March 15th Deadline for Asking to Take AP Exam as Outside Student

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m feeling extremely frustrated and worried right now because I have spent many hours over the span of a month looking for a school just in my state (California) that would offer the AP Music Theory exam for outside students. I have already looked up the websites of / called between 50 to 100 schools (because California is huge, this is <10% of the total number of high schools in the state) and am unable to find one that I could test at (they didn’t have AP, didn’t offer to outside students, didn’t offer AP Music Theory, etc). For the few schools that did allow outside students to take AP exams there, they’d already sent in their order form, which I didn’t expect since they wouldn’t be able to add anyone else after submitting, and also CollegeBoard said the deadline for contacting an AP Coordinator was March 15th. On the topic of CollegeBoard, I have had literally no good experience when communicating with its representatives, but still called today anyway and the person basically said it was too bad even when I told him about the number of schools I’d looked up.

I’m a senior and this is my first time trying to take an AP exam at another school. In hindsight, I probably should have expected that the searching process wouldn’t be as easy / half as time consuming as CollegeBoard made it out to be, but all there is to do now is move on and try to make the best of things. I’m asking whoever knows of any high school in California - literally, any - or maybe even in the bordering states - that administers these exams to outside students and have not sent their orders yet. My last resort would be to not take it, and I would have to contact all the schools that I applied to and tell them I’m not taking one of the exams I said I would be taking. Also I won’t be able to fulfill a conditional offer for one particular university that I really want to attend.

2

I’m sorry that you find yourself in this position. Did you take the AP class or are trying to self-study? Have you offered to cover all the costs, not just the exam fee? If I’m not mistaken, this is more than just a fill-in-the-bubbles booklet test, so yes, accommodations would be difficult to find.

3

The schools in my district don’t offer this particular class, so I’m self-studying. I asked my school’s AP Coordinator, and she said that it just takes too much paperwork and other work to hold the exam at my school, so it’s not about the money. The AP Music Theory exam involves both a multiple choice and a free-response section, but the latter only involves drawing in and labelling notes. There’s no essay. However, there’re questions based on listening to recordings, and one sight-reading question to be sung without the other exam participants being able to hear and be influenced by it. I guess this is what makes accommodations difficult, but from my experience, the Spanish exam is way more complicated.