Some Students Taking Advanced Placement Tests At Home Will Have To Retake Them After Submission Problems

CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's an unprecedented move – students are taking the Advanced Placement exams at home, online, during the coronavirus pandemic.

But so far, about 15,000 tests will have to be retaken, as students across the country run into problems submitting their answers.

One student from Aurora told CBS 2's Tim McNicholas the exam questions were actually the easy part.

Rosie Schroeder has been studying for the AP exams all year. A high score could earn her college credits and save her money on tuition, and she thought she had aced her calculus test on Tuesday.

"I was pretty nervous for the content of the test and not really the submission, but I should have been worried for the opposite," Schroeder said.

Schroeder and her dad say she had successfully submitted her answers the same exact way as on the College Board's practice exams, and the real thing would not go through.

"I'll have another month of studying before I have to take the retake, and that's just another month of stress added on," she said.

The College Board, which runs the exams, said due to various issues, about 15,000 of the 1.5 million tests so far will have to be re-taken in June.

They say many of the difficulties stem from outdated browsers, and some simply didn't see the message saying they had completed the exam.

But the Schroeders said they used the most up-to-date version of Google Chrome.

Nathan Chasse from New Hampshire said he encountered similar problems on his AP Physics exam.

"I've kind of lost faith a little bit in the College Board," he said.

Chasse snapped a photo of the error message, saying: "There was an issue with your submission. Please try again." He said his browser is up to date.

"They're not really taking responsibility for it, and so it feels like I'm getting blamed for something that I didn't do, and that I'm completely devastated about," Chasse said.

Chasse and Schroeder said the College Board still has not told them what caused their issues. And Chasse said he used the same method successfully to submit a separate exam on Tuesday.

"There are issues that are completely out of the students' control that are happening," said Amanda DoAmaral, the founder of Fiveable.

Fiveable is an online learning community for AP students that is not connected to the College Board.

"I've also heard a lot of things too like, 'I got to the end, I tried to submit, and I just sat there for five minutes hitting submit, and it just never submitted," DoAmaral said.

The test provides a five-minute window at the end to submit. But DoAmaral said some kids are going back and trying to work more on the exam in that window – thinking the submission process will be quick and easy.

"Once it takes you to that second window, just submit," DoAmaral said. "You're better off getting the points you have, rather than trying to just like get more and end up with nothing."

Students have to upload pictures showing their work, and DoAmaral said you should set your phone to take JPEG or PNG files, as some files won't upload.

Chasse said he used a PNG, and he still ran into problems. He is hoping things go more smoothly in June.

Some students say they have time-stamped photos of their work, and they'd like to submit those rather than re-test in June. We asked the College Board if that is possible, and we're waiting to hear back.