Every AP class has an optional College Board AP exam for the chance for students to earn college credit.
The exam is scored on a five-point scale and students must receive a four or five to obtain college credit at most schools. A three is considered passing, but sometimes does not earn the college credit.
However, the AP exam is not a requirement, and some students choose not to take it.
The rate of students signing up for the exam has stayed constant since a decline a couple years ago.
Administrators believe the decline in students is from them thinking either they weren’t going to be successful on the exam or because of cost barriers.
A reason freshmen and sophomores have not been signing up is because they have never taken an AP exam before.
“If I could wave a magic wand I would,” AP coordinator Andy Hodson said.
Hodson wishes every student would take a chance on AP classes and AP exams.
“We would really like to see more kids taking AP classes and would love to see our AP classes looking like the school in general. Balanced, more ethnically and racially diverse, and kids from different language backgrounds,” Hodson said.
“I want to take [the AP test] so that I can get college credit and get ahead,” freshman Finn McMahan said.
The college credit is intriguing to students so they don’t have to retake courses in college.
“I don’t want to waste my time in the class and not get a college credit,” sophomore Kaia Pantos said.
Spending time in the class to not take the exam seems like a waste, as students work hard all year simply for their high school grades.
Administration is working on a way to get AP enrollments up in the coming years.
