My daughter has a strong passion for pursuing a career in medicine, and we’re eager to gather more insights regarding her high school preparation. We’re currently weighing the options between the AP system, IB system, and early college for her high school education. We’re wondering if it’s beneficial to attend an IB school while also submitting AP scores. Additionally, we’re curious about which AP subjects align best with the path to medical school.
Furthermore, my daughter is proficient in five languages, thanks to our extensive travels. We’re contemplating whether it’s advisable for her to pursue AP exams in all these languages although most of them were not offered as AP courses in the local high schools. Your guidance on these matters would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Colleges tend to care more about grades in the classes you’ve taken than just the test scores. Having additional AP tests won’t hurt, but likely also won’t move the needle much in terms of college admissions. AP test score are mostly for placement purposes once you’re admitted to college - so I’m not sure if there would be any point, for example, in taking AP tests in multiple languages. You really wouldn’t gain much from that. In terms of sciences, focus on a rigorous course load. Take 4 years of science and try to take the hardest science classes offered and do well in them. Overall, IB might offer a more rigorous schedule than an AP-based system, but that also depends a bit on what your school offers. All things being equal, I’d go for IB.
Thank you, @worriedmomucb, for sharing your insights. We are also inclining towards the IB system because of its comprehensive approach across all subjects. We’ve heard that most colleges don’t necessarily accept AP courses as direct replacements anyway. However, we have heard a lot of discussions among other parents about the importance of having at least 12 AP courses for elite college applications. This has raised concerns about our school choices.
AP courses are only available in both our district high school and the nearby high school with the early college system. Unfortunately, they aren’t offered at the IB school we’re considering.
Frankly, hardly any classes she does in high school will be relevant to getting into to med school. She is many years away from that. She could take all regular classes in high school and still go to med school.
The best advice for a student right now who is maybe 15 is to do her best in the classes she likes, and take as much rigor as she can handle while still getting high grades. I’d avoid putting undue stress on her when she is nowhere near even going to college.
It’s great that she speaks other languages. I see no need for her to do every AP exam in a language she speaks. Even the most selective colleges indicate that they prefer at least 3-4 years of FL, not proficiency in 5 languages. Colleges are largely not interested in self-studied AP exams. They prefer to see a grade from an actual class. Self studying is fine, but not at the expense of actual classes or extra curricular activities.
@wild if your child is considering IB diploma, that is the most rigorous course sequence available. Students do not need to attend elite universities in order to get into med school. Med school admissions are not determined by the undergrad college. They are dependent on experience, GPA, MCAT scores, recommendations, and other factors. The name of the college in undergrad is not that important.
AP: more a la carte selection of courses (which ones varies by high school), more aligned with US high school and college frosh courses.
IB: the DP is a relatively rigid curriculum with limited options (check which courses are offered HL and SL); courses are a lot of work, but may be less well aligned with US high school and college frosh courses.
College/DE: if taken at a college, can give the student a taste of how college courses are run, easing the eventual transition to college later. Transfer credit is less predictable beforehand, except perhaps from community colleges to same state public universities.
Pre-meds have additional considerations:
College courses taken while in high school and their grades must be reported on medical school applications. They will be included in college GPA calculations for medical school applications.
Repeating college courses or AP or IB credit will require marking “repeat” on medical school applications.
Many medical schools dislike seeing pre-med course requirements fulfilled by AP or IB credit or community college courses. It is often recommended that pre-meds take additional higher level courses in the same subject area if they skip lower level courses this way.
This needs more context. First, it is based on what is offered at the high school in question. For example, some high schools offer dozens of APs, and some only a few, and some elite private schools have done away with AP classes entirely. If your high school offers 30 AP courses, then yes, the student is expected to have taken as many as reasonably possible. If you school only offers 5 AP classes, then the student is in no way penalized for not taking more than that. Second, if the student is already taking an IB path, then they are already showing rigor. There is not a single college that has a minimum number of required AP courses, because it all depends on school context and whether the student has taken advantage of the opportunities they have - which is relative.
I appreciate all the input, and I have to admit that the concerns of other parents were really getting to me. However, I’m feeling much more relaxed now. I was genuinely worried about the idea of trying to attain 12 AP credits (7 more after covering the 5 languages) in addition to the IB system; it sounded incredibly overwhelming. I’m relieved to hear that these concerns about the 12 AP requirements may have been baseless.
There’s not one person here who will tell your kid to take AP classes in 5 languages. That makes no sense. Does your school offer 5 AP languages? Ours does not.
For top schools, you need to demonstrate rigor in your class selection. That can be done in different ways. APs are one way. IB is another way. (And, in general, IB is actually considered more rigorous than AP.).
Do not focus on the number of APs. Focus on your student being appropriately challenged, pushing herself academically but not to the point of getting overwhelmed. Let her explore what she likes and if her classes start to feel too intense for her, back off, and let her take it down a notch. It will all work out in the end, whether she takes 12 APs or 4 APs or no APs.
No, this is flat out wrong. Your child 100% does not have to do tests in every language she speaks. She doesn’t have to do tests in any of them if she doesn’t want to. If the most rigor is what she wants, IB diploma is it. She doesn’t have to take 12 AP courses either if she wants to go to college.
