The College Board announced students will be required to register for the Advanced Placement (AP) exams by November 15. Currently, schools must order their AP tests by late March and set their own deadlines for their students. Students who register between November 16 and March 13 will pay a late fee of $40. The ‘regular’ registration rate of $94 remains unchanged next year.
As one can imagine, this has made critics quite upset. And can you blame them? We certainly don’t.
The fact the College Board is allowing late registrations up until March 13 shows it’s not infeasible to create and distribute the AP test materials in a timely manner. We believe this most harms high school seniors. Forcing them to sign up before knowing the college they will be attending means they won’t know if their college will accept the AP as credit.
We believe this was a money grab by the College Board. And a poor one at that too. The monopoly could have simply raised the test fee a bit instead. That would have been more valuable than whatever float they hope to earn at today’s low interest rates. Did you find this blog after missing the November 15 deadline? Then, unless your school sets an earlier deadline, you might as well wait until on or about March 13 to register. You gain nothing by paying the late fee much before March 13. Besides, it is possible something could happen between now and March 13 that may affect your expected AP score.
