As the competitiveness of the college application process has increased, so have the expectations for students in Marin County and across the nation. The rigorous course loads that were previously the exception for high-achieving students have become the expectation for any student hoping to reach a high-caliber college. This is made evident by the expansion of participation in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and standardized tests, such as the SAT, all of which are provided by the College Board. Nationwide, the number of students participating in AP testing has exploded from 1.3 million in 2006 to 2.6 million in 2016. At Redwood alone, 2,375 AP tests are scheduled to be taken by students during the 2025-2026 school year.

This expansion is largely driven by the increasing pressure students face to take AP classes. William Heaps, a tutor and founder of Sage Educators, a tutoring business with locations in  Larkspur and Mill Valley, has noticed a recent rise in the pressure his students are facing to participate in AP classes.  

“For all of our students, particularly the high-performing ones, the pressure has ramped up every year. They all are applying to fairly elite universities, and so expectations are high,” Heaps said. 

Junior Will Garland is a witness to this growing pressure, currently enrolled in multiple AP classes. 

“There’s a lot of pressure [to take AP classes] for kids who have the idea of getting into a great college. There’s a lot of pressure both internally [at school] and from parents to take a whole bunch of advanced classes,” Garland said.

While the pressure students face to achieve academically encourages them to push themselves, it also frequently leads to them feeling overwhelmed. According to data from a 2019 survey by the American College Health Association, a staggering 87 percent of students had felt overwhelmed by coursework during the school year. Heaps has witnessed the struggles behind that statistic in his time as a tutor. 

“I have seen students who are harder on themselves than they need to be, and they set the bar for themselves really high. I applaud them for challenging themselves, but at the same time, there is such a thing as going overboard with

that. I’ve seen kids reach a breaking point where they’re taking on too much and they’re trying to be too many things fortoo many people,” Heaps said.

Paula Berry is the Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD), a very significant role in managing the district curriculum, including that of AP courses.

“[Students] feel compelled to take AP classes. I want to say that’s because they’re so passionate about learning from a really robust framework and curriculum. But a lot of times we see students driving towards AP courses focused on getting the grade point average (GPA) [increase],” Berry said.

While this pressure-driven increase in AP participation has had a seemingly negative impact on students, it has had a positive impact on the College Board’s revenue. Despite being registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit – a company that doesn’t make a profit and is exempt from federal income tax – the College Board has brought home a supply of revenue that has steadily increased from $400 million in 2007 to over $1.7 billion in 2022 (Total Registration). A large portion of this revenue comes from fees paid by students to take the preliminary scholastic aptitude test (PSAT), SAT, and AP tests, with $500 million coming in from AP test fees alone in 2025.

Despite the College Board’s high revenue, schools bear the costs of proctoring the AP tests, SAT, and PSAT with no assistance from the company. Berry has witnessed the significant cost required to proctor the AP tests without the College Board’s assistance from an inside perspective. 

“This year, Redwood has 2,375 AP tests to proctor. Tamalpais has 1,415, and Archie Williams has 1,017 for a total cost of $316,800. All of that money goes to the College Board, which claims to be a nonprofit, and the College Board does not provide us any resources to pay anyone to proctor,” Berry said. 

Because proctors are not paid for by the College Board, schools like Redwood must find volunteers and employ their own staff who each make a significant time investment in proctoring the exams. 

“We have parent volunteers that we have to bring in, and assistant principals at every comprehensive site who oversee the AP exams. They have to organize, plan, and communicate with parents. It is an incredible amount of time that our staff and parent volunteers have to give to proctor exams in these very stringent conditions,” Berry said 

Schools have few alternatives to making this time and cost investment into proctoring College Board tests, as the company holds a near-total monopoly on the standardized testing market. While it has limited competition to the SAT with American College Testing (ACT), AP testing has virtually zero competition, and both of the College Board’s tests are instrumental in college applications. The SAT’s instrumental role is only growing as most colleges are once again beginning to require students to submit their scores. This leaves most students with no other option but to participate in the College Board’s tests, ensuring it maintains its dominant position in standardized testing for years to come. 

While students navigate an increasingly turbulent landscape of test stress and pressure, Berry encourages them to find passion in learning, not in grades. 

“Our goal as an institution is to prepare young people to be successful in their next steps. And a lot of times, I think that gets lost in the mix, because [students] are all so caught up in trying to take as much as you can, as fast as you can, getting the highest GPA, having a perfect score on the SAT, while you’re losing sight of the love of learning. I want you to walk into a class and realize you have a love of learning,” Berry said.