Was on the phone 2 hours with College Board supervisor today. They said if the mistake was on your end, they will not grant a retake. The did say there have been a lot of issues.
Part of the problem is that if you ask for a retake, which you must do within 48 hours (and if it is granted), then previous scores are automatically cancelled. But if you ask for “escalation” which is another way of saying “hey, I think I did everything right, can you look into this for me” – well that takes 5-7 days to address. So you either have to ask for a retake and hope that whatever happened doesn’t again, OR you have to open a case and have it looked into without any guarantee of it being resolved.
As we are not trying to get college credit, and given the test was taken under ideal conditions (high speed internet, most recent browser, chrome browser, competent and tech savvy test taker who watched demo and followed instructions etc.), we opened a case.
I did advocate stridently for others in less fortunate situations (needing credit or test taken under less ideal circumstances) and said they would need to address the retake or investigation time windows or policies due to the glaring conflict.
Interesting. So with the escalation option, is the idea that you are hoping that the answers that were uploaded (but not received) will still be graded?
@CheddarcheeseMN Yes, I’d like to confirm that the files are indeed corrupt and can’t be accessed. D20 followed instructions precisely and several hours after completing the test she received this message:
I love the don’t worry part – like, we don’t value your time or efforts at all, and after a while don’t worry, you won’t either!
Please let us know how it goes. I am sorry this happened to your son. DD takes her test Friday. She worked very hard, has attended every single one of CB’s review sessions, updated her browser (this morning), and twice ran through the practice upload process. I will be furious if CB lets her down because something goes wrong on their end, they don’t own it, and give a dreadfully poor response.
What if the same thing happens on the makeup tests?
Honestly, I would be surprised if there weren’t some lawsuits in the future over how these issues are being handled.
This does not bode well for fall SATs being given remotely.
I have to agree. At one point it was suggested that SATs could be given every weekend in the fall in order to allow for small groups at a time. That may still work. It isn’t looking good for an online version, at least not yet. Many colleges are going test optional, and I bet if online SATs and ACTs are the only option, more and more will follow suit.
I still signed DD up for a test prep class over the summer. I believe she has the potential to score high and that would be another favorable data point on her applications. At this point, that’s about the most either of us expect out of the experience. I expect the College Board will do all it can to stay relevant and keep the money rolling in. However, another testing season like this and they could be toast.
@fencingmom : “I did advocate stridently for others in less fortunate situations (needing credit or test taken under less ideal circumstances) and said they would need to address the retake or investigation time windows or policies due to the glaring conflict.”
This.
It is impressive that you were able to have someone at the College Board make themselves available to address so many of the layers of the problems students faced and the options (doesn’t really feel like the right word, but…) students and parents must take in seeking remedy.
I would be most interested in, and will watch for, the ways in which the College Board can introduce an equitable resolution for those at the heart of this part of your concern:
"I did advocate stridently for others in less fortunate situations (needing credit or
test taken under less ideal circumstances) and said they would need to address
the retake or investigation time windows or policies due to the glaring conflict."
There are, I am sure, those who do not feel they can navigate the storm of defeatist emotions which may be raging inside of their young person right now, and who are likely to feel ill-equipped to negotiate the labyrinthine path to remedy with a College Board rep.
@Groundwork2022 Thanks for the kind words. I think if enough people come forward, they’ll have to be accountable for any errors on their end. Sad that external voices have to play to part of the whip. Will update this thread when I hear back.
@Waiting2exhale You have to be assertive in these situations. The first representative tried to give me the brush off “oh well, you know if the message says the files are corrupted then that’s accurate and she’ll have to retake.” Really? Do you have access to the files? How can you confirm? Who can? Can I speak to that person? No? Ok, who else can I speak with that might have some of the answers I’m looking for? These are not unreasonable questions. We owe it to ask them, and College Board needs to be held accountable. As I told the supervisor – it’s not that problems arise (I mean, there’s a pandemic happening!), it’s how you deal with the problems that arise.
AP-ers UNITE! 
My daughter read that Chromebooks seem to have been disproportionately impacted. My guess would be that schools that provided hardware for students who didn’t have access to computers at home for remote learning, issued Chromebooks. So the hits keep coming for those who might need those AP credits the most. Good luck to your daughter on Friday, @Groundwork2022 ! @fencingmom - I appreciate you speaking up for those who really need your advocacy.
@Happy4U :
Could there be some sort of administrative override necessary to make fully functional the type of app the College Board provided to the students, with the schools being the effective admin over the Chromebooks?
D23 took the AP Calc AB exam. She could not upload her photos. The screen went blank and froze. The only other person using our internet at the time was her older sister, who was taking the AP Calc BC exam.
Both my daughters did the pretest with no issues. Both my daughters used their iPhones (exact same type with the exact same browser). D21 had no problems at all during the exam, but D23 could not upload her photos for question one. She could for question two. I was there - meaning, she hollered for me when her screen froze and I ran over and could see for myself the test had malfunctioned. By the time it unfroze, she had eight seconds to upload her answers. She tried, but could not do it in time.
She used the link CB provided and asked for a retest. She was very upset; she had done every single practice session and she had studied hard, and she felt the exam was much easier than she had thought it would be and that she would have gotten a good score. She feels better now and is hoping to take the retest in June. She is already signed up for Calc BC, but this experience almost makes her want to say to heck with the CB altogether and just do dual credit from now on and take the ACT instead of the SAT when she is older.
@Waiting2exhale - Or do borrowed Chromebooks need special Admin access to update?
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences. I feel bad for your students. I would guess they have worked every bit as hard as my daughter has, and they deserve more than a retake with a risk the same problems could happen.
DD will be taking her exam on her Windows laptop, not on her school-issued iPad (which never really worked well for CS homework anyway). She has updated the browser. So your posts have already helped us. I am fearful that even these precautions won’t be enough to ensure she won’t have the same problems.
Keep the posts coming, please! You might very much help students who have yet to test or students planning the retake.
Daughter just took AP chemistry and she could not submit it. She has taken two previously this week with no problem. She was told that she would be notified 5/25 on when she can retake it.
Took the AP Calc Exam two days ago and when it came time to upload the answers, was told there was an error. Only option given was to take the retake on June 1. This happened to 4 people out of 80 in my grade at my school.
@LisaBeee Sorry this happened. There are at least half dozen students at my daughter’s school who had problems like yours with the AP Calc exam.
News stories within the past 24 hours are popping up and highlighting this issue, so I’m hopeful that College Board will seek to remedy in another way aside from retesting. The photos that kids tried to upload (or were “corrupted”) are time stamped and those time stamps correspond to the upload windows that College Board provided, so perhaps they can accept these.
My DS submitted AP Lit with no issues yesterday, but AP Euro failed to submit.
My son took his physics test today and could not submit the answer to the second question. He successfully submitted the first answer, as well as the answer for his Chem test and his Calc test on Tuesday.
Should I call the College Board? This really seems unfair for the kids who tried to submit and followed directions and still had trouble. And from just CC, it seems like a lot of kids had issues.
Any advice welcome.
@MorseLewis I contacted my son’s head guidance counselor and they had already contacted the College Board for the many issues that had occurred on Tuesday. They basically got a form letter back paraphrasing “oh, that’s too bad, ask for a retake”.
@Charlie2772: “I contacted my son’s head guidance counselor and they had already contacted the College Board for the many issues that had occurred on Tuesday. They basically got a form letter back paraphrasing “oh, that’s too bad, ask for a retake”.”
Seems @fencingmom must have come out swinging when she made that call.
@fencingmom, et al vs. The College Board?