The Covid-19 pandemic has caused every aspect of life to change, and the SAT and AP exams are no exception. The College Board, which administers both the SAT and AP Exams has made some major changes regarding the tests that impact high school students.
In the days leading up to the scheduled Mar. 14 SAT, The College Board announced cancellations of various testing locations, including many in New Jersey. Initially, the College Board said that there would be makeup exams for those locations.
More recently, it was announced that the SAT scheduled to take place on May 2 has been canceled. The makeup dates for the Mar. SATs were also canceled.
For many high school juniors at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School and beyond, these developments have presented challenges. With uncertainty surrounding future exam dates, many students are worried about the exam and how these cancellations might impact their scores and future college applications.
Also in response to the ongoing CoronaVirus pandemic, the College Board has announced major changes to the Advanced Placement Exams. AP Exams will now take place online instead of in-person. They will be only 45-minutes rather than several hours. Additionally, the exams will free-response only instead of also including multiple-choice and essay sections.
The material that students will be tested on has also changed; instead of including questions about information from every unit of the course, the AP tests will focus on fewer units. This is to account for the time students have been out of school due to the virus. There will now be two testing dates for each exam, which the College Board will announce by April 3.
The ACT scheduled for April 4 has been rescheduled to June 13. These unprecedented changes are just one example of the impact of CoronaVirus on society and have caused a mixed reaction for students. The College Board will continue to provide students with updated information on their website, collegeboard.org.