

That opened the door for dinosauce313 to begin advertising a self-created subreddit: r/APTests2020. Moderators of the subreddit r/APStudents, hosting more than 75,000 members, announced the page would temporarily shut down to discourage users from discussing exam material. The account suddenly fell silent until May 10, the day before AP testing began.

Within minutes, dinosauce313’s credibility as a real high schooler was already eroding.

However, as mentioned by other users, Cornell typically notifies waitlist admittees through an email or phone call. dinosauce313 claimed they were recently accepted off the waitlist at Cornell University by way of a message on the school’s website. Students quickly noticed that “dinosauce” appears on random username generators, and the account’s Internet Protocol (IP) address corresponds to a location 20 minutes outside one of the College Board’s main offices in Reston, Va.ĭinosauce313’s first–and since-deleted–post was a comment on the subreddit r/ApplyingToCollege, a page known to be frequented by many AP students. “We may post content designed to confuse and deter those who attempt to cheat.”Īpril 2, the same day the College Board hosted a webinar unveiling its plans to offer virtual AP exams, a Reddit profile under the username dinosauce313 was created. “We will be monitoring social media and discussion sites to detect and disrupt cheating,” the College Board said after the COVID-19 pandemic moved AP exams online. Critics allege the College Board is using undercover social media accounts to actively lure test takers into cheating. Yet as 3.4 million students complete increasingly high-stakes AP exams, accusations are mounting against the College Board’s security procedures. The College Board’s Senior Vice President of Advanced Placement (AP) and Instruction Trevor Packer announced May 10 that the organization caught “a ring of students who were developing plans to cheat” on upcoming AP exams–and the hunt for others was already on. “It’s not worth the risk of having your name reported,” he warned. A parody of the “Jurassic Park” logo, created using Font Meme.īased on his tone, you would have thought he had just busted a wanted crime boss.
