AP Capstone Diploma Program Policies

Certain policies are critical to the successful implementation of AP Capstone at your school. Adherence to program policies and exam procedures, including performance tasks, is critical to producing valid AP scores. Violations of program policies and/or exam procedures may result in the cancellation of student scores and/or your school being withdrawn from the AP Capstone Diploma™ program by College Board. 

The policies below are in effect for the 2024-25 school year.

Participation

Any school can participate in the AP Capstone Diploma program. As of the 2024-25 school year, no application or sign-up form is required.

Schools that offer AP Seminar or AP Research must ensure that their teachers complete the required summer professional learning prior to teaching either course.

Professional Learning

Professional learning at an AP Summer Institute (APSI) is required for all new AP Seminar and AP Research teachers. Training is optional for returning teachers or interested administrators. Teachers complete training once before the first year they teach the course—this isn’t an annual requirement. 

A limited number of fee waivers for teachers from eligible schools are available through an application process. To learn more about eligibility and how to apply, go to AP Summer Institute Tuition Fee Waivers.

Professional learning is offered by select AP Summer Institutes throughout the summer. Each session takes place over a consecutive four-day period for 30 contact hours. Schools and teachers may attend the select APSI of their choice, space permitting, but teachers must be present for each day of the session. Teachers who aren’t present for any part of the training won’t be authorized to teach AP Seminar or AP Research.

In addition, all AP Seminar and AP Research teachers need to complete and pass online scoring training annually to obtain access to score their students’ work. This training is virtual and self-paced. The training modules will be available in AP Classroom during the academic year.

To learn more, visit AP Capstone Professional Learning.

Prerequisite

There’s no prerequisite for AP Seminar. To develop the skills necessary for AP Research, students must first complete AP Seminar, including the end-of-course exam and all required performance tasks. Students who score a 1 or 2 in AP Seminar are still eligible to enroll in AP Research, but they may need additional support and guidance during the course.

Plagiarism and Falsification or Fabrication of Information

Participating teachers shall inform students of the consequences of plagiarism and instruct students to ethically use and acknowledge the ideas and work of others throughout their course work. The student’s individual voice should be clearly evident, and the ideas of others must be acknowledged, attributed, and/or cited.

A student who fails to acknowledge the source or author of any and all information or evidence taken from the work of someone else through citation, attribution, or reference in the body of the work, or through a bibliographic entry, will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that fails to properly acknowledge sources or authors on the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team Project and Presentation.

A student who incorporates falsified or fabricated information (e.g. evidence, data, sources, and/or authors) will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that incorporates falsified or fabricated information in the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team Project and Presentation.

AP Capstone Policy on Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

Generative AI tools must be used ethically, responsibly, and intentionally to support student learning, not to bypass it. Accordingly, all performance tasks submitted in AP Seminar and AP Research must be the student’s own work. While students are permitted to use generative AI tools consistent with this policy, their use is optional and not mandatory. 

Students can use generative AI tools as optional aids for exploration of potential topics of inquiry, initial searches for sources of information, confirming their understanding of a complex text, or checking their writing for grammar and tone. However, students must read primary and secondary sources directly, perform their own analysis and synthesis of evidence, and make their own choices on how to communicate effectively both in their writing and presentations. It remains the student’s responsibility to engage deeply with credible, valid sources and integrate diverse perspectives when working on the performance tasks. Students must complete interim “checkpoints” with their teacher to demonstrate genuine engagement with the tasks.   

Required Checkpoints and Affirmations

To ensure students are not using generative AI to bypass work, students must complete interim checkpoints with their teacher to demonstrate genuine engagement with the tasks. 

AP Seminar and AP Research students will need to complete the relevant checkpoints successfully to receive a score for their performance tasks. Teachers must affirm, to the best of their knowledge, that students completed the checkpoints authentically. Failure to complete the checkpoints will result in a score of 0 on the associated task.

• In AP Seminar, teachers assess the authenticity of student work based on checkpoints that take the form of short conversations with students during which students make their thinking and decision-making visible (similar to an oral defense). These checkpoints should occur during the sources and research phase (IRR and IWA), and argument outline phase (IWA only).
• In AP Research, students must complete checkpoints in the form of in-progress meetings and work in the Process and Reflection Portfolio (PREP). 

AP Seminar and AP Research teachers are also required to affirm, to the best of their knowledge, that the student’s final submission is authentic student work.

College Board reserves the right to investigate submissions where there is evidence of the inappropriate use of generative AI as an academic integrity violation and request from students copies of their interim work for review.  

