Help! What if a kid is sick the day of an AP?

<p>D is ill, but insists she has to take AP exam scheduled for tomorrow. Does anyone know if there's a make-up date, assuming medical verification that the student is genuinely sick? Thanks!</p>

<p>Go on the College Board Web site; I think in the AP section there are FAQs that may address this issue.</p>

<p>The collegeboard.com website ( <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/cal_late.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/cal_late.html&lt;/a> ) shows May 18 - 20 as "Late Testing" dates, and says:
[quote]
Occasionally extreme circumstances may make it necessary for a particular exam to be administered late to an individual student or a group or students. ... When the cause of late testing is generally beyond the control of the school and the students, there is no additional fee for using the alternate form of the exam. ... Your AP Coordinator will take care of all the details. If you test late, your grades may be delayed up to a month (August release), and your free-response booklets will not be available.

[/quote]
but it does not specify what constitutes the circumstances under which one "qualifies" for this Late Testing. You'll need to check with the "AP Coordinator" immediate tomorrow morning (or tonight if possible), I'd guess.</p>

<p>There is an alternative testing administration date for every exam (roughly 2 weeks later). Talk to the AP coordinator at your school regarding the necessary verification to be allowed to take the later test. For instance, several of the exams fall on days when we have district/state all-day competitions in sports, and the affected kids are allowed to take the alternative exam.</p>

<p>The big difference here is that this is something that is individual. Usually when late exams are scheduled, a number of students have a conflict (as with the sports teams) or there was an administrative accident (too few tests, for example). The school may be reluctant to do this for a sick kid because they have to pay for an extra proctor for that exam; you chances are better if there are other kids who need the late exam (get some bribes going? ;)). </p>

<p>Definitely get in touch with the administrators as soon as possible, though -- I would bank on her possibly having to take the exam while sick or else forfeiting the exam altogether, though.</p>

<p>While I think that getting to retake the exam at a later date would not be very difficult to do, I would recommend still taking the exam tomorrow. I had two APs two days in a row a couple of years ago and I was very sick with the flu. I took one of them--AP World History--with a very high fever (I was literally barely functioning; I kept rereading sentences multiple times, didn't finish the multiple choice, was surrounded by tissues, etc). Surprisingly I ended up getting a 4 on it, despite not having completed the MC and possibly having made up some history in the essay portion. The next day, I was feeling even worse so I asked to reschedule the second exam--AP Chemistry. I took it two weeks later and did significantly worse on it. This could have been a bad test day for me, etc., but I think that it was primarily the curve that was different. The AP Chem exam has a pretty large curve and the fact that there were far fewer test takers taking the alternate exam may have resulted in a different (and smaller) curve due to a sampling error. I know that it is terrible to take the exam while sick, but given my own experience, I would still recommend that she do it. It will be a miserable several hours but once she's through, she'll have better chances at having done well curve-wise and will feel better, being able to put the APs behind her sooner.</p>

<p>Good advice, juliatorgo, and something that may not have been immediately obvious to any of us. Nester, I hope your D is well enough to take the exam tomorrow: sounds as if she's eager to do so, and juliatorgo's advice may be that she <em>should</em> sit for it, after all. Good luck, and I hope she's feeling better very soon!</p>

<p>The AP exams are significantly harder if you take them at a later date.</p>

<p>Sometimes the pressure of the exam fills you with extra will to get through it, and you're able to ignore what was plaguing you. I took English Comp with awful cramps and still managed a 5. Plus, I think that now there's an atmosphere of everyone getting ready and your daguther's mind/memory may be at its sharpest. If she waits for the next one, no one else will be studying and it might be hard to still concentrate and study when everyone else is home free. </p>

<p>Of course, it depends how ill she's feeling. Maybe she can go to bed early, have a good breakfast, and you could pick her up after the test?</p>

<p>My daughter had a friend who was sick last year and managed to reschedule the test for a later date. So it can be done (sorry I don't know the details).</p>

<p>My daughter had the flu, with a high fever, etc, last year, and was able to reschedule her APs for a week or so later. (Actually, she struggled through two of them, but when she got sicker before the other two, we decided enough was enough.) We called the school the morning she was supposed to take the exams, and while the AP coordinator wasn't instantly familiar with the procedure, it turned out that all that was required was a doctor's note saying that she was too ill to take the exams. The rescheduled tests didn't seem unusually difficult to her, and she did just fine, though, understandably, it did take a couple of weeks longer to get the results.</p>

<p>I wanted to thank you all for your information and advice. My daughter was tremendously relieved to hear that if she was too sick to take the exam, there was an alternative, but took heed of the possibility that the curve on the later test might be tough. She got a good night's sleep, woke up a bit better, and is taking an exam at this moment. I continue to be impressed by the expertise and the kindness I find on this list!</p>