<p>Yay! AP's are coming up! How awesome is this? Now, Collegeboard can rip me off of 600 dollars!</p>
<p>Should be covered by the state…</p>
<p>But its not! And Long Island pays the most amount of taxes in NY. I don’t understand why we have to pay for AP’s. Its ridiculous.</p>
<p>Some schools pay for students’ AP test fees.</p>
<p>If only my budget-depleted public school could be so lucky…</p>
<p>yeah my school helps subsidize so that you only have to pay $20 a test and $5 a test if you are under a certain lower income bracket</p>
<p>I got fee waivers, thank goodness.</p>
<p>I’m paying $86 this year, and $602 the next 2 years. Awesome right?</p>
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<p>Amen to that! There goes -$540 in one fell swoop. :(</p>
<p>People at my school have to pay full price, which is just riddiculous. And the college you’re going to may not even accept the credit. And it looks bad if you don’t take them after taking the course, especially for sophomores/juniors.</p>
<p>I qualified for super low income, so I paid $5 per test lol. I’m totally planning to do 10 self-studies next year :p</p>
<p>just wondering. does income effect your chances of getting into colleges positively or negatively at all?</p>
<p>At my school, they pay you back the full $86 after the test, in the summer.</p>
<p>But only if you get a 3 or higher.</p>
<p>^^I would assume the lower, the more work ethic they assume, or you show you have, the easier it is to get in. It depends on the college though, obviously.
^I like that rule.</p>
<p>I got partial fee waivers this year, so I paid only about $50 per exam. The fee waivers covered everything last year, but I guess with the economy right now, my school couldn’t afford it.</p>
<p>^^I like that rule too.</p>
<p>Income affects college admissions if you apply through Questbridge or a similar program. I plan on applying for Questbridge (it’s a program which matches low-income students to top colleges). Low-income people here should definitely check it out :)</p>
<p>However, I don’t think colleges know otherwise. There’s usually no spot to indicate financial status, so you would have to find another way to inform them.</p>
<p>^ I’m still trying to decide about Questbridge. I want to apply ED to a college, but with Questbridge, the uncertainty of the Match program is enough to deter me from using it, and then there’s the likelihood I’d end up being thrown in with RD applicants. I’ll have to talk to my counselor. </p>
<p>Anyway, asking for fee waivers is one of the most awkward things ever. No one really knows about my financial situation, not even the closest of friends, so divulging that info. to someone is nerve-wrecking.</p>
<p>I would LOVE to kill Collegeboard with you! Last summer I saw an article in Forbes all about Collegeboard. They analyzed all of the charges that they impose on students and calculated how much money Collegeboard made. It ended with "I would tell you to invest stock in this company, but wait, it’s “Non-Profit.” "</p>
<p>First of all, it’s a total monopoly. Colleges REQUIRE Collegeboard tests like the SAT, Subject Tests, and AP exams. So Collegeboard can charge whatever they want, since the students HAVE to take them. It’s absurd: by the end of high school they’ll have stolen $826 from me in test fees, NOT COUNTING sending the scores to colleges. No one should be forced into spending nearly $1000 in fees just to get into a good school.</p>
<p>Second, I’m convinced that they have a secret deal with Texas Instruments. They make it so that all their tests require a calculator, but they “highly recommend” a TI-83 or 84. When I go to the SAT, there are graphing calculators all around me, but you don’t even need a calculator that advanced except for AP Statistics. So TI is making tons of money off of Collegeboard. Not to mention that’s another $130 to add to the Collegeboard bill.</p>
<p>Third of all, it capitalizes on students’ anxiety in order to make money. They now offer score choice for people who were nervous about that one bad score. And the WORST ONE? The scores from your test come out the day AFTER the deadline to register for the SAT. So students register for the SAT because they are nervous that they will get a bad score, but find out five hours later that they did fine and didn’t need to retake…there goes $45. Or, they don’t register and find out that they needed to. </p>
<p>Fourth of all, their motives are sketchy. They are a non-profit agency that wants to standardize test scores to make it easy for colleges to compare applicants. It sounds like a great tool - for admissions officers. What about the students, who need to take this test? They can go one of two ways: they are too busy with school, so they don’t bother to study for the SAT and do badly, or they work too hard to study for the SAT and miss out on grades or extracurriculars and do well. Either which way, the scores don’t reflect the student.</p>
<p>Fifth, it has caused widespread grade inflation. There are some people who take several subject tests and APs, and you need to compete with them to get into college. So now YOU have to take all of those tests. For top students, it’s becoming a frenzy to get a large quantity of scores in order to stand out among applicants.</p>
<p>Sixth, colleges aren’t even giving credit for tests like Collegeboard promises. Because of #4, AP exams are widespread, and because of #5, lots of people are taking them. So there are thousands of incoming college students who could easily finish in 5 or 6 semesters because of their AP credits. Colleges are losing income because they lose a whole year of tuition from their students who finish early, so they stop giving away AP credits.</p>
<p>Collegeboard benefits itself and colleges, but it VICTIMIZES its students. But they have the power; we could boycott the Collegeboard, but then we wouldn’t get into college. So we need to submit to what they say.</p>
<p>^A most splendid rant.</p>
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<p>I think it depends on the school</p>
<p>Ugh. Our school pays for your AP tests…but only if you take more than five, which almost nobody does. Thanks, public school budget</p>
<p>Can I add public school ranking systems that use number of APs taken as either the sole or a significant factor in their rankings to the “kill” list? My school essentially does not offer honors alternatives to some of the “requirements” - it’s either AP or college prep. Also, if you are on the regular or advanced track for math or science, you basically run out of classes your senior year, because they only offer APs. I would have been perfectly happy taking just AP English, French, and AP Government, which I’m interested in, but because I ran out of honors classes and still had to satisfy graduation requirements, I had to take AP Stats and AP Biology, since I didn’t have any math/science classes left. Exams start tomorrow…kill me.</p>
<p>Lol…in English class year we would occasionally take a day off and rant about the college board all class. I miss that class.</p>