As students wrap up the school year, many choose to take AP exams, short for “advanced placement” exams. These exams, administered for the first two weeks in May, usually about four hours long, can test everything from a student’s proficiency in French to macroeconomics.

“There’s more than 30 different tests that exist,” Director of College Counseling Mary Hill said. “They allow you the ability to have some flexible credit when you get to college. You gain either some general credit or you gain some specific credit that allows you to place ahead into a subject of great interest so that you can study at a deeper level. There’s the additional potential that if you get a strong score it’s another nice piece in your admission application.”

Even though SPA does not offer AP specific courses, SPA administers, according to the college counseling office, about 13 to 15 per year.

“We are one of many schools that chooses to be free of the restrictions that the College Board curriculum places which really kind of dictate what you can teach and how you can teach. SPA’s courses are heavy on the emphasis of not only content knowledge but skills and the ability to apply what you know. All the AP exams went through revision in the last five years or so which was really geared toward refocusing those tests on application of knowledge rather than memorizing lots of content which validated how we’ve taught [at SPA] all along,” Hill said.  

AP exams started being administered on May 7 and will continue until May 18.