More Students Locked Out Of Advanced Placement Exams With No Recourse
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Our story about a student who was locked out of Advanced Placement tests recently really touched a nerve.
We heard from families across the country after it aired on Friday, saying the same thing was happening to them. CBS 2's Tim McNicholas had another story on it Tuesday morning.
High school students have spent months flipping through textbooks with the goal of acing the AP tests this week, and earning as many college credits as they can.
But for Ronak Arun, that goal is on hold.
"It just made me feel that it's unfair," Arun said. "The past couple of weeks, I was really grinding it a lot, so I'm really disappointed that I've wasted so much time."
Arun is a sophomore at a high school in New Jersey whose dad reached out to us after seeing our story on Vince Petropoulos.
Petropoulos is a Lake Zurich student who said he signed up with his school's AP coordinator to take the test, only to learn after the deadline that he was not registered due to an error on the part of his school.
The College Board, which runs the test, said they cannot make an exception for Petropoulos because of the complex security measures they have put in place to keep students from cheating with the new testing rules in the pandemic.
Students, of course, usually take the tests at their schools. But this year, thanks to COVID-19, they're taking the tests online from home.
"The College Board is unwilling help," Petropoulos' mom said.
In New Jersey, it's not clear what the exact error was. But Arun said his AP coordinator told him he was good to go, and then just last week, he learned he was not registered – much to his dad's frustration.
"For me it was like, oh, exactly the same thing," Arun's dad said.
Both families are now asking the College Board to bend the rules and allow them to take the tests during the makeup dates in June. But so far, no luck.
We also heard from a Connecticut family who thought they had done everything right to sign up, only to learn last week that their sophomore can't take the test. The College Board said with the new testing format, they can only help students who were properly registered by the deadline back in March.