On Feb. 15, registration packets were distributed to students in their English classes. Students had ten days to decide which classes they wanted to take next year before turning in the packets to their English teachers on February 25. During those ten days, students discussed with friends and family about their desired classes and tried to contact their counselors for help. However, a plethora of problems bombarded the registration process. Packets were due before certain AP meetings even began, students had a very short period of time between registration distribution and due date, and knowledge about prerequisites for certain classes was inconsistent, all of which made for a very confusing registration process.

Some AP classes did not hold introductory meetings or failed to publicize enough to attract attention. Other meetings were held very close to the registration due date. For example, the AP English Language and Composition meeting was on Thursday, Feb. 21, and students ended up having to split into three separate groups because the room could not fit so many people at once. On that same day, during advisory, Mission Valley’s ROP’s display was held in the cafeteria while AP Psychology was having its meeting in a different classroom. Many juniors interested in taking both were forced to choose one over the other. AP Art History’s meeting was on Friday Feb. 22, the last day of the week before packets were due, and AP US History’s meeting took place on Tuesday Feb. 26, a day after they were due.

In addition to the mismatched dates, the registration period of ten days, or seven school days, was also very short. Students had to attend AP meetings, talk to counselors, decide what courses to take, and get various teacher recommendations during that time. There was little time to consider students’ course options. Counselors were also hard to contact; there were long lines of too many students and not enough people to answer them. There were some cases in which students ended up using their entire lunch period waiting in line only for the bell to ring before they had a chance to ask questions.

Furthermore, many sophomores are dealing with the recent shift in the science pathway. Now that the current freshmen class is no longer allowed to take APs in next year, the prerequisites for science APs are different for freshmen. The 2019-2020 Course Catalog states that a prerequisite for AP Chemistry includes Chemistry, a requirement that sophomores taking AP Biology do not meet. Even after registration, some students were still not completely sure what the prerequisites were.

The registration process is not easy; there is pressure on students, teachers, and counselors alike. Students want to take the best classes offered on campus, teachers want students to understand the full level of difficulty of each curriculum, and counselors want students to be prepared for next year’s workload. A couple changes, such as scheduling earlier AP meetings or pushing back the registration packet deadline, would make the whole process a lot smoother.  It takes a lot of collaboration for registration to be successful, but with a couple tweaks here and there, Irvington can get there someday.