My son is an IB diploma candidate. His school offers both IB and AP. Generally speaking, the IB HL classes, particularly in the second year, are taught at a higher level than the AP classes. For example, his first year HL chem class had a combined lab with the first year IB chem kids and the AP chem kids. His second year IB chem class is all IB. The real advantages to my mind with IB are: 1) the classes are taught somewhat holistically, 2) he is going through the program with the same group of kids over his last two years, 3) TOK and the extended essay are the closest thing I have seen to the way the college curriculum works - lots of critical/analytical thinking and persuasive writing. For what it is worth, at least at his school, the real “braniacs” are in IB, not AP. He has been told that at the ultra competitive universities being able to check the “most rigorous curriculum” box on the application carries weight over loading up on AP classes. How true that is, who knows? For background, he is going to Princeton next year.
On the down side, I am not sure how many of these advantages would apply if your son is only taking parts of the IB curriculum and not pursuing a diploma. Additionally, the extended essay requires a fair amount of work that normal and AP classes do not require, although much of that can be done in the summer between junior and senior year. He did not find the CAS requirement to be an issue. At least at his school, the administration was very flexible in what can be counted for that portion of the diploma.
Overall, I think if you are really pointing at HYPSM as legitimate targets (as much as those schools can be legitimate targets for anyone) then the best way to maximize your chance is to take the IB diploma program. Realize that the CAS project can dovetail with his other ECs, which I assume he is putting a fair amount of time into already. As an example, one of my son’s buddies is a very competitive pianist and his CAS project involved composing music/music therapy for younger kids. You need to think of CAS as an add on to his passion, not a completely different commitment.
Although this would only apply to a relatively small group, the IB diploma is useful for admission to colleges overseas. My son had a friend whose letter grades were lackluster, but who tested well on the IB exams. He was admitted to some American colleges, but chose to study in the UK instead after gaining admission to a university there.
Thanks for the responses everyone. This is really helpful info.
I spoke to my son about what you guys said in here, that it doesn’t seem like it’s that much more work than he otherwise would be doing anyway. He still decided he wants to transfer to a school that does AP. IBD is just not his thing. He hates being boxed in. He’s just one of those head strong kids who is only willing to work hard on what he likes, otherwise don’t bother. I hope he can transfer though, it’s very hard to do that in our district. We might be stuck with IB.
IB SL courses do not necessarily cover as high a level of material as AP courses. For example, the IB SL math and math studies courses may cover some calculus, but not as much as AP calculus AB. It is possible, however, for some high schools to add enough content to IB SL math courses to allow students in those courses to be prepared for the AP calculus AB test as well as the matching IB SL math or math studies test.
Depends on the college…mine got 24 credits for IB courses (SUNY Binghamton)…if you go IB, then look for colleges that give you credit.
nternational Baccalaureate Program
Binghamton University recognizes schools offering the International Baccalaureate program. The International Baccalaureate curriculum is the most challenging and comprehensive curriculum available and IB participation is recommended, taken into account and considered during the application process.
Binghamton University students may earn credit by exam for coursework completed in high school under the International Baccalaureate Program. Credit is awarded only for Higher Level exams, with exam scores of 4 or 5 receiving 4 credits and exam scores of 6 or 7 receiving 8 credits.
SUNY General Education requirements can be satisfied by completing Higher Level exams in five of the ten areas of competency. In addition, the General Education requirement for foreign language is satisfied by a score of 4-7 on either the Higher Level or Standard Level exams.
Binghamton University requires an official International Baccalaureate transcript in order to evaluate credit. Official scores may be delivered electronically through the International Baccalaureate website (please see below). International Baccalaureate courses and grades listed on a high school transcript are not acceptable for evaluation.
Students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program may receive up to 32 credits. To receive the full 32 credits, the following conditions must be met:
The IB Diploma must be completed with a score of 30 or more points; and
The student must complete at least three Higher Level exams with a score of 5 or higher.
Diploma holders who meet these conditions receive credit for their individual exam scores plus additional liberal arts elective credit to total 32 credits.
I think IBD is more for liberal arts majors, and for those who don’t know yet what they want to study in college. For kids who are bent on going into STEM or premed, IBD is far too rigid and time consuming. I resent the fact that in schools that offer the IBD, kids who don’t do the diploma are put at a disadvantage compared to those who just suck it up and endure all the crap that comes with IBD. That to me is just wrong. It makes IB incredibly rigid. This is a terrible system.
The best way to determine how much credit is given at different universities is to go to their websites. You asked about Stanford. MY dd took nine AP classes, mostly in humanities type classes and go no credit at all! If she’d scored higher on Calc/Stats/Physics, she might have gotten some, but they gave none at all for all her 5s in the other classes.
"IBD is just not his thing. He hates being boxed in. " - Hmmm… it’s possible that he won’t like the med school path… others that know more about this should chime in.
