While the school year comes to a close, more and more classes begin to pile up with exams, weekly quizzes, last-minute chapter tests and Advanced Placement (AP) tests. Now is the time of year when students have to make the decision of whether they want to take the AP tests.

On Feb. 28, MSMS counselor Dr. Heath Stevens hosted a meeting on AP tests to help inform the students of the exam.

“The purpose of the meeting was to make sure that students make informed decisions about whether or not taking the AP exams will help them in their college and career planning,” Stevens said.

In order to help students decide whether taking AP tests was the right decision, Stevens presented a PowerPoint that explained some basic facts about the AP tests. These emphasized basic facts that many MSMS students were unaware of.

There are many questions when deciding if it is beneficial to take an AP test. Students have to take into consideration their future plans, the colleges they would like to go to and if taking the time to study for the test is worth it for them.

During the presentation, students played a fun online trivia game to test their knowledge of the College Board. This led to some important conclusions, such as how much College Board makes every year ($35 million).

“It was very informative and I learned a lot about the AP tests that I did not know. It gave me some reassurance about the test that I was looking for,” junior Morgan Emokpae stated.

Emokpae went on to say that he was unsure of the tests before and was glad that MSMS offers something like this to the students.

“It was nice to have a meeting to have an overview of the test. I have never taken an AP class or test before, so it was very helpful to learn the basic information,” said junior Dev Jaiswal, who is contemplating taking the AP Chemistry test.

Junior Austin Cosby had a different opinion, thinking about why AP tests may not be the answer for some people. “It made me think about why or why not I should take an AP test more strongly because they are not always useful. I never realized to what extent that the AP test may not be helpful and this meeting informed me of that.”

It is a big decision to decide to take the AP test or not, and it is important for every student to be informed well enough to make the best decision.