AP Program Use of Turnitin 

College Board uses Turnitin to evaluate all final submissions in the AP Digital Portfolio. This measure is taken to identify instances of plagiarism and the improper use of generative AI. In cases where evidence of plagiarism and/or inappropriate generative AI usage is found, College Board reserves the right to conduct further investigations. Students may be asked to provide copies of their interim work for comprehensive review as part of the academic integrity verification process. 

In keeping with the AP Capstone policies on plagiarism and generative AI usage, AP Capstone teachers and students will use Turnitin to evaluate the originality of student work and ensure that appropriate citations are included. Access to Turnitin is provided to participating AP Capstone schools (for their AP Seminar and/or AP Research classes only). Turnitin is a valuable tool for teaching students about citation, but it’s not a plagiarism detector. Feedback from Turnitin should be considered in context and not simply taken at face value. Visit help.turnitin.com for more information on accessing and interpreting originality reports.

Exam Ordering

AP coordinators must submit an order for AP Seminar and/or AP Research Exams through AP Registration and Ordering (myap.collegeboard.org) for all students included in their exam roster by the ordering deadline indicated in Part 1 of the AP Coordinator’s Manual (.pdf). An exam must be ordered for an AP Seminar or AP Research student in order for their work to be scored by the AP Program.

If a student doesn’t plan to submit a performance task for scoring or take the end-of-course exam, their Order Exam? status should be set as No in the exam roster in AP Registration and Ordering.

Billing

Standard billing policies apply to AP Seminar and AP Research. See Part 2 of the AP Coordinator’s Manual for detailed information about billing.

Rescoring

AP Seminar and AP Research performance tasks, as well as the AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam, consist of free-response questions, academic papers, or presentations, and therefore aren’t rescored.

Students can get their AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam Free-Response booklets for a fee. No comments, corrections, or scores are included. Booklets for exams for which sources aren’t released on the College Board website (for example, late-testing exams) aren’t available.

Scoring and Withholding and Cancellation

If a student chooses to withhold or cancel their score for AP Seminar or AP Research, the entire AP Seminar or AP Research score, including the end-of course exam and performance tasks, is withheld or canceled. If a student submits any of the performance tasks in AP Seminar or AP Research as final in the AP Digital Portfolio or takes the AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam, they’ll receive a final AP score unless they cancel it.

Lost Instructional Days 

If a school or student has lost a significant number of net instructional days, contact AP Services for Educators before March 14, 2025 to request an extension for the digital submission of AP Seminar and/or AP Research performance tasks. Information in the request should include the school name and school code and a detailed reason for the extension request, as well as the AP ID for each impacted student. 

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

For AP Seminar and AP Research, students with documented disabilities may be eligible for accommodations for through-course assessments (performance tasks) and the end-of-course exam for AP Seminar. For information about requesting an accommodations approval, go to collegeboard.org/apssd or contact College Board Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 844-255-7728 or 212-713-8333.

Retention of Performance Task Presentation Videos

AP Seminar and AP Research teachers must keep video files of all performance task presentations and oral defenses for at least one academic year because College Board may request to review the scoring of these components to identify samples for scoring training and to ensure scoring quality. College Board directly contacts selected teachers to submit video files with instructions for providing samples and signed release forms for their students.

Role of Teacher and Expert Adviser

Please see the AP Seminar and AP Research course and exam descriptions (CEDs) to learn about the role of teachers and expert advisers. Violations of this policy may result in cancellation of student scores and/or your school being withdrawn from the AP Capstone Diploma program.

Role of the Institutional Review Board in AP Research 

All research proposals should be reviewed by the classroom teacher for ethical considerations prior to data collection. Multiple student revisions may be required before teacher approval is granted. In particular, research with human subjects, animal subjects, harmful microorganisms, or hazardous materials requires special consideration by the teacher. 

Research involving human subjects must be evaluated for: 

• potential harm to subjects that may result from their participation; 
• potential benefits of the research for the subject and the community as a whole; 
• procedures used to ensure the informed and voluntary participation of research subjects; 
• procedures used to ensure the confidentiality of research subjects. 

Accordingly, the teacher must review any surveys, interview questions, questionnaires, or other interventions to be used in a project, as well as student plans for protecting animal and human subjects’ well-being and human subjects’ anonymity and/or confidentiality. Proposals that pose more than minimal risk to participants cannot be approved. 

If students do not plan to present their findings on human subject research in a competition setting, and/or disseminate their findings by publishing or publicly presenting their findings, teacher approval is sufficient. 

However, there are two general circumstances in which additional review is necessary: 

1. Students whose projects involve animal subjects, harmful microorganisms, or hazardous materials may require additional review or approval by school or district processes. 
2. Students who want to publish and/or publicly present their findings regarding human subjects research will require an additional review and approval process by a federally registered Institutional Review Board (IRB). 

