Six senior students have earned the designation of AP Scholar by the College Board in recognition of their achievement on the college-level Advanced Placement Program (AP) Exams.

Completing three or more AP exams, with grades of 3 or higher were Gabriella Bermea, Jacob Hill, Abigail O’Gorman, Autumn Sehy, Wynne Tidwell and Alex Walker. They were recognized Tuesday by the TISD school board.

“I was happy because I studied really hard for those tests,” Sehy said. “It felt great to receive the award after all my hard work.”

The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program provides students with the opportunity to take college-level courses while still in high school, and to earn college credit, advanced placement, or both for successful performance on the AP Exams.

“It was great getting some of the college credits out of the way. When I went to visit schools, many colleges said that I could take cool freshmen cinemas about pirates and stuff since I got the basics out of the way,” Tidwell said. “Plus, taking AP can be fun. My friends and I always studied together and ate a steak dinner after.”

About 20 percent of the 2.1 million students worldwide who took AP Exams performed at a sufficiently high level to also earn an AP Scholar Award.

“It really was the teachers that prepared me the most,” Hill said. “The AP teachers, like Mr. Zack, were really good about focusing on the important information. If you pay attention in class, you are going to do well on the AP test.”

Research consistently shows that AP students who score a 3 or higher on AP Exams (based on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest) typically experience greater academic success in college and have higher college graduation rates than students who do not participate in AP.

“I think taking AP classes is going to save me a lot of trouble in college,” O’Gorman said. “Not only will I have to take fewer classes, I’ll also have an advantage over students who only took regular courses.”