Every May, students at Hays High prepare for Advanced Placement exams.

AP exams are administered at many high schools and exam centers across the United States. The exams could be taken in classes, such as Advanced Placement U.S. History, AP U.S. Government or AP English.

AP exams allow students to earn college credits. The results of these exams are used by colleges to measure how well a student has understood the content that was taught.

This year, there were a few changes to how students could take the tests. Due to COVID-19, the College Board, who oversees AP, decided to give more opportunities for students to take these exams and earn college credits. There are three different types of administration this year.

Administration 1 is the traditional paper and pencil exams, administered in schools for all subjects on May 3-7, 10-12, and 14.

Administration 2 is half traditional in-school testing and half at-home digital exams on May 18-21 and May 24-28.

Lastly, on June 1-4 and 7-11, is Administration 3, which includes digital exams that are administered at school and at home.

The College Board also decided to waive all cancellation fees to give students as much flexibility as possible.

Senior Andrew Duke was one of the few students that took AP exams this year at Hays High. He took an exam for AP U.S. Government and Politics. He took the exam for a chance to get more college credits.

“I wasn’t able to prepare too extensively for the exam,” Duke said, “But, [teacher] Mrs. [Abby] Gillan provided a very useful resource from C-SPAN that was a useful review of the main concepts of the course and how they were likely to be tested.”

23ksteinle@usd489.com