I agree the IB organization can be bureaucratic and rigid, but I think you also have to look at its advantages. You and your son may be frustrated by having the AP rug pulled out from under you, but I’d suggest you take a deep breath and probe further into the positives of the IBD before thinking about switching high schools.
If your son has the potential and desire to get into highly selective colleges, he may be better off doing just what you describe (sucking up and enduring) to get through the IBD process. Many other applicants – his competitors – will be doing that and more.
TOK aside, a kid who " hates writing, History, foreign language" is going to be facing some challenges in getting into any selective college as these disciplines – especially writing skills and foreign language – are often admissions prerequisites.
Written communication and abstract reasoning are major parts of the curriculum at any academically rigorous university/college, even for science majors (and remember, science IS part of the liberal arts). A strong academic foundation can only help him in do well in an intensely competitive environment.
So maybe he needs to make some compromises now that will lead to future success. If he has the ability to succeed in the IBD, then I think it would be a bad decision to walk away from the opportunity.
I know plenty of STEM majors who did IB in high school. Speaking personally, I did the Diploma programme with two sciences at HL (Biology & Chemistry) and still had room to fit AP Calc BC and AP Physics C into my schedule. I wound up double majoring in the sciences and humanities and was extremely prepared for college.
True, not every IB class is offered (or offered at HL) at every high school – but the availability of AP classes is extremely variable as well.
One reason is that a lot of colleges are still not terribly familiar with IB programs and their requirements. Many college officials and CC posters seem pretty clueless about the differences between SL and HL. The other reason is that teachers have a fair bit of flexibility in exactly how/what they teach in IB classes (e.g. Options and such), so the same IB course can vary from school to school. At one school, students in AP Chem and students in IB Chem SL (and/or the first year of IB Chem HL) may be taught in the same classroom by the same teacher, whereas they may be taught separately and differently at another school.
Honestly, passing an AP exam is typically extremely easy for students who’ve done well in the corresponding IB class (at either the SL or HL level).* The toughest part is paying for them. Fortunately, a lot of school districts pay for the exams.
*Exceptions are math (where your preparedness for the calc or stats exam depends on the IB math you’re taking and the content covered) and physics (IB Physics bizarrely avoids calculus, as AP Physics B does).
I don’t think the IB organization intended it to be like this, but sometimes, the combination of IB requirements, state graduation requirements, and the limitations on the variety of IB courses that any one school can offer creates a situation where the curriculum has little flexibility and doesn’t ideally meet the needs of students whose main interest is math or science.
You need to judge your own IB program to see if it works for you. And you also need to compare it with the other options available to you. For some students, sucking it up and doing IB may well be the best choice. For others, it isn’t.
[jumps up on soapbox] When you’re evaluating whether IB is suitable for a particular student, make sure to consider the SAT Subject Tests. The IB program and the Subject Tests are not ideally suited for one another. This may be a problem especially for students with STEM aspirations, who may be applying to programs that require specific Subject Tests (usually math and a science). It’s a good idea to find out what Subject Tests the students in a particular IB program usually take and when, and whether there are any special difficulties for prospective STEM majors, who have less choice in their Subject Tests than other students do.
Remember that if you’re a U.S. student applying to U.S. colleges, your IB test scores have no impact on your college admissions (although the fact that you’re an IB diploma candidate is a plus). But your Subject Test scores do have an impact on your likelihood of admission to many of the most selective colleges in the U.S. [/jumps off soapbox]
@ucbalumnus – on the SLs for credit, I absolutely understand that Math SL and Math Studies SL are a different question, with content that does not align with the AP curriculum.
But some of the others, like IB Spanish SL (at least Spanish 5 at our high school) or IB Chem, Physics, etc.? Perhaps because even math and science in IB tend to involve more critical thinking and writing (anyone have to write a math paper for AP?) and less sheer memorization, schools consider less “content” is taught. As a prof myself, I think that mastery of critical thinking and reasoning is the real college prep skill, not memorizing for APUSH, but not many do not share that view.
I agree with @Midwestmomofboys, that at least at my son’s school the IB curriculum involves more analytical/critical thinking than the AP track, and that this is where the rubber really meets the road in college. Also, is it common for SL classes to be only one year? At my son’s school, each IB class is two years (except IB film) whether it is HL or SL. So at his school, SL math is supposedly equivalent to Honors PreCalc/AP AB Calc and Math HL is supposed to be equivalent to AP AB/AP BC calc. A number of kids take the AP exam in at least some of their IB classes, usually after their junior year (the first real year of IB). I think most do pretty well.
