The College Board has noticed a slight increase in cheating on some Advanced Placement [AP] exams from last semester and has notified suspected violators — including an unspecified number of Sunny Hills students — of their canceled scores.

“We have canceled more AP Exams than usual after identifying students who participated in unethical conduct,” College Board’s executive director of media relations, Holly Stepp, said in a July 12 online article from Inside Higher Ed.

The Accolade has tried to contact Stepp and other College Board officials but has not received a response to several requests to be interviewed as of Wednesday, Sept. 11.

Sunny Hills principal Craig Weinreich said he had little knowledge on the subject matter as he has not seen any figures regarding this year’s cancellations.

AP testing coordinator, head counselor Beth Thomson, also declined to comment on the matter for the same reason Weinreich gave.

Weinreich and Thomson said they could also not comment on any emails that Sunny Hills students received the week of July 1 sent by the College Board. 

The Accolade determined that multiple students on campus were subject to this increase in cancellations. However, it was only able to confirm with one student for having received such an email over the summer; The Accolade has decided to use a pseudonym to identify the student for confidentiality.

One such digital correspondence was sent July 2 to a senior who took the AP Biology test in May. It reads:

“Your AP Biology Exam scores have been canceled. This decision follows a comprehensive investigation where we determined that testing misconduct occurred.”

The email then further delves into what could be considered misconduct in the eyes of the College Board, including the following:

• Analysis of answers that conclusively demonstrate copying or collusion 
• If testing digitally, having any applications running on your device other than the Bluebook application 
• Direct observation of the test security violation by testing staff
• Or a combination of these and other pieces of evidence 

Before ending the message, the test security team reiterated the organization’s testing conduct and policies that were first relayed to the recipient during the official AP exams: 

“Test takers are bound by the College Board’s policies and procedures, and violations of the security terms and conditions can result in the immediate dismissal from a test center, cancellation of scores, being banned from taking College Board assessments and other potential consequences.”

The student, whom The Accolade will identify as John Smith, denies any wrongdoing and will continue to take AP exams in May.

“If they are going to accuse me of cheating, I would rather them have a more specific reason or give me a valid reason other than saying there was extensive evidence,” said Smith, who upon receiving the notice sent an appeal to the organization, which was denied on July 7. “I know that I did not cheat, and I am being accused of something that I believe I gave no excuse to be accused of.”

Despite the small percentage of emails sent to alleged violators of the College Board’s testing policy, the numbers were not high enough to warrant an overall nullification of any one test subject, according to information Inside Higher Ed had obtained from Stepp.

Among the leaked essay prompts and multiple choice questions was the AP English Language and Composition [AP Lang] test, which was administered on May 14 and featured three free-response questions, students said.

Senior Charles Kearney said he found out about the cheating the day after taking the test. 

“When I was on TikTok and saw [news of] the leaked tests after I had already taken it, I started panicking a little, wondering if my score would get canceled,” Kearney said. “I would have been frustrated because if they did cancel mine, it would have been a lot of work that I put into it for it to just be nothing.” 

Like Kearney, many of the students The Accolade spoke to for this story said they either found out about their classmates receiving those emails by word of mouth or on social media posts like Instagram.

One deterrence to the possibility of more leaked questions will be the College Board’s push to convert as many print exams to digital-only ones using the College Board’s Bluebook app, according to the College Board’s AP website.

A total of 28 tests will be included in the change, including the 45 multiple choice questions and all three essays for both the AP Lang and AP Literature and Composition tests.

Sophomore Sarina Desai, who took the AP Human Geography test last semester, said the push for digitalization may not be for the better.

“I feel like it may stimulate more cheating,” Desai said.