By: Richard Gallegos

SAN JOSE, CALIF.— Students are required to pay to take their AP test at the end of the year before their test.

High school students are required to pay a fee of $90 to take an AP test and if they cannot pay then they will not be able to receive the college credits even if they passed and did well in the class. But there is a way to get a reduced pricing; if you are part of a low-income household. To see if you qualify for a reduced cost in the AP test students must go to their school website and find the link that will take them to the website “myschoolapp.com” and from there they can apply. Students who aren’t in any AP do not have to worry about paying to take their final or any end-of-the-year test, the school covers all of the cost for those tests. 

Junior Quang Nguyen, has two AP classes with one being Lang and the other being APES. Nguyen said he doesn’t mind paying for his AP test because students get help like financial aid and it helps reduce the cost to only $5 per test. After finding this information we could spread the word around and help other students apply and possibly get financial aid and get their AP test reduced from $90 to $5.

Around 2 students have reported they were eligible to get a reduced cost for AP testing. Even though there is a way to reduce the cost I would still like to find a way to reduce the cost even more and possibly stop them from charging students in general and letting the test be free so the students don’t have to worry more about how they’re going to pay for it or having to worry about filling out the form in time for a price reduction. 

Another junior (Jackie Arias) had two APs last year, AP Human Geography and AP Spanish. I asked her the question “How do you feel that you have to pay for your AP test?”.  She said she didn’t like the idea because she says “the whole point of taking an AP class is to be able to get college credits and you can’t do that unless you pay and pass the test.” She has a reasonable point and is not too fond of the idea of having to pay for the test to get the credits even after putting all the time and effort into passing the class so she can get credits for college. 

Once you fill out the form and apply for the financial aid you have to wait 2-3 weeks to hear back if you have qualified or not. After the 2-3 weeks of waiting you will get a letter from the mail saying if you have qualified for financial aid or not. After receiving the letter you will take the letter and go to the school bank, show them the letter that you qualify for financial aid, and then from there you will be able to pay only $5 per test instead of the regular price of $90. Senior Alex Nguye had to go through this same process when applying for financial aid.