Seniors Navigate College Choices, AP Testing Amidst COVID-19 Crisis

By Ryan Sy
     
     A time of important decision-making and celebration for high school seniors including those at Wall High School became a lot tougher than ever due to the coronavirus pandemic. 
     May 1, known to many high school seniors as Decision Day, had never been virtual. Each year at Wall, the seniors head out into the Courtyard during lunch and take pictures with all of their classmates and celebrate the accomplishments that everyone has achieved on this special day.
     Also during May, Advanced Placement exams are administered and, for the first time, were completed online and taken from home as the College Board had to adjust the plan because of the pandemic. 
     Having sat for the paper exams as a junior and online versions this spring, I thought it was a tough and strange environment taking the exams this year because it did not feel like a major exam at all. To me it felt similar to a Google Form type of assessment. Also, the test was considerably shorter this year: 50-minute exams and only two open-ended items compared to over three hours of testing with multiple choice and open-ended. 
     “I was definitely nervous about the exams not having any multiple-choice sections and was worried that only two [free-response questions] would be hard to score well on if they were on topics I was not familiar with,” said Wall senior Seraphina Plewa. “However, I think I actually preferred the online testing because the exam is a lot shorter and it seemed a lot more manageable to take a test for an hour instead of the usual exams that are two to three hours long.” 
     The 2020 AP exams had many concerns about the online transition. Questions about academic integrity were the most pressing. The College Board has said that there were measures in place before and during the exams to help it ensure that the individual registered was the actual person taking the test. I thought that the online pre-testing requirements were much easier and less time-consuming than in person. The opportunity to achieve college credit in these circumstances was appreciated by students enrolled in AP classes. 
     “It was crazy to go through a Stat(istics) exam last year for four hours to having to complete my exams in about an hour,” said Wall junior Jack Alexander.  
Picking a college and major is not an easy choice for anyone. In the last few critical months before the deadline, the pandemic halted campus visits and accepted-students' days as well as the rest of the spring semester for college students. Those events are designed for students to view each school one last time and offer a chance for each school to try to make a good impression on each student who attends the sessions to potentially earn their commitment. Students in 2020 have been forced to use prior visits and online sessions to make their decisions without viewing the school in-person to ensure it is the right fit for them. 
     “I feel that it is more important now to stick out amongst other students through college,” said Alexander, who plans to double major in architecture and civil engineering. “This has definitely made me prioritize schools with great programs in both fields as opposed to just looking at top architecture institutions.” 
     Not only is making the decision on attending a school based on photos and virtual meetings difficult, it is compounded by the financial hardship felt by most as the country's unemployment has skyrocketed past the grim numbers of the Great Depression. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the situation, students are considering attending community college or taking a gap year since paying for college has become as difficult as ever. Under normal circumstances, college is an expensive price tag in the first place but these unprecedented times place the price of college completely out of reach for some.