Many communities have IRBs in local organizations such as high schools, science and engineering competition organizations, community colleges, universities, and medical centers. 

Teachers may work with school administrators to establish and register an IRB to evaluate research projects using human subjects. The IRB registration process can be found by searching “IRB registration instructions” on hhs.gov. 

AP Capstone Teacher Conflict of Interest Policy

AP Capstone courses and assessments involve the scoring of student through-course performance tasks by the classroom teacher; therefore, to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, College Board recommends that no AP Seminar and AP Research teachers should be the classroom teacher for any student who is an immediate family or household member and is enrolled in AP Seminar or AP Research because this would put the teacher in the position of scoring official AP assessments. To avoid a perceived conflict of interest, College Board recommends that the immediate family or household member who is enrolled in AP Seminar or AP Research (student) should be transferred to another class section that’s taught by another teacher who doesn’t pose a conflict of interest. Alternatively, if there’s only one AP Seminar or one AP Research teacher and a schedule change won’t resolve the conflict, the school should designate a different teacher to complete required online scoring training for either course and to score the affected student’s presentation performance task components as a co-teacher in the AP Digital Portfolio. Replacement scorers must contact AP Services for Educators at cb.org/apeducatorinquiry (select the AP Capstone topic) to request access to online scoring training modules. No additional cost is incurred by a school that requires a replacement scorer.

College Board renders the aforementioned recommendations in an effort to ensure that all AP Capstone exams and courses are administered under standardized conditions and to prevent any student from receiving an unfair advantage on the AP Capstone course and exam. Such recommendations should be enforced by participating schools, their personnel, and their students to the extent feasible and in accordance with each school’s current policies and procedures applicable to such situations.

Replacing AP Capstone Teachers Mid-year

AP Seminar and AP Research teachers must complete AP Capstone summer professional learning before teaching either course.

In rare cases—such as resignation, termination, personal leave, extended illness, or death—AP Capstone teachers must be replaced during the school year. In these cases, a school may assign a teacher who hasn’t completed required training to an AP Seminar or AP Research classroom. The AP Program must be notified about replacement teachers by contacting AP Services at cb.org/apeducatorinquiry (select the AP Capstone topic).

Depending on timing, the replacement teacher may need to complete and pass required AP Capstone online scoring training and fulfill scoring responsibilities set forth in the AP Capstone Implementation Guide (pdf/743 KB). The school leader and the replacement teacher should work together to see these requirements are met.

Any replacement teacher wishing to teach AP Seminar or AP Research in a future academic year must complete AP Capstone summer professional learning before teaching the course again.

Student Extended Absence and Performance Tasks

General Recommendations

In the event that a student experiences an unavoidable and extended absence from school and isn’t able to participate in the AP Capstone Performance Tasks (AP Seminar: Team Project and Presentation; Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation; AP Research: Academic Paper; Presentation and Oral Defense) or any individual components of these tasks, the school/teacher should be as accommodating as possible, using technology or other means that allow the student to participate in the entire task or one or more of its components. If the student is unable to participate, for example, in the entire Team Project and Presentation or is unable to complete one or more components of either of the two performance tasks, College Board recommends one of the following options:

1. Continue in the course and have their completed tasks (or components) scored taking whatever AP score is earned. For example, if an AP Seminar student is unable to participate in the Team Project and Presentation, the student could choose to complete the Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation and the End-of-Course Exam and accept the AP score earned from these two completed assessments. (In this scenario, the teacher would remove the student from the team, and the student would receive a score of 0 for any assessment components not completed.); or
2. Continue in the course and then cancel their scores by completing the AP Score Cancellation Form by the published deadline (usually by mid-June). For example, if a student is unable to participate in the AP Seminar Team Project and Presentation, they may complete the other performance task and, if the student doesn’t think their performance on the Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation and End-of-Course Exam will earn a score the student wants to keep on record, they may cancel the score; or
3. The student may elect to drop the course altogether and consider re-enrolling the following academic year.

An AP Research student who doesn’t submit an Academic Paper is ineligible to receive a score on the Presentation and Oral Defense and may elect to drop the course and re-enroll the following academic year.

College Board renders the aforementioned recommendations in an effort to ensure that all AP Capstone exams and courses are administered under standardized conditions and to prevent any student from receiving an unfair advantage on the AP Capstone course and exam. Such recommendations should be enforced by participating schools, their personnel, and their students to the extent feasible and in accordance with each school’s current policies and procedures applicable to such situations.

