,” said junior Katherine Novak, “and  if I took the makeups I would always be wondering whether I would have done better on the original.”