When Glenbrook North alumnus Samantha Rothman tutored someone for the Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) exam this past summer, she felt like she had a good sense of what was going on, even though she received a 3 on her APUSH exam.

In August, the Illinois General Assembly passed House Bill 3428 which requires all public universities in Illinois to accept scores of a 3 or higher from all of the College Board’s Advanced Placement exams as college credit, beginning in the 2016-2017 school year.

The College Board issues scores from 1 to 5 on its exams in order to assess whether a student is qualified.

According to the College Board, being qualified is defined as a student being “capable of doing the work of an introductory-level course in a particular subject at college.” A student who receives a 3 on the AP exam is qualified to receive college credit.

Typically, individual universities choose which scores, if any, they will accept for credit.

Rothman, now a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, thinks the APUSH course she took at GBN prepared her for college.

“One of my majors is political science, so I’ve walked into those classes being very prepared and a lot of that was from my US History background,” Rothman said.

AP Physics teacher Bob Froehlich, however, said he does not think a 3 on the AP test should let a student continue onto the next level.

“If you’re planning on going into an engineering or science program or something like that, then you really need a good foundation, and I don’t think that a 3 on the test reflects that you have a good foundation,” Froehlich said.

AP Chemistry teacher Marcel Grdinic said if an AP course is rigorous and if the student is receiving the same type of experience as a college student, then a 3 or higher should qualify for some sort of credit. But he said he does not know if every AP class is receiving that experience.

“When you’ve got an economics course that sophomores are taking, is that really a college level experience?” Grdinic said.

Kristin Smigielski, Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Illinois, said the University of Illinois is still figuring out what type of credit a 3 will qualify for.

“The legislation states that a 3 or higher will be accepted to satisfy degree requirements, but degree requirements doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to come in as a specific course,” Smigielski said.

José Rios, Director of Multicultural Communications at the College Board, said AP classes challenge students to work at their highest potential.

“Students who score a 3 or higher on an AP Exam typically perform as well as or better in subsequent college courses in the exam discipline than non-AP students who took the corresponding introductory college course,” Rios said.

According to Smigielski, a student’s success in college does not have to correspond to the classes they have “under their belt” when they arrive.

“By the time you get to college, high school certainly provided a very good base,” said Smigielski. “But I think kids can go either way, where they do better [in college] than they did in high school, or they do much worse.”

According to the bill, one of its purposes is to lower the cost of tuition.

“AP can earn [students] college credit that will save them time and money as they continue on their path to success,” Rios said.

Froehlich said attempting to lower the cost of school would be beneficial for the students but maybe not for the institution.

“There’s also the issue of are we dumbing things down,” said Froehlich. “If you’re going to reduce the standards, I don’t think that’s ever a good idea. And that’s something that I firmly believe. I think the standard has to be kept high.”