Soon-to-be MSMS alumni last week rushed to download the personalized College Reveal Day video for the class of 2020. The 7-minute video showcases a majority of the graduating seniors, where they have decided to spend the next four years and what they will be studying.

An MSMS tradition, every year seniors announce to other students, faculty and parents where they will attend college in the following fall semester. This year, students’ college decisions ranged from coast to coast. Though there are several students attending the U.S.’s most prestigious colleges and universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California, nearly 50 percent of seniors chose to continue their educational tenure at  Mississippi’s very own top schools, including Mississippi State, The University of Mississippi, University of Southern Mississippi and Tougaloo College.

In the past, students would anxiously gather on the steps of Hooper donned in their MSMS lab coats or t-shirts and wait for Academic Director Kelly Brown to count down so everyone could reveal their colleges at the same time. Because the COVID-19 crisis cut this school year short, the senior class officers decided to virtually continue the tradition via video. This allowed students to express themselves creatively with the various TikTok challenges, cartoons and photos.

“I loved the video,” Brown said. “The senior class officers are to be commended on organizing and editing this video. No other graduating class from MSMS has anything like it. Seniors are writing their own history with the initiative they are taking during this time of quarantine from our beloved MSMS campus.”

Class Secretary Alicia Argrett and Class Historian Cameron Thomas requested that each senior complete a form stating their college of choice and what they plan to major in during the month of April. Students were given various ideas and options of videos or pictures to submit, including a college reveal balloon pop, a TikTok or a picture with college merchandise. Argrett and Thomas compiled over a hundred videos, pictures and names into a video highlighting this year’s shocking events–including Tiger King’s imprisonment and Kobe Bryant’s death–along with each student’s future colleges and majors.

“It was a lot of fun to make the video,” Argrett said. “I was excited to see where everyone was going and what they plan to do in the future!”

The college reveal video is available on the @msmsclassof2020 Instagram page as well as MSMS’s Facebook page.