Three students at Carroll Junior-Senior High School have earned AP Scholar Awards in recognition of their exceptional achievement on AP Exams.

The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program (AP) provides motivated and academically prepared students with the opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses while still in high school, and to earn college credit, advanced placement, or both, for successful performance on the AP Exams. About 18 percent of the nearly 1.7 million students worldwide who took AP Exams performed at a sufficiently high level to also earn an AP Scholar Award.

The three Carroll students who earned the award are Carson Spesard, Jared Collins, and Kaitlin Kennedy.

The College Board recognizes several levels of achievement based on students’ performance on AP Exams.

Spesard qualified for the AP Scholar with Honor Award by earning an average grade point of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken, and grade points of 3 or higher on four or more of these exams.

Collins and Kennedy qualified for the AP Scholar Award by completing three or more AP Exams with grade points of 3 or higher.

Each exam (for more than 30 different college-level courses) is developed by a committee of college and university faculty and AP teachers. The AP exams are aligned with the same high standards expected by college faculty at some of the nation’s leading liberal arts and research institutions.

More than 3,600 colleges and universities annually receive AP grades. Over 90 percent of four-year colleges in the United States provide credit and/or placement for qualifying exam grades. Research consistently shows that AP students who score a 3 or higher on AP exams (based on a scale form 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest) typically experience greater academic success in college and higher graduation rates than students who do not participate in AP.