Total Registration, LLC has released a client survey report regarding the pre-administration process required for advanced placement exams. The survey was comissioned by TotalRegistration, LLC, which is in the process of evaluating a new feature for their Advanced Placement Exam Registration Service. The new feature would reduce the work required for the AP exam pre-administration process by using student entered registration data already collected by the existing AP Exam Registration Service. TotalRegistration is also pursuing the ability to upload collected data directly to the College Board, which would reduce workload and increase data accuracy. The “preadministration”
In order to evaluate the potential value of the new service, Total Registration's survey gathered primary data from school administrators who are directly involved in AP exam registration. Total Registration opted to use the time required for completion of the pre-administration process as one of the proxies for the value offered by the service. Time was chosen because of the ease of translating hours into dollars using wage information. In addition, errors related to the pre-administration process were also determined to be another useful proxy for value due to possible fees charged and required work for corrections.
104 respondents indicated that on average the pre-administration process required approximately 28 hours to complete. The survey results also indicate that the pre-administration process is error prone. Slightly less than half (44.9%) of the respondents reported that extra work was required because of data entry errors on the demographic portions of the scan sheets. With regard to student entries, 35.5% of respondents indicated that they have had students enter the incorrect school codes (CEEB) and 67.3% report that they have had students enter their names in error. More than a third of the respondents (38.3%) indicated that the school had failed to receive score reports for students that had taken AP exam(s) at their school, and 34.6% stated that student(s) had not received a score report in the last three years. A majority of respondents (50.5%) acknowledged that a college(s) had not received a score report for students at their school. Interestingly, roughly a third of respondents (39.3%) stated that they had received score reports for a student that attended a different school. The full survey report is available at http://www.totalregistration.net/
Based on the survey findings, Total Registration (http://www.TotalRegistration.net) has determined to pursue the addition of a pre-administration feature for the existing AP Exam Registration Service. A pilot program is planned for next year's exam cycle and a formal proposal will be presented to the College Board requesting permission to provide directly uploaded electronic demographic information.
