I’m currently a sophomore in high school and soon we will be registering for next year’s classs. My school offers both AP classes and the IB program, which is two years long and taken during junior and senior year. I’m having a problem choosing which route to take. Our school counselors mark the IB program as the most rigorous and demanding route at our school, but our IB program does not offer HL Math, meaning I won’t be taking a calculus-like class if I choose to do IB. Our school does offer AP AB/BC Calc, but I would not be able to take these if I’m in the IB program. My dream is to be a chemical engineer major at a top school, but I know any sort of engineering involves knowing calculus. I figured that if I want to get into a top school, however, I need to take the most demanding route, which would be IB. I was thinking maybe I could just do IB where I would take SL Mathematics (the highest IB math offered to us) and take the AP Calc exams by self studying, but would this be worth it? Should I go down the AP or IB route? And do top engineering schools want to see Calculus on your transcript?
It does help to have Calc in high school but it is not really required. I think either route would be find for you. But for a more practical point of view, having AP Calc BC may be more helpful as you can most likely skip Calc 1 and 2 in college. My D’s high school did not have IB program (I think it will start this year though) and she only took 6 AP classes due to schedule conflict including Calc BC, Chem, Physics C. She got a total of 33 credits in Engineering school from her AP exams and she skipped 1 year each in Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics and basically started college like a sophomore.
If there is no HL math, then the IB program is probably not as suitable for you. It may be more for humanities and social studies focused students.