This year, McLean High School has changed its testing requirements students must meet to receive their verified credits. In previous years, students enrolled in AP classes with corresponding Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) exams have been required to take the SOLs in addition to the AP exam at the end of the year. However, this year, in order to reduce the amount of testing at the school, McLean has received permission from the county to change this requirement.
Starting the 2016-2017 exam cycle, McLean will no longer require that students enrolled in AP US History, AP English Language and Composition, and AP World History take the associated SOLs (US History, English Reading, English Writing, and World History). Now, as long as a student takes that AP class’s exam and achieves a score of a 1 or above, they will be exempt from taking the SOL. If a student earns a 1 on the exam, they will fail, a 2 will be a passing score, and a 3 or above will equate pass advanced.

According to the information released about the new policy, “In the event that a student scores a 1 on the AP Exam, he or she will have the opportunity to take the SOL Exam for the specific course in the Fall of the following school year. To avoid this situation, any student failing an AP English Language, AP US History or AP World History course will be required to take both the AP and SOL exams in May.”

Due to the fact that this policy is a drastic change for a lot of students and teachers, there are mixed opinions about it among the student body. Many students worry about the fact that SOL-based incentives for final exams will no longer be available to them.

When told about the new policy, senior Emily Kong said, “Well that’s a shame. Bye bye SOL incentives on finals.”

But because material taught in the affected AP classes should be much more extensive than the material tested in SOLs, some students agree that the policy is beneficial.

“I think it’s a great policy because the AP students deserve a reward for all their hard work. They have to take a 3 hour test, so they should be exempt from the SOL,” senior Anna Duval said.

“It makes sense to save time and resources by exempting kids who should… have an ‘advanced’ knowledge of the subject material from tests that are literally intended to provide a minimal ‘standard’ for the curriculum. Plus it alleviates the issue of ‘teaching to the test,’ which is one of the main concerns that has always been associated with SOLs,” senior Jessica Boyer said.

Regardless, the new policy intends to decrease the amount of testing McLean must administer, thereby saving resources.