AP Exams During the Pandemic and the Digital Divide

By: Serene Hwang

Since March of 2020, most schools in the U.S. have moved to virtual learning due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Looking forward to college in the next couple years, American high school students have been especially affected by this transition. In the average U.S. high school, AP courses play a major role in the students’ lives. This “advanced placement” curriculum, although challenging, promises to prepare high school students to apply to and thrive in top colleges and universities. However, it has constantly been debated whether or not this program is fair in aiding all students to succeed, or if it simply exists as a tool for higher income students to get ahead of their peers. After the Collegeboard recently released a statement that students are expected to take full-length exams covering every unit in 2021, it has become increasingly obvious that the latter is closer to the truth. 

Lower income communities in America have historically been affected by the digital divide, the difference in accessibility to technology for the poor versus the rich. In a nation rapidly advancing in technology and industrialism, the poverty-stricken population is left behind in the dirt. This is reflected in the state of our education system today. Lower income students have a difficult time accessing the technology that they require to learn virtually. Barely holding onto laggy wifi and used school district Chromebooks, these students struggle to even attend and stay throughout the entirety of a normal everyday class. Moreover, keeping up with rigorous AP classes is near impossible for some. 

For more financially stable students, there are additional resources available outside of school to aid them in AP courses. Private tutors, afterschool programs, and prep books are excellent supplements to such difficult classes, but can be very costly for those who cannot afford them. Additionally to a disadvantage in the classroom, low-income students are not able to access any outside resources to help them. Ultimately, most of these students are completely unprepared for the AP exams that expect them to have mastered the subjects. 

The current AP curriculum is extremely insensitive to the circumstances that lower income students are currently in. At this current rate, the results of the 2021 AP exams seem to edge closer and closer to disaster. The Collegeboard should either take steps to offer more opportunities for these students to catch up to their peers or create alternative routes for them to learn that do not rely utterly on technology. Asking all high school students to take full-length AP exams at the current state is unfair, tone-deaf, and discriminatory.