Advanced Placement Exams

Neena Iqbal, Staff Writer

With the school year closing out, students are facing the crunch time for gaining any college credit they can through AP exams. Since the Frisco school district offers so many AP classes ranging from Freshman AP Human to the more advanced AP Calculus AB and BC.

Many parents hope for their students to pass off as many AP classes as possible while in high school, so the cost of a college class which is exponentially higher can be saved. The cost of AP exams has also continued to go up every year.

“The cost of AP exams is totally worth the fee, trust me, the cost of a college course is way more,” AP Literature teacher, Mrs. Reis, said.

Students are also apprehensive about whether they should take the exam if they do not feel they understand the curriculum enough.

“I don’t want to waste my parents money on a test I know I’ll fail,” Randall Smith, 2016, said.

The exam is scored on a scale from one through five, and the score of a three or better earns the student a reimbursement for majority of the cost of the exam. Depending on the college, the amount of credit awarded to the student varies.

“So far I have completed six credits for college, and if I pass all of my exams for this year, I will have a grand total of 26 credits which is amazing,” Kiran Sankarappan, 2015, said.

Because Frisco ISD offers so many opportunities to pass off college course credit, many students go into college as Sophomores, shaving off a full year of college tuition.

“Think of it as an investment for the future,” Abhishek Dayal, 2018, said.

Although so many AP classes and exams are available, some students also face the struggle of gaining any credit at all from the exams they have taken in the past due to the high standards of universities such as Stanford for example.

“I passed off five AP exams, but Stanford requires that I retake all of the classes with their college curriculum so it was all pointless in the end,”  Hailey Deres, 2015, said.

Lone Star does not have midterms or final exams, so AP exams fill that slot for a lot of students. In semester classes like AP Economics and AP Government, some students face the challenge of retaining the information, and remembering the curriculum a semester after the class was taken.

“The teachers are keeping the time gap in mind, when it comes to the exams which is why a week of review days are set in place,” AP Economics teacher, Mr. Keckonen, said.

With the exams fast approaching the time is now to register for all exams.