Joliet Central grad in elite group with perfect score in AP art exam

A Joliet Central High School alumna recently was honored for earning a perfect score on a college-level Advanced Placement Exam.

Janet Medina, who graduated from Joliet Central in 2023, was one of 337 students in the world to earn every point possible on the AP 2-D Art and Design Exam, according to a news release from Joliet Township High School District 204.

This means Medina earned the maximum score for each portion of the exam. In 2020, more than 30,000 students took the AP 2-D Art and Design Exam, according to the College Board, which offers it.

“I didn’t intentionally try to get a perfect score. I just wanted to represent [my parents’] efforts to come to the United States.”

—  Janet Medina, Joliet Central High School alumna who earned a perfect score on AP 2-D Art and Design Exam

Joliet Township High School offers 22 Advanced Placement classes to students, according to the release.

Medina is a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and hopes to be an art curator one day.

“AP courses and exams are college-level, requiring great focus and persistence among participating students,” Trevor Packer, head of the Advanced Placement Program, said in the release. “This outstanding accomplishment is likely a direct reflection of the top-quality education being offered at Central Joliet Township High School. We applaud Janet’s hard work and the AP teacher responsible for engaging students and enabling them to excel in a college-level course.”

Medina, who said she’s enjoyed making art since she was very young, wanted to use her art to show her parents’ immigration story, starting from their “poor ranch in Mexico.”

“I recalled a lot of what my parents would tell me growing up so a lot of that stuck with me,” Medina said in a written statement. “I know sometimes immigrant parents can be a little ashamed of where they came from, but I think it’s a beautiful thing. So I wanted to paint it.”

Medina said she never took formal art lessons until she was a student at Joliet Central. But she wanted to create very “personal” artwork for the AP 2-D Art and Design Exam, she said.

“I feel it’s easier to come up with the art you want to make when it’s something personal to you,” Medina said.

Medina’s go-to medium is acrylic since it dries quickly, she said. But she also submitted a piece in soft pastels and utilized mixed media, too, such as mixing sugar in her paint to add texture to rocks.

“I didn’t intentionally try to get a perfect score,” Medina said. “I just wanted to represent their efforts to come to the United States.”

Qualities of a good art student

Medina also was one of four Joliet Central art students who received scholarship offers totaling $1.2 million from colleges and universities at the Illinois High School Art Exhibition main event April 23 at the Bridgeport Art Center.

This also included individual awards in the amount of $80,000. The offers were based on their portfolio submissions. The JTHS Foundation provided the students’ entry fee, according to the news release.

Medina was one of two JTHS students chosen to display their artwork at the exhibition. She also was selected to participate in the Drawing Art Showdown, a timed drawing competition.

Joliet Central art instructor Nyssa Grzyb said Medina took multiple art classes during her four years at the school. Both Grzb and Rachel La Vine, Joliet Central drawing and painting teacher, were impressed at Medina’s talent, perseverance, and willingness to refine and revise.

“She always went above and beyond, and she listened to feedback,” Grzyb said. “She was just so creative and pushed herself so much.”

La Vine said she loved the “powerful” connections Medina made between the use of materials, the meaning of her work and the process Medina used to create the finished pieces.

For instance, Medina’s mother earned extra money for her family through embroidery, La Vine said. This helped make it financially possible for the family to emigrate to the U.S., she said.

“So Janet created pieces that had embroidery in them,” La Vine said.

In 2017, Joliet Township High School District was named the College Board Advanced Placement District of the Year ”for increasing access and performance, particularly for traditionally underrepresented minority students,” according to the release.