Just where is that box full of AP exams? If you’re one of the over 100 students who took an AP exam this past spring that was lost in transit to the headquarters of The College Board, aim your arrows at the United Parcel Service. And know that New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer, the United States Senator Majority Leader, has taken up your cause. In fact, he’s already fired an arrow at UPS himself, calling on the company to take action to ascertain the whereabouts of a missing box containing 106 AP exams. Senator Schumer took the action after students at Starpoint High School demanded accountability of the shipping company.

As Lauren Frias reports for Yahoo News in a piece entitled “Sen. Chuck Schumer is demanding accountability from UPS after more than 100 AP exams of high school students never made it to the College Board for grading,” “[Starpoint Superintendent Sean] Croft said the College Board proposed giving the impacted students a refund of $95 for the test or allowing them to retake the exam in August. Nearly 50 students wrote a letter to Schumer asking him ‘to demand a meaningful effort from UPS and a much better explanation of what has happened.’ ‘That box of exams is somewhere, and UPS must find it,’ the students wrote in the letter. ‘This isn’t a missing package that can simply be replaced. This failure by UPS has real world consequences for all of us and they should act accordingly.’ The students went on to suggest UPS should reimburse them for the value of the tests in college credit, as certain colleges and universities accept test scores in exchange for class credit.”

Yet while we have empathy for these students and applaud them for standing up for themselves, we see little chance that UPS reimburses them for the value of tests in college credit. Are they suggesting that UPS should pay thousands of dollars to each student for each lost exam? Even though many highly selective colleges don’t even offer credit for AP exams since they’re often just yardsticks for the admissions process? And did the high school not purchase insurance on the package? Because shipping companies do lose packages from time to time — it happens. That’s why they make you sign a release when you send a shipment and it’s why they suggest purchasing insurance. Did Starpoint High School purchase insurance? In what amount?

It’s not that we’re defending UPS. It’s terrible that UPS lost this box containing 106 AP exams completed by students who devoted much time to succeeding on these exams. We’re just not sure the lost box is deserving of the attention of one of the most senior United States senators when there are surely more important issues on his plate. Besides, allow us to share with our readers a story. We lived on the same block as a UPS shipment facility. Each and every night, the UPS trucks would park on the streets in spite of clear signings forbidding parking. And each and every night, little orange envelopes containing parking tickets would be placed on their windshields — like clockwork. After about a year, we asked one of the employees at the UPS store about all the tickets. She said the company cut a deal with New York City at the end of each year so the company didn’t have to pay for each individual ticket. It’s why UPS trucks will continue to park where it indicates there’s to be no parking. It’s why we suspect UPS isn’t sweating too hard about this missing box.