COVID-19 Response

The State of AP Credit During COVID-19 Adjustments

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/27/20

There's no guarantee that colleges or universities will grant credit for successful Advanced Placement testing in any of the 38 AP courses currently available. It's one more policy institutional leaders have to debate and make decisions about during school COVID-19 closures. While the College Board is delivering its exams online (or in written form), one education technology company is encouraging students to make sure upfront that they can get the college credit they're expecting from the schools they plan to apply to.

To help them do that, Prompt, a company that specializes in helping students perfect their admissions essays, has compiled a list of colleges and universities that are and aren't accepting AP credits. Right now, the list of "aren'ts" only has a single name on it, and even that school (Gonzaga University) is still trying to decide what to do. The vast majority have made no changes to their AP policies in response to the changes introduced in the AP exam process.

"It appears the vast majority of colleges will accept AP credits the same way they've accepted them in previous years. We’ve already counted more than 70 colleges who’ve confirmed that they will accept AP credits from the 2020 exams," company officials wrote on the website. "These statements are difficult to find, and colleges often list them on their website without an announcement." Each college on the list includes a quote referring to the policy and a link to the source from each college's statement.

Prompt has also developed a free guide to help students prepare for the five AP English and history exams, each of which feature a single long essay.