[NABS-L] College Board: AP Scores and Experience with Accommodations

[Miso Kwak]

Hi,
The last time I interacted with the College Board was in 2013, so it's
been a while but reading this thread makes me think of a few
incidents.
1. First, I took 6 AP exams in total throughout my high school career
and think that I received fair scoring on all of them, including one
that was not as good as I would have liked but I also knew that I
struggled a lot... perhaps there is one exam that I think I could have
scored 5 instead of 4,  but it was also a very difficult exam. I
decided not to dispute it because 4 and 5 is not that big of a
difference, when it comes to receiving actual college
credits(typically just a few unit credit difference).
2. I noticed that every single AP exam I took was different from the
version that my sighted classmates took. I suspect this has something
to do with College Board's concern of "leaking the test" in the
process of getting them transcribed. I do not think it is necessarily
fair that my exam was different from that of my classmates, and I do
think there is a way to transcribe the same test that my classmates
take without risking the information leak during the process of
transcribing. That said, I did not raise the issue with the College
Board as I thought my tests were scored farily. Sighted students also
actually get different versions depending on when they take the test
(i.e., if you elect to take the test at a later date because of some
conflict such as having two exams being scheduled at the same time)
you won't get the same exam that was offered on the first date of that
exam.
3. A strange thing happened with my AP European History exam.
Initially my score was 4, which I was a bit bummed about but did not
dispute because it was still a passing score. However, one full school
year later, out of the blue, I got a mail from the College Board
notifying me that they found an error in their scoring, so they
regraded and increased my score to 5.

I think what you experienced with the AP English Language and U.S.
government exam is absolutely unacceptable. I have had some
frustrations with the College Board while trying to get my
accommodation request approved and receive accessible practice
materials but not so much in regard to getting the actual exams and
scoring...
Good news is... you will most likely never have to deal with them once
you enter college and get your AP scores sent to your university.

Miso

On 7/9/19, Vejas Vasiliauskas via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Seyon,
> I had a similar issue with my AP European history class in tenth grade, 6
> years ago. My score was also considerably lower than I expected, especially
> since I had taken a final exam administrated by the teacher and had done
> well. We tried contacting College Board but they couldn't really help. I
> made the decision to eventually just let it go because I enjoyed AP euro and
> didn't mind taking history again in college. In hindsight I would have tried
> to fight it further.
> Did you talk to your friends who took the exam? In my case, my friends' DBQS
> and essays were different to mine, which could have explained the problem.
> Hope this helps,
> Vejas
>
>
>> On 9 Jul 2019, at 14:11, Seyoon Choi via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Greetings students,
>>
>> I hope, for those of you currently in Vegas for the federation student
>> reunion are having a blast so far, but whether you are attending the
>> convention or not, I wanted to bring up a topic of discussions to better
>> understand College Board and your experiences, if had any. I was a high
>> school student who took three advanced placement (AP) courses both my
>> junior afurther.r year and have subsequently took exams in order for
>> potential college credit chances. I have recently took an AP psychology
>> exam with all the necessary accommodations, consisting of braille testing
>> materials, extra time and a reader/scribe to help with recording my
>> answers to the text booklet. College Board typically releases AP scores
>> right around first week of July, and the procedures remained the same for
>> this year’s score release schedule. I’ll be honest… My score was not what
>> I’ve quite expected, but seemed lower compared to my confidence level and
>> given the fact that I typed my free response questions (FRQ) portion of
>> the exam as stated according to my provided accommodations. My psych
>> teacher and I have both contacted College board and was told that certain
>> portion of the test were invalid and that they will be reevaluating my
>> exam. This seemed to somehow indicate a mishap during the grading process
>> when it came to dealing with either the typed up FRQ responses or
>> somewhere where they might have missed something, just a thought. There
>> was an incident last year when College Board decided to not provide any
>> Braille testing materials for both my US government and English lang
>> exams, which was equally frustrating… Both my school and I contacted
>> College Board to request Braille exams but was told that “There isn’t
>> enough time to send it out” resulting in a reader reading an entire test
>> out loud… Essay/FRQ portions without pieces of evidence to pull from
>> directly in front of me was awfully convenient, well, not so much… Long
>> story short: my typed prompts were deemed unacceptable because the rest of
>> the exams were on paper according to college board, but with enough
>> pressure they were able to bump up my scores accordingly. Given how much
>> frustrations and lack of coordinations and understanding that College
>> Board have with blind students, I would love to know if you  have 1:  been
>> in a similar situations or 2: your best methods/approach to deal with
>> companies like College Board when it comes to accessibility.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Seyoon
>>
>> Seyoon Choi
>> Saint Louis University Class of 2023
>> blindinsighter at gmail.com
>> 314-650-8306
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