When College of Arts and Sciences freshman Rachel Hogue tried to apply for sophomore standing a few weeks ago, she noticed none of the credits she was supposed to receive from Advanced Placement exams had shown up on the Boston University Student Link website.
“I took six APs and should have got credit for five,” Hogue said. “I know I had them sent to BU, but they never made it.”
Some students said they faced complications when the university did not receive their exam scores, but officials said that students could take steps to avoid problems when they arrive on campus.
Hogue said BU asked her to have her scores resent from the College Board, the organization which administers the exams to high school students, and once her scores arrive, she can apply for sophomore standing.
“It is kind of a pain. They should have been sent in the first place,” she said. “Someone at orientation said I should check online because not all scores make it. I thought I should be fine, but now I wish I could remember the professor’s name so I could call him up and thank him.”
The CAS Office of Records senior program coordinator Mary Mahnke said BU rarely loses scores, but it does sometimes happen.
“We get 2,200 scores every year, and a small fraction of students have problems, but it’s very rare,” Mahnke said.
The most common problem Mahnke said she sees is when students only send their AP scores from senior year of high school.
“When people take APs during their sophomore and junior year they check ‘no’ in the box that asks them to send the scores to colleges because they don’t know where they are going yet,” Mahnke said.
CAS freshman Dana Moyer said her scores were accidentally sent to the Metropolitan College instead of CAS.
“I called BU and College Board, and they told me that the code this year was messed up so it happened to a lot of people,” Moyer said. “They said they were automatically resending all the scores because of that.”
Moyer said he also had a problem with her AP biology score.
“My AP Bio score wasn’t counted so I had to fill out a special AP form to get them counted,” she said.
College Board spokeswoman Jennifer Topiel said in an email that the scoring mistakes were not due to a problem on the College Board side.
If students find their AP scores are not present in school records,they should ask their colleges or universities where to send scores and contact the College Board Topiel said.
All students who specify which schools they would like their scores sent to on the exam day have their names and scores placed on a list that gets sent out every year on July 1. If a student requests after the exam date, the College Board sends a letter to the university containing only that individual’s scores, Topiel said.
Topiel said scores are kept on record permanently so it is never too late to resend them.