Every year as the school year wraps up, students in almost all classes work to complete final projects and prepare for their end of the year exams. For students in Advanced Placement (AP) classes, this comes a little earlier. During the first two weeks of May, AP students are overwhelmed with the chaos of AP exams. AP exams are taken on the same day for every student nationwide, at West they are located in the small gym and usually take around three hours to complete. AP exams do not affect the students final grade for a class, instead they are used to determine if the student receives college credit. Scoring for AP tests ranges from a 1-5, 5 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest score. The general rule is that most colleges will give a student credit for a class if they can earn a 3 or above; however, some harder schools may only accept a 4 or a 5 and in some situations a college may not accept the credits at all. Classes spend the whole year preparing for this exam and reviewing materials that might be on it, but some AP classes like AP Photography or AP Art instead spend the whole year compiling a portfolio that serves as their final project to determine their AP score.
AP classes are essentially preparing students by using a college-like form of class. This often means that the class material and work is going to be tougher than an average high school class, but also they can be more beneficial.
“I think [AP classes] are good because it gives you an early start and an early look into college classes,” junior Carter Kandow said.
By the time the AP exams roll around, students have spent their majority of their year in a class preparing for the final. Depending on the class and the student some people may take extra time outside of class to study for the exam while others may simply rely on what they have learned throughout the year.
“I have been studying a lot for my [AP] Gov class and we had a practice exam, and for AP Trig Pre-Calc, we have has practice problems and study packets but I feel like you can’t really study for Lang we have just been writing essays every day,” junior Sydney Rapin said.
Although a lot of work goes into being an AP student, there are also many possible benefits that come along with it. The main one, of course, is the possibility of doing well on the final exam and getting extra credits going into your freshman year of college. AP classes also do well at preparing you for what classes will be set up like in college.
“I think they are good for getting college credit and also like experience for college classes. I think they are good indicators of how you will handle college,” junior Maggie Ranger said.
After AP exams are complete, students are mostly done with the course for the rest of the year, and even though the classes may be stressful and require hard work at times, it is often worth it to try a few during your time in highschool.
“I would say it’s good to try to take some AP classes cause its just good to push yourself and also you need to participate in your AP classes,” Ranger said, “Also, I feel like a lot of people think that the exams go into your final grade but they don’t, so the exams are sometimes less stressful because they are only for credit.”
