One hundred eleven Plainfield North graduates and current students have been named 2015 AP Scholars for the 2014-2015 school year based on their performance on the Advanced Placement Tests.

“It shows the strength and how hard our students work, and it also shows the dedication of our students and teachers as a whole,” said Stan Bertoni, Assistant Principal of Curriculum and Instruction.

This year’s’ 111 AP Scholars is the most North has ever had. District 202 as a whole had 263 scholars, their most ever as well.

“With quite a number of these students being sophomores and Juniors, I see this number going up over the next few years,” said Ray Epperson, Principal.

        Seniors Emily Restuccia and Henry Ridder earned an average of “5” by scoring 5’s on all the exams they took, the only students in the district to do so.

        Nine Plainfield North Students earned National AP Scholar status. These students include Dean Edson, Michael Jung, Irfaan Khalid, Abdelhalim Othman, Zain Shaikh and Nathan Travers, as well as two current seniors: Kendall Junger and Paul Wilkens.

        “District 202’s ongoing success with the AP Scholars program is continued affirmations of the work the district has done to empower and encourage students to take more challenging courses,” said Glenn Wood, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction.

        340 students took 662 exams in 11 different content areas at North. 490 of the tests taken received a 3 or higher.

        “We had more students test than ever before this year,” said Bertoni.

        The efforts of these students won’t go unrewarded either. In late August, Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill to allow more Illinois students to receive college credits for their Advanced Placements scores.

        The law requires public universities and colleges to give college credit to students who receive scores of three or better on their AP exams.

        Before this law, college credit was all over the board, compared to most states that have had legislation for many years.

        “We think it’s a big step forward in helping students,” added James Applegate, executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. “I see this as a positive development in a larger effort in the state of Illinois to enable students to accelerate their progress toward college degrees in high school.”

      The law leaves it up to college officials to determine whether the exam credit should be applied to electives, general education requirements, or major requirements when it is implemented during the 2016-17 school year.