Problem with College Board... and our school doesn't offer AP Physics C & my kid wants to challenge

Parents Forum
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i’m getting two responses. One is it is the fault of CB, that CB won’t allow them to provide a challenge test because the school doesn’t offer these courses (which I do not believe). They were going to call CB yesterday afternoon to get more info, and I’m waiting for the school to call me back today. But secondly, they yesterday sheepishly admitted this specific issue has never come up before. Reading between the lines it appears they don’t have a specific written policy for or against, because it’s never come up before. They’ve not brought up any financial issues.

I’ve been trying for a week now to get a face to face meeting with someone of consequence, and try to sort these possibilities out. We have dealt favorably with the Superintendent on an unrelated issue last year, if we can’t get some clarity we may have to go that route.

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I don’t know, but I literally brought that up to my son last night. Our local university is a small 4 year, but it does offer physics C mechanics and elect/magnet and a number of math courses he’s interested in (topology, linear algebra and others that I can’t remember, lol), so we now are going to explore that further. ty

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Please note the following from The College Board:

The preferred ordering deadline for ordering AP Exams was October 2 and the final ordering deadline for AP Exams is November 13.

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Thank you!

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good luck!! I hope it works out and you don’t have to drive all over the place! I wish CB made it easier. I live in an urban area and I know it can be hard for people here, sometimes, too. Public schools definitely do NOT make it easy for homeschoolers, for instance, to join in and take APs on site.

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Seems like CB has changed rules over the last ten years, which I guess isn’t surprising. My child challenged an AP exam for a subject not offered at our high school and the school agreed to get someone to proctor her as she took the exam. It was such a novelty that some people peeped in as she took the exam, which she said was more amusing than annoying.

Is this perhaps an issue of your school being unable or unwilling to get a proctor?

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:+1: Thank you for this. I feel like it could possibly be this simple. Hopefully we can get more information today.

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Am I misunderstanding something here - are you saying he is already doing nine AP exams this school year?

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so I regret putting in the actual number because it might detract from my overall question, I should have just said several. I’ll just quickly add two points, these are his decisions, not mine but it’s part of a strategy he has to get into a university with an excellent math program so I try to help him facilitate this. Secondly, last year as a sophomore, he took seven AP classes of mostly science and math and scored a five on all of them.

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Would one or two extra AP exams for courses not offered at his high school really move the needle for admission to the math major at UT Austin or some other top-end math program?

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Great question and I have no idea. As I say I let my kids make their decisions on this college stuff. As an aside we make several trips to Austin annually for math related conferences and they seem to have a great program, but I’m kind of clueless to all this.

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Your son is no doubt going to get into a great school based on the student you are describing. He wants the APs and you are supportive. If you can afford a top school, assuming his gpa, test and out of school activities line up, he’s in great shape.

He’s already overloaded and another is not going to impact admissions was the point being made. Taking a test without taking the class may get you credit but is also unlikely to impact admissions.

My fear is some of these kids move ahead because of the test but no class - and then will stumble at that next level.

When you take 4 or 5 APs, it’s a lot. 9 at once is beyond unnecessary for even a top school and may be dangerous when they start too advanced in college. Why ? Because many stumble.

An AP test doesn’t replace the near year long class. And even those who get through successfully like my son, still stumble. It’s why some recommend repeating classes core to one’s major in college vs taking credit.

I hope you find your test. But your son should have zero worry if you don’t.

And most importantly, I hope he’s got a life outside of studying.

Good luck

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I did get a call back from the school just now and they seem to now give more than tacit agreement to letting my son take these tests at his school, yea! They said they’d go ahead and order the tests, and proctoring if a problem could be done by someone in the ISD administrative offices if no teacher was available. The funny thing is I don’t think they actually ever made contact with CB, at least not yet. The main person in charge stated their reticence was a) breaking a CB rule, thus getting “penalized”, and b) in her 8 years of this title she had never had this issue before.

I hope this is now resolved, and want to thank everyone for being so generous with their expertise and advice. Now if I can just get him to eat a vegetable, lol.

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Separate the two problems here, because they need different fixes. The first is access to a test site. The second is whether 11 AP exams in one spring is a workable load, especially with two calculus based physics exams in the mix.

On access, get the answer in writing from the AP coordinator, not secondhand. Ask specifically: is the school registered as a test center, will it order exams for a course it does not offer, and what is the ordering deadline? If the answer is no, ask neighboring districts in the fall, not in the spring, and ask whether they accept outside students for AP exams at all. Some schools say no because of seating, not because of College Board rules, and that answer is easier to work around early. Also ask whether the two Physics C exams are even scheduled in a way that allows both in one year at that site, since Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism are separate exams.

On the load, I would be blunt with your son about sequencing. Mechanics should come first, and it should be solid before Electricity and Magnetism gets serious time. Electricity and Magnetism leans on calculus and on the same habits, like setting up integrals for charge distributions and checking units, that Mechanics builds. If Mechanics practice scores are not consistently in the 4 to 5 range by February, adding the second exam usually just splits study time and lowers both scores.

A practical way to test this: have him do one timed Mechanics practice section now, under real timing, and score it by topic, not just by total. If the misses are mostly calculus setup, that is fixable with focused drills. If the misses are mostly concepts, like rotational motion or energy, he needs more teaching time, not more practice tests, and that is a reason to drop one exam or to take a dual enrollment physics course instead, if one is actually available.

Colleges will not hold it against him that his school does not offer Physics C. What they will notice is a transcript that shows he took the hardest physics his school did offer, plus a clear explanation in the school profile. Chasing two extra exams at the cost of grades in his other nine, plus two long trips, is a worse trade than one strong Physics C score and a sane May.

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