smc

Without loss of generality, let there be $20$ students (the least whole number possible) who took the test. We have $2$ students score $70$ points, $7$ students score $80$ points, $6$ students score $90$ points and $5$ students score $100$ points. Therefore, the mean is $87$ and the median is $90$. Thus, the solution is $$90-87=3⟹\boxed{3}$$