As winter sports come to an end, students are preparing for Irvington’s next sport season – AP season. Filled with months of strenuous after school practice for events ranging from AP Biology to AP Literature and AP Spanish to AP European History, AP season has been noted as the most popular sport season of the year, drawing in sports teachers students didn’t even know existed at the school.

“I always camp out the day before AP physicals are due. Students form lines all the way to Bonco Brilly’s to ensure they’re first in line. Their physicals usually include a test on how late the students can stay up and how quickly they can find free PDF’s of AP textbooks on Reddit threads,” Athletic Director, Stichelle Mone, said, “Plus, it takes times for me to review each student’s report card and GPA to really decide which event is perfect for them.”

After students are vetted for registration, they begin daily and nightly practices, custom tailored to each individual event. The most popular events consist of textbook lifting, grade clutching, and swimming in pools of tears. While students are required to attend daily practices, they are also recommended to continue this fitness regime at home with plenty of energy drinks and sugary carbohydrates to ensure maximum knowledge retention.

Through this activity, students have made lifelong friends-or rather, snakes-who share similar interests as them. Students have also caught the attention of college admissions scouts who rank participation in AP sports as an impressive quality of any applicant.

“I’ve heard that sports such as football and soccer have a lot of college scouts at their games. But, I think it’s uncomparable to the college scouts during our AP session,” sophomore, Lyan Ree, mentioned, “I think colleges really like to see students taking part in such a non-academic, stress-free, friendship-building sport–at least that’s what my Cliffsnotes AP Biology book told me.”

New students have decided to dip their feet in the water by only taking one or two AP events, while most incoming students applied for Irvington’s All Star Athlete Award by taking part in all of the AP events.

“Back when I just joined AP season on campus, I decided to listen to the advice of of the senior athletes and compete in the Human Geography event,” said Madhika Runshani, “I really enjoyed the competition and all of different topics – especially because the textbook was even thinner than the test.”

Across the board, students can agree that AP season is the season of self reflection. Students become closer to themselves by finding out what time on average they cry in the middle of the night and how many College Confidential posts they can relate to in one day.”

But, all of their hard work pays off, when in the summer, they receive their national rankings. This temporary moment of euphoria washes away the past months of pain and training and students find themselves back where they started the next year – weight training with a load of prep books in one hand and a classic Red Bull in the other.