I do not understand how the IB curriculum is a problem for STEM students. Whether you are doing an AP track or IB, you are only going to take so many classes in a given year. Unless the problem is that certain students don’t want to spend their time on the humanities, a good IB program will have plenty of options for STEM kids - Chem, Physics, Bio, Math, Design Tech, etc. As someone said up the thread, IB is supposed to produce well rounded students. I don’t think it is a bad thing that even the STEMiest kid push themselves to improve their critical writing/reading skills, or learn a smidge of literature. High School is way to early for hyper specialization, imho.
Couldn’t the same be true for a student mainly interested in humanities and social studies where the IB school offers HL courses mainly in math and science?
Some people have reported the existence of IB schools with “lopsided” HL offerings (e.g. only SL for math and science, with no HL math and science offered). Also, the rigidity of the curriculum might not fit well for a super-advanced student (particularly in math).
Colleges often have language placement testing to go to more advanced language courses, since many students come in with higher than beginner knowledge without presenting an AP score or college credit (e.g. third or fourth year high school language completion may be enough to place into level higher than the beginner course, and there are also heritage speakers and the like with no high school or college course work in the language).
Since, as noted above, IB physics (even HL) does not use calculus, even if colleges gave credit for it, it would be as useful as AP physics B, 1, or 2, which is not very useful.
Some STEM kids are highly accelerated in math, which does not mesh well with IB, where you can’t take HL tests before your senior year. At my daughter’s IB school, some of these kids had to spend a year taking AP Statistics for no good reason just to slow them down enough so they would be at the right point in their math curriculum to take HL math at the right time. (They couldn’t just drop math for a year because they needed a certain number of math credits to graduate.)
Some STEM kids want to take AP courses in at least two – perhaps even three – of the sciences. If they’re at least somewhat accelerated and if they sacrifice some other things (for example, if they drop their foreign language early), they can often do it. But you can’t take all three sciences HL in an IB diploma program, even if your school offers them.
Some STEM kids want to take AP chemistry or biology as juniors (which may mean postponing high school physics to senior year). The point here is to be maximally prepared for the SAT Subject Test in chemistry or biology at the end of junior year. But you can’t do the same thing with HL chemistry or biology.
I still don’t get the problem with IB for STEM. Yes, I get that some kids will “run out of math”. A buddy of my son’s didn’t take a math class sophomore year precisely because of that. But unless some school offers something more advanced than AP BC calc, I am not sure how you can do higher math in high school than HL Math.
As far as the sciences, my son is taking HL Bio and Chem. Both of these classes are way more advanced than the AP offerings in that discipline in his school. He took the SAT Subject Test in Bio early spring of his junior year and felt well prepared. He took physics as a sophomore, and as someone said up the thread both AP and IB physics are nigh on useless as college prep physics because of the absence of calculus, so I don’t see an advantage either way there.
Maybe the difference is in the way that the school structures the IB program, but the kids I know who dumped IB for the school’s pre engineering program (for example) did it because they didn’t want to do the writing required or because they didn’t want to be forced into four years of a foreign language. If the goal is to shoot for one of the highly selective schools (which I am assuming based on the OP’s comments), I am not sure that is the best strategy. Now if the goal is to rack up college credits to maximize your dollars spent on college, then quite probably an AP heavy curriculum will be better, since you can take far more AP classes over your four years of high school. i just don’t see how a student’s anticipated field of study would come in to play.
There is definitely a problem with IB for STEM students here. A lot of the brighter kids (even the not so “mathy” ones) are on track to take Precalc as sophomores. The really mathy ones take Calc BC as sophomores (or as freshmen in a few extreme cases). As ucbalumnus says, they take post-calculus math at the local community college or UC. Math SL or even HL doesn’t make any sense for those kids. Skipping a year of math is a problem that selective STEM universities are not likely to overlook; they want 4 years of HS math.
My son’s school allows taking IB classes “a la carte”, so my son plans to take IB Spanish SL next year instead of AP Spanish, because he prefers the IB teacher. All the AP and IB 2nd languages are taught as 4th year language classes here. They’ve told me that IB Spanish students do successfully take the AP Spanish test, which is more likely to get them college credit than an SL level IB course.
The UC system requires students to have a semester of economics (which is senior year for most students), so if you do IB instead of AP, you have to double up on social studies senior year with IB History HL and IB Econ SL. UC also requires a visual or performing arts class, so IB Visual Arts is popular with the IB diploma kids. With a 6-7 period day and the ToK requirement, that leaves little room for the number of sciences a STEM kid might want to take. Perhaps as a result of the all humanities requirements, the only IB science offered here is Biology SL (unless you count Psychology SL as STEM). That further skews the IB population away from STEM kids.
There are some high schools around here offering multivariable calculus–and some kids are still running out of math. As Marian says, IB doesn’t work well for them, because IB doesn’t allow the HL math to be taken early enough.
My kids were in IB (the same school Marian is talking about), and for them it was really good. But I don’t think it was ideal for accelerated STEM students, especially those with accelerated math, and it may also not be great for those who struggle with writing.
