by Shirley Zheng ‘21

Sherwood wrapped up its last stage of AP exam payments and registration with the final deadline on February 28. However, AP coordinator Andrew Dodge continued to work with some students to finish collecting full payments. 

A total of 857 AP students are registered and paid to take 1,419 exams in May, compared to the 1,440 exams given out last year. This data reassures Sherwood that the new deadlines and registration system did not have a huge impact on Sherwood’s registration number.

“The numbers of students testing for each of the exams does not seem to have not drastically changed from previous years despite the change in registration date or process,” said Dodge. This result also parallels the College Board’s initial goal of encouraging more students to sign up for exams by implementing the early registration deadlines.

However, the current AP registration process has frustrated many MCPS AP coordinators. The new guidelines have created an obligation of $40 penalty for any changes students make regarding their test status. This gives students no room for flexibility, and in a way, it financially restricts them from changing their minds on taking the exams. “I believe that was the biggest disappointment the other MCPS AP coordinators and I had in August when the College Board was presenting the portal to us,” said Dodge.

Moreover, the complex portal College Board has provided requires AP coordinators to manually make every single change in the registration process, whether it is a test status of a student or registration in the AP classroom. Thus, this creates an insufficient process since one person would essentially have to keep up with every AP student at Sherwood and any changes they make.

“The biggest change I would like to see in the registration process is that the College Board incorporates a payment option in their portal,” said Dodge.