DESOTO COUNTY, MS (abc24.com) - A Mississippi college is allowing high schoolers to take classes for free. It's an opportunity too good to pass up. That's why two parents are trying to get the word out. They don't want others to miss out.
"I slept through most of my classes and I still made over 100 in a lot of them," said Emily Wilson. "I wasn't being challenged at all. It wasn't even slightly difficult."
That was two years ago, when Wilson was a student in DeSoto County. Now the 17 year old attends the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science in Columbus on the college campus of Mississippi University for Women.
About 250 of the state's top juniors and seniors are accepted each year. They live in school dorms and attend college classes as high schoolers.
"Organic chemistry, university calculus one, two and three, differential equations and genetics," said Wilson. "It's good to start early, so when I get to college I've already got a background in these things. We have college professors teaching us. Doctors. People who are experts in what they do and they expect a lot."
"This school is advancing the AP program," said her dad Tommy Hall. "She can go to an accelerated level that she couldn't get that at a normal public school."
By the time students graduate from MSMS, they should be 100-percent prepared for college. But Wilson almost missed out. Her parents learned about it by chance. As local representatives for the school, they want to make sure other students know it's there.
"It's a great opportunity. It's just not many people know about it," her mom Alicia Hall told abc24.com.
"They have a lot of problems I think with getting people to apply because no one's heard about MSMS," said Wilson. "They don't know what it is and they don't know that that option is available for them."
As for Wilson, her days of sleeping through classes are long gone. The straight A student is even being challenged by a B.
"I'm taking university physics so I'm trying really hard to get that up. It's an 89. It's right there," Wilson told abc24.com.
The Halls told abc24.com about 20 students from DeSoto County attend the school. They think more would be accepted, but haven't discovered it. Students have to apply their sophomore year. The classes are free, but room and board is $500 dollars a semester.