Considerations for AP Seminar

1. If the student is unable to complete the Individual Research Report component of the AP Seminar Team Project and Presentation, the student would be ineligible to receive a score for the Team Multimedia Presentation because the presentation is dependent on all team members’ individual research. As a result, the student would receive no score for the entire Team Project and Presentation. If a student is in the process of completing the Team Project and Presentation, and they drop out of the group in the middle of the performance task, the remaining group members should receive scores based on the active members in the group.
2. A student with extended absences may be removed from an AP Seminar team without consequence for the other students on the team, provided that all task instructions are followed to ensure completion of the Team Multimedia Presentation. However, teachers should attempt to accommodate students with extended absences as much as possible, using technology or other means to encourage participation, before considering dropping a student from a team.
3. Students who don’t complete the Individual Written Argument aren’t eligible to receive scores in the Individual Multimedia Presentation or the Individual Oral Defense.
4. For a student to receive an AP Seminar score, an exam must be ordered for them and that student must take the AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam. Students who submit any performance tasks as final but don’t take the AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam won’t receive an AP Seminar score.
5. It’s acceptable for an AP Seminar student who hasn’t completed one or more AP Seminar Performance Tasks to take the end-of-course exam.
6. Students must first complete AP Seminar, including the end-of-course exam and all required performance tasks, to develop the skills necessary to succeed in AP Research. Students who score a 1 or 2 in AP Seminar are still eligible to enroll in AP Research but might need additional support and guidance during the course.

Considerations for AP Research

If an AP Research student is unable to complete the Academic Paper, the student would be ineligible to receive a score for the Presentation and Oral Defense because the presentation and oral defense component is dependent on the research in the Academic Paper.

Assigning AP Capstone Course Grades on Student Transcripts

Assigning course grades for AP Seminar and AP Research on student high school transcripts is a local decision and is only dependent on an AP Capstone teacher having received course authorization through the AP Course Audit. Receiving a course grade for AP Seminar or AP Research isn’t affected by a student’s completion of the through-course assessments or the AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam, unless there’s a school or district policy that dictates otherwise. Teachers should follow local policies when assigning course grades for students with extended absences from AP Capstone courses.

Retaking AP Seminar and/or AP Research

AP Seminar

Students may retake AP Seminar; however, they may not resubmit the work they produced in previous AP Seminar courses as part of their through-course assessment(s).

Students who retake AP Seminar must complete all Performance Tasks and the end-of-course exam; individual component, task, or exam scores from previous years can’t be applied.

AP Research

Students may retake AP Research; however, they may not resubmit the work they produced in previous AP Research courses as part of their through course-assessment(s). Students who retake AP Research must complete the Academic Paper and Presentation and Oral Defense, on a new research topic; individual component scores from previous years can’t be applied.

Student Transfers to Non-AP Capstone Schools

A student who is enrolled in an AP Capstone course and who transfers to a school that doesn’t offer the program may not continue to participate in the AP Capstone course unless they enroll through an accredited virtual school that offers the course.

Instructions for indicating transfer students in AP Registration and Ordering are included in Part 1 of the AP Coordinator’s Manual. The manual also includes detailed information about exam fee policies related to transfer students.

Offering AP Capstone to Homeschooled and Virtual School Students

Students

Homeschooled and virtual school students who wish to participate in AP Capstone have the opportunity to do so through a virtual or local brick-and-mortar school. Independent study for AP Seminar or AP Research is not permitted. Virtual and brick-and-mortar schools may have their own local deadlines and policies regarding instruction and testing; therefore, students should do the following as early as possible: 

• Use the AP Course Ledger to find a virtual or local brick-and-mortar school that offers AP Seminar or AP Research.
• Find a school to arrange testing. The AP coordinator for a school that agrees to order and administer exams for homeschooled and virtual school students will create an exam only section in AP Registration and Ordering for that subject and add those students.
• Students must enroll in both an exam only section and a teacher-led class section, in order to have access to resources assigned by the teacher for the class section as well as for teachers to submit presentation scores for students in the AP Digital Portfolio.

Note: AP Research doesn’t have an end-of-course exam, but an exam must be ordered for a student in order for their performance task to be scored.

Accredited Virtual School Providers

Some best practices for offering AP Seminar or AP Research in a virtual setting include:

• Scheduling classes in a synchronous format
• Providing opportunities for students to collaborate outside of classroom hours through online platforms (e.g., Zoom and Google Meet)
• Grouping AP Seminar students for Performance Task 1 based on their scheduling availability

More information about special ordering circumstances can be found on AP Central and in Part 1 of the AP Coordinator’s Manual (.pdf).