VEX Worlds during AP Exams

Hi, I am starting this thread because I want to address the very prevalent issue of having AP exams during vex world. To me, this is the first time my team has qualified for the world championship; however, due to the unfortunate dates, Worlds lands smack in the middle of AP testing days. Now I have two options: go to worlds, and pay the additional fee to do late testing, or miss the world championship. I am sure there are hundreds of students like me who have already paid the $500 entry fee for AP, qualify for worlds, and then get stuck in this dilemma. I hope that I am speaking for those of us who have spent time and effort building the bot and then finding out that we can’t go because of exams that were planned months ago.

Despite my concerns, I do have some questions:

Has this happened before where worlds was during AP testing?
How can this be prevented in the future?
And if this has happened in the future, how did teams come to a compromise?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking for a whole change of dates, I just want to voice my opinion and understand some of the next steps that I can take.

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As far as your concerns they are valid (AP student here as well) but really you’ve gotta suck it up and chose one unfortunately.

Now for questions

Yes, it is almost always during AP

We can’t do much, VEX and the AP chose those dates, they’re not chosen via communal vote. If you can rally enough support to either group then I suppose their is a chance you could move them, but you would need a LOT of support (more support than I think any of us would get, your not the first person to make a complaint about this and nothing has happened) and it probably wouldn’t be put in place for a while.

Confused because of the mix of past and future but in the past we’ve just paid our late testing fees, don’t get me wrong it sucks but it’s just what we’ve gotta do.

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It has happened before. I think one time AP testing was hosted at/near worlds. RECF tries hard every year to avoid this but they can’t always.

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Actually here is a webpage by RECF: https://v5rc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us/articles/25000434678039-2025-VEX-Robotics-World-Championship-and-AP-IB-and-AICE-Testing

Note: “ Importantly, participating in the 2025 VEX Robotics Competition World Championship will not incur an additional late-testing fee, as it is considered an academic contest/event.”

Also my bad it must have been that IB tests were hosted near worlds previously not AP.

“If students on your team are part of an IB program, some IB tests are scheduled during the 2025 VEX Robotics Competition World Championship. IB does not offer make-up dates, but students can arrange to take their tests at an alternate IB testing location on the standard test day and time.”

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Importantly, participating in the 2025 VEX Robotics Competition World Championship will not incur an additional late-testing fee, as it is considered an academic contest/event.

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According to the 2024 RECF Town Hall, the date of the 2026 World Championship will not conflict with AP, IB, or AICE testing.

They discuss this between 6:00-9:00 in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ospyKoxFy-Y&t=3s

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