With freshmen, sophomore and junior courses for next year being filled up, a new policy will be going into effect. The state-mandated Illinois Accelerated Placement Act will push students who score high enough on standardized tests–such as the PSAT– into the next level of classes. The goal of the mandate is to make sure schools are not overlooking students who are academically capable of challenging classes.

The mandate affects students from grades K-19 in science, math and English classes. This is in full effect for the 2023-24 school year, automatically placing students into more rigorous classes.

Schools in Illinois have sent out letters to students who are impacted by the change. As an effect of this, honors and AP classes in high schools are filling up with more enrollment than previous years. Counselor Justin Loos explained the DGS policy with the mandate.

“Student recommendations made by the state [and] are uploaded into each student’s course request profile so they can view these recommendations in HAC. This allows the student to be aware of this recommendation and then make a decision based on those conversations with teachers/parents/guardians/counselors and using their own discretion,” Loos said.

With this new policy, course selection looked slightly different for juniors deciding what to take next year. Junior Avery Neal spoke to how her selection was unexpected.

“My counselor said that if I wanted to go into an honors or AP class and my PSAT score was high enough, I could override what my teacher recommended for me… I would rather listen to what my teacher thinks is best for me to succeed in class,” Neal said.

There are alterations in the way courses are now offered to students. For many honors classes, students only have to score high on a standardized test to become enrolled in honors and APs. Before, students had to get a recommendation from a teacher in order to take a harder class.

With the mandate, the 2024-25 school year course selection and recommendations have not changed much. Loos expressed how the process for choosing classes has stayed mostly the same.

“I have had no issues with students thus far. As a counselor this does not change much during our course selection meetings. Most students are relying on the conversations they have had with teachers and using their own best judgment of their strengths and challenges,” Loos said.