Irvington sees new changes to college board's testing policies – The Irvington Voice

Recently, Irvington made significant changes to the College Board's on-campus exam administration policies. The College Board, the nonprofit entity that develops the Advanced Placement (AP) program and oversees the SAT/PSAT tests, has also made changes to how tests are administered statewide.

Irvington students were affected by these changes. The PSAT, a practice version of the SAT, was previously offered each October to both 10th and 11th grade students. This year it took place on October 2nd and 3rd and was only offered to Year 11 students. When asked what prompted this change, Ms. Howell, who is responsible for PSAT/SAT administration at Irvington, replied, “It's all a district decision.” The PSAT and SAT changes seen at Irvington were mirrored at other high schools campuses throughout the district. This year, the SAT was offered to both seniors and juniors – a notable change from previous years when only seniors were eligible.

At the national level, the focus has been on digitizing exams administered by the College Board. The SAT was fully digitalized from March 2024 and will continue to be operated electronically on a permanent basis. In the upcoming 2025 AP testing cycle, students will notice a shift to digital AP testing. The College Board had attributed this change to reducing cheating and making exams fairer for students nationwide.

Mr. Aucoin, Irvington's AP coordinator, discussed how the changes will be implemented at the school. “Well, we are currently registering for the exams. “I've spoken to some of our IT people: it's just preliminary discussions about what might need to change to strengthen our internet service here and ensure that we can successfully deliver the exams in this new digital format,” he also added added that 9th and 10th grade students and/or underclassmen are only allowed to register for two self-study AP tests: AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics. 11th and 12th grade students will continue to receive priority for self-study AP registration.

Mr. Aucoin acknowledged the merit of the argument that limiting the number of APs students can take as underclassmen places an unnecessary burden on students when they are upperclassmen. “I feel like sometimes students feel like they have to take more AP exams than their universities actually require,” he explained. “But I understand the idea that it might be a little easier if they could spread it out over four years, and I wish we had the space to be able to offer that to them.”

Fremont Unified has also emphasized the importance of administering testing consistently across all high school campuses. “It’s really a district policy. So if you look at the AP testing policies of the Mission, Washington or America, they will be exactly the same as ours,” Mr. Aucoin said. “We have the same guidelines, the same exam costs and the same registration window. So there will really be a bigger discussion with the entire district because as coordinators we all have the same policies.”

Despite the many changes that have been made to exam administration this year, students will go through the registration process for all exams in the same way as in previous years.