This year, College Board transitioned almost every AP exam to a digital format, with only foreign language exams remaining fully on paper. While most exams occurred without any issues, AP Psychology faced problems with student log-in, preventing all students at Jackson-Reed from taking the exam at its original time.
The exam was scheduled to start around noon, but Bluebook – the online platform used by College Board for exams – experienced widespread log-in issues at 11:45 am that kept students from taking the exam. While College Board was able to resolve these issues by 1:45 pm, many students were unable to take the exam because of the issues.
While these issues did not keep all students across the country from testing, it impacted every student at Jackson-Reed. AP Psychology teacher Sonya Gelfand said that while everything went smoothly with check-in, “as they were trying to log into Bluebook, it wasn’t working, it wasn’t letting them log in.” After a few minutes, it became clear that nobody at Jackson-Reed was going to be able to test that day, and students were sent home.
In response, College Board is offering free makeup exams for all students who were unable to test. In a press release, they also addressed that they “know how hard students work to prepare for their AP Exams, and we regret that their testing period was disrupted.”
Sophomore Hannah Clark said that while she “was initially annoyed since [she] was excited to get the test done”, she pointed out that the extra time gave her more time to study and “it gave [her] the chance to do better on the test since [she] had more time to study”.
AP Psychology teacher Sonya Gelfand said she “has been so impressed by how resilient all of the students have been”. She said her students have seen this as “an opportunity to prepare more and really come back ready to succeed the second time around.”
Junior Isabella Leon-Salgado echoed that sentiment, saying that she used the extra weekend to “make more flashcards and write down definitions I didn’t know.”
This issue with AP Psychology is not the only example of issues with Bluebook affecting students’ performance and ability to access AP resources. In the weeks leading up to the AP test, students reported trouble accessing AP Classroom. Junior Alice Debevoise said that in the weeks leading up to APs, “AP Classroom crashed several times which meant we weren’t able to review and so we got behind track.” Additionally, College Board is offering a free makeup exam for all AP Chemistry students because of issues with the online reference sheet.
Looking forward, Gelfand also pointed out that “any digital exam is going to have this risk, and the more it happens, the more prepared we will be to troubleshoot”. However, one major issue is that when national issues arise with digital exams like this, there is very little Jackson-Reed can do to remedy the problem, and they are dependent on College Board to help.
In order for digital exams to be successful, it is imperative that College Board has the technological ability to support thousands of students taking these exams at one time. With digital exams, there will always be a risk of technological issues arising that prevent students from taking the test to their best ability. •