“Pencils down. Please close your test booklet and place it with the front cover facing up on your desk.” With those words, the AP exam ends: the last bubble has been filled, the last word written, the last breath of relief let loose from nervous students. But even though the final page has been closed on millions of tests, the road to college credit is far from over.

Every summer, thousands of teachers and professors gather to grade the student-written essays and open-ended questions that most of the exams require, poring over topics ranging from Chinese to Physics. This June, English teachers Ashley Fitch and Crys Hodges will be among them for the first time, reading essays written by AP Language students across the country.

“I’ve been teaching the course now for five years and, when I go to these workshops, the one thing I always want to know from the people that are leading them is “What are they really looking for in the writing?” They told us “After you teach for three years, you can apply.” This was the first year I actually applied, and I didn’t expect to be picked, because it’s really hard to get picked,” Hodgens said.

After filling out the application– which included a resume and a copy of the class syllabus– the AP teachers had to be approved by Educational Teaching Services (ETS), but even after being approved still might have been rejected as readers.

“After you are approved, you must be invited. You receive an official invitation which you have to accept or decline, then there is a process to confirm lodging, travel, etc. It’s a pretty long process—I would say it took the better part of two months to get it all completed,” Fitch said.

Both teachers received the invitation and soon after made the decision to take part in the conference, which will be held in Louisville, Kent. from June 9-15. Hodges credits her wide range of experience in the English department and involvement in the AP community for helping her receive the position.

“I think what helped with me was [being in the] top 10 AP teachers twice, but I also included on my resume every time I’ve taught a prep session– and I’ve been teaching them for four years– so I included every single one and what I taught at the prep sessions,” Hodgens said. “I also included teacher training for pre-AP teachers. So I had that on there too, and I guess they looked at and said, ‘Well, she must know what she’s doing.’”

Fitch and Hodgens will leave on June 8 and spend most of the week at the Kentucky International Convention Center, brushing shoulders with their international counterparts and reading through one of three types of prompts the exam includes– argument, rhetorical analysis or synthesis. Essays are read by inidividual readers who are overseen by table leaders, Last year’s exam period yielded over 475,000 tests to be scored, but that does not mean that room for error will be allowed.

“I have been told by other people that if you’re not good, and if you’re really off, they take you into a room to retrain you, and then, if you are not on task again, they just ask you to leave. One of my presenters said that you just look around and people are gone, and it’s very mysterious. I don’t want to be that person,” Hodgens said.

Although both see drawbacks– like being away from their families– to the week, the teachers find working with English teachers and professors from around the world a great opportunity to improve their own teaching methods and learn more specifically what it takes to make a high score, so that they can pass the information on to their students.

“I wanted to be a reader mostly for the professional development it will provide. I want to be the most accurate scorer possible when it comes to my students’ essays so that they can have an accurate reflection of their performance and progress. Attending the reading will provide me with the training to do that,” Fitch said. “I hope that I will be able to be more accurate in my scoring which will, in turn, prepare my students to be more effective writers, not only for the exam but in college as well, which is the bigger concern for me. Preparedness for college is my goal for my students, so anything I can do to help promote that is worth my time.”

If both enjoy the reading and perform well, they can be invited back again for the 2015 scoring session, which, according to Fitch, is common in the AP community.

“There was one guy that was in our room at the mock reading– I did argument, and you have a question leader and a table leader– and one of our table leaders has been doing this since the eighties. A lot of times that’s what happens, and that’s why it’s hard to get picked. Once you’re in, and if you’re good, you’re invited back every single year,” Hodgens said.