American not-for-profit College Board, which develops and administers college-entrance tests like the SAT and AP has been suffering from heavy criticism of late, mostly in light of its Mar 20 decision to move all AP tests online in response to the COVID-19. Apparently, in an attempt to counter possible cheating, they also announced that the usual 3-hour examination – which is usually split into 4 sections depending on the subject – would now be reduced to a single 45-minute exam. They further announced that most tests would also be ‘open book’, with the exception of language subjects. For most students, this meant that their entire school year of hard work and preparation would ultimately depend on just one or two questions.
This is not the first time that the 120-year-old institution has been involved in controversy. College Board has been heavily criticized since at least the ’70s for its high costs, opaque test design and scoring practices, selling student data, and discriminatory policies. One important criticism is that the SAT often underestimates the aptitude of African-American students and other minorities.
In a bizarre turn, many suspect that College Board may have also created a fake Reddit account encouraging students to cheat and share 2020 AP test answers, perhaps in an attempt to identify cheaters. This alleged move has been thoroughly ridiculed, with memes appearing on Reddit and other social media platforms.
Many Reddit users were quick to meme the suspicious “boomer” speech of user u/dinosauce313, who they suspect to be a College Board employee
As if their decision to cut down the length of the AP and move it online wasn’t controversial enough, they also announced that international students would have to take it the same time as American students, forcing students in Asia and Australia to flip their sleep schedule, and take the tests at 12, 2, 4, or 6 AM. Local schools such as International School of Beijing, Keystone Academy, Tsinghua International School, Hope International School, and Beijing Royal School were all affected by the decision.
College Board’s decision for forcing students in Asia to take the test at the same time as Americans has been described as inexcusable, as they accommodated European students to a separate testing time, and also released multiple questions for the same test, which would have made it highly difficult for students to cheat.
On the day of the test, many students failed to finish on time, and thousands more were forced to retake it due to College Board’s platform crashing, or files failing to upload. A class-action lawsuit has since been filed on behalf of Californian students against College Board for more than $500 million.
Test scores release dates were set from the Jul 15-17, but many students were able to access their scores using the unaffiliated EarlyScores website. Thousands of others flooded Twitter to complain that they were unable to access their scores, as College Board’s servers were again crashing. Despite knowing that there would be huge demand, with most students wanting to see their scores as soon as they were available, it seems that College Board took few measures to improve their server.
Disappointed students were quick to jump to Twitter and post their fresh meme
An ugly hashtag #APScores, along with the hashtag #CollegeBoard started trending online soon after the release of test scores, and meme after meme has been created due to the farcical situation. To add insult to injury, most scores have also been also dramatically lower than expected, with some students predicting 4s or 5s receiving 1 instead, and many realized that their low scores were actually due to technical problems. While the servers certainly did not see the failure coming, students should have braced for the disappointment that is College Board.
KEEP READING: First Group of International Teachers Allowed to Return to Beijing
Photos: JESHOOTS.COM (via Unsplash), jonboeckenstedt (via Twitter), adelinezylla (via Twitter)
