Lucy Cruz

In AP Psychology, Jared Brusa goes over depressants. Senior Giovanni Ramirez (lower right) takes notes. “I feel good about taking this class, although some units are hard to grasp, many others tend to be interesting,” Ramirez said. “I’m a bit nervous about taking the exam, but I do hope to pass it.”

AP courses provide advantages for high school students to take college level classes. The benefits of taking AP classes are a boost in your gpa, earning college credits, and preparing for college. 

Sophomores, juniors and seniors are all allowed to take AP classes. Freshmen are excluded due to it being their first year of high school. The way the College Board set it up was giving freshmen the opportunity to live their first year of high school and gaining some experience. Julio Gonzalez is one of the AP coordinators at Alisal. Gonzalez has been an AP coordinator for 6 years. 

He himself took AP classes and exams in high school so he’s familiar with the process. “I chose to be the AP coordinator, I like the idea of having more responsibilities aside from being a teacher,” Gonzalez said, “I wanted something else that would maintain my interest in the educational world and I think having different roles and responsibilities would allow me to do that.”

Alisal has roughly between 12 and 18 AP classes. While the cost is $98 per test, the district pays the cost for every class a student is enrolled in. If a student wants to take an exam for a class they are not enrolled in then, they have to pay the fee. 

“Students cannot take an AP exam if they are not enrolled in that class. Students who are not enrolled in that class can take any AP exam as long as they pay for it.” Gonzalez said. This is through grants and funding that the district has received. 

At Alisal, the most AP classes taken in a school year was 7, this year the most is 6. One of the students taking 6 exams this year is senior Aileen Cardenas. Last year she took 4. “Before the exams I was pretty stressed because I wanted to pass them. But of course I know that in the end I still got a good experience from being part of them,” Cardenas said, “After I took the exams I felt a relief of stress because I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. I’d definitely say that they’d help me prepare for college, but even if I didn’t pass the exam it was fine because you still get that experience.” 

This year she’s taking 5 AP classes for the first semester and an additional one for the second semester.  In order to prepare for last year’s exams, Cardenas made sure to give attention to every class. “The week before I would focus more on each class and attend Saturday tutorials for classes I needed more help in,” she said.

Signing up is a two-step process. They have to enroll in the AP Classroom for their subject, where they will declare whether they will take the test by choosing “Yes”, “No”, or “Undecided.” However, they have to be certain by the deadline or else they miss their chance to take the test. If they selected “undecided” they can go back and change it as long as it’s within the deadline. 

Students are also given a form for their parents to sign. They will have to decide from the day the form is given to the day it’s due whether they want to take the exam or not. 

The AP exams are taken in May. In order to take the exam however, students must turn in an AP registration form that allows them to take the exam. There are two hard deadlines – November 15th is the deadline set by the College Board for year long classes. The second deadline is for classes in the second semester, which is March 15th. The reason why students in the year long classes can’t order an exam later on is because the College Board wants to see how many students will take the exam. 

 If a student fails to arrive at the testing room on time or doesn’t show up for the test, the penalty is $40. Last year, about 13 students did not show up for an exam. “My advice would be that from the very beginning when you are enrolled in an AP class, know that you ‘signed’ up to take the exam. Students that sign up for multiple AP classes should be aware that they are gonna take multiple exams (even on the same day). Also, their AP teachers should talk to their students about the exam, what it consists of, and making them aware of the exam day so the students are prepared,” Gonzalez said.