HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Hendersonville High School honored 70 AP Scholar students at an all-school pep rally Friday usually reserved for athletes.
The school honored seniors, juniors and six sophomores — accounting for more than 20% of the AP Scholars in all of Sumner County Schools.
"The high school principals were pretty tight knit group, and it's fun to to kind of be the top school, you know, when it comes to the number of AP scholars, but you see an impact too, because I'm not saying that people want to compete with Hendersonville High School or anything like that, but it does indeed kind of give other schools an incentive. ‘Hey, you know, let's let's grow our AP program,'" explained Hendersonville High School Principal Bob Cotter.
Honoring AP Scholars at a pep rally became a tradition after Cotter began the symbolic moment during his first year, ten years ago.
"I think I think honoring the kids at the beginning of the year really helps with our recruiting into the AP program. We've grown. We gave 250 or 260 AP tests last year as the largest amount we've ever given," said Cotter. "We saw about five years ago, sophomores taking more more AP tests. We got our first sophomore that was an AP Scholar. That means they would have already had to have completed three tests and managed to earn a average score of three to be honored. So that's that's really helped us move the program forward every year."
Not only is the growing program helping provide more students with college credit, Cotter said its giving a confidence boost.
"Some of our kids, you know, they don't get they may not play sports or they may not be in the band or they may not get recognition in another way. A lot of times that walk across the gym floor at that pep rally is their first experience with that. And that's really important," stated Cotter.
Two years in a row, Ryutaro Bath earned his AP Scholar designation. As a senior for the 2022-2023 school year, he said he had looked forward to walking across the gym floor since his freshman year.
"When I normally think of pep rallies I normally think like recognizing like the football team, the basketball team, soccer, volleyball, you know, different sports and things like that. That's my thought process I had going into high school," recounted Ryutaro. "I didn't know they did recognize like academic achievements until like, first prep early, and it made me happy because I feel like sometimes that gets overlooked and being being able to be recognized for something like that kind of solidifies your achievement a little more."
Aiming to be an aerospace engineer, he said he hopes the pep rally inspires other students at the start of the year.
"There's this fear around taking AP classes and stuff. Fearing that it's gonna be too difficult and it's a hard — it's not easy. I don't want to give anyone that impression. But you put in it—you try your best you do your best," he said.
Aaliyah Ehienua also earned the AP Scholar designation for her senior year before she heads to college hoping to be a pediatrician.
It feel nice to be recognized for academic scholarship, rather than just anything else at the school. So it just felt good to be acknowledged," she said. "It's important to just recognize everyone for the effort they put in no matter if it is sports or any clubs that they're in. It's also important for academic-wise, it gives a lot of effort to want to take a rigorous course throughout your high school and take out some time with having fun in order to allow yourself to challenge yourself through your classes. So I think that's very important."