I’m going to suggest that your daughter might already be under a lot of stress if you are having these conversations at home. The best course of action is to have a meeting with the high school guidance counselor. ASK him or her what is considered most rigorous at her high school. They will know. If your child wants to aim for that, you will have it from the horse’s mouth rather than misguided chatter from other parents who seem to be assuming things that may be incorrect.
Coincidentally, my daughter also speaks 5 languages. She certainly did not take APs in all those languages, but what she did do was write a pretty cool essay about how learning each of those languages taught her something different about herself and her place in the world.
When I hear “premed” or “medical school”, assuming that the student is in the US or Canada, a few things come to mind.
One is that most students will be stronger students and better prepared when they are a junior or senior in university, compared to when they are a high school student or freshman in university. Premed classes are tough. Both daughters had majors that overlapped a lot with premed requirements, and have talked about how hard some classes and some exams are. We have seen one or two posts here on CC from university freshman who are already taking organic chemistry and are suffering. In contrast, one daughter took regular chemistry sophomore year of university and organic chemistry junior year of university, and breezed though both of them. Sometimes taking the hard premed requirements early is not a good move.
Also, if you take the premed requirements while still in high school, this can cause some issues with applying to medical school. One daughter ran into a problem with this (taking a required course as an AP class in high school) with one of her DVM applications.
There are a LOT of universities that are very good for premed students. A strong student is not going to have any trouble getting into a university that is very good for premed. Getting high grades in the tough university premed classes, getting the required medical experience, and getting accepted to medical school is a different issue.
Finally, medical school is expensive. However, I am not sure if a high school student or their parent needs to think about this quite yet.
All of which makes me think that your daughter might want to be careful about NOT taking premed required classes while still in high school, and also pacing the rate at which she takes the harder classes.
One the other hand, being a strong student and learning good study skills will be valuable. Also, speaking five languages will be valuable for any doctor.
One daughter wanted to take an AP exam in a language where her high school did not offer an AP class in that language. It was quite difficult to find a location where she could take the AP exam. We did eventually find somewhere and it did otherwise go well.
If it is the case that she is already above AP level in all of the languages offered at the school, then she may want to take the AP tests in those languages to prove that taking foreign language courses at the school would be useless, since colleges otherwise expect the student to take foreign language while in high school.
Please clarify. I’ve never heard of a college wanting a student to prove fluency in five languages. If this is the case, then I imagine two or three are enough, but typically even the most selective colleges don’t have expectations for more than one AP FL test score. And certainly not self-studied scores.
I can’t imagine any college is going to care that she took five AP FL tests unless she is planning to major in FL, which doesn’t seems to be the case.
Due to our work-related travel commitments, my daughter has had the opportunity to attend various language immersion schools around the world. However, I’ve come to understand that any language learning before high school may not be considered valid. I have to disagree because the ideal time for language is early childhood, not high school or college.
I’ve heard from some parents that the University of California (UC) requires three years of AP classes in high school to fulfill language requirements. If AP scores can indeed qualify as fulfilling these language requirements, it seems to make sense to consider taking some AP language exams. Personally, I think sitting through three beginner-intermedium level language courses would be quite boring just for the “requirements”
I only completed one of my graduate degrees at UCB, so I’m not well-versed in the K-12 school system or college applications in the US. Please forgive any questions I may have that seem out of place.
The best thing to focus on right now is time management and self care while being a teenager/HS kid while the stakes are low.
Too much parental scaffolding and the kids crash and burn when they get to college. They’ve never had to manage their own calendar-- the parents remind them of deadlines, return their books to the library, pack their lunches. So if your D is enjoying school and doing well, starting to pull back on the life skills that YOU are providing is a great way to prep for college and beyond.
Self care- show your D that it’s ok to need a break, that a walk around the block can be just as helpful in studying for a test than an extra 10 minutes cramming. Model for her that getting enough sleep, eating well, regular exercise, etc. is going to become more important as her studies progress, and not less.
Being a teenager- having friends, social and artistic outlets, enjoying goofing off. The best doctors have built in stress relievers and outside interests which allow them to connect with patients on a human level, and not just seeing them as a medical chart or amalgamation of diseases and conditions.
The world isn’t running out of med schools. So shift your focus; help her become the best version of herself that she can be RIGHT NOW.
This is not correct. Two years of foreign language are required and three years are preferred (for competitive UCs, four years is better than three, and ideally would include AP level). Does your daughter plan to take any foreign language in high school? Does your high school offer any language she does not already speak? If so, she should take it. If not, then take the AP exam for one of the languages she already speaks and see if that will count (it might not, however). They generally want you to take the class, not simply take the test.
The high school offers only Chinese and Spanish courses, but they are both at a very basic level for her. She believes it would be a waste of her time to take these courses. Consequently, I suggested the idea of taking only the AP tests instead. However, if colleges prioritize credit requirements over a student’s actual abilities, it would be quite perplexing to me.
Are there any community colleges nearby that offer more advanced classes in a language of interest? I believe one year of community college language = two years of high school language, but I am not 100% sure about that. @ucbalumnus might know.