My son is going for mechanical engineering. He has taken IB Math Analysis and IB Physics. Both are 2 years and he’s doing the HL version in both. We are assuming he will have a high enough score to earn college credit, but are debating whether he should take it or not.
Last year, they were in-person, but the district shortened the day by 30 minutes for more prep and cleaning time. And we were remote for about 8 weeks in total. This year, we haven’t been remote, but had another disruption causing there to be no school for 7 weeks. No asynchronous or any learning happened for those weeks. Clearly, he has not learned all of the topics in any of their classes. And they are doing the non-exam route for IB grades, so are working on finishing their IAs, which will make up most of their grade. They are still covering topics, but it’s hard to tell how much.
He has no question about taking credits for history or English and will happily use them :). But Calculus and Physics…just not sure.
He has always excelled at math and was on the +2 track from middle school. He has had a 100% for both years in Math AA with little difficulty - he does the work and pays attention and asks questions, but gets the topics easily. I feel like if he takes the credit, he’d be able to teach himself any missed topics or ask for help if needed.
The physics might not get him useful credit, since it’s not calc based. I’d have to go back and look at his school choices.
I was going to say the same thing. Have your son take a few finals and see how he does.
At my D’s school, many kids re-take Calc I who took AP or IB in high school and it can make the course even harder as it’s graded on a curve. My D was happy that she skipped ahead.
I’m just piling on, but get old tests and he’ll know. Have him take them timed and brush up on anything rusty. My son started in Calc III and Physics II. It was a huge advantage.
I’m following along on this thread since my kid is an IB Diploma candidate planning on engineering. I’m sorry this year has been challenging for your school district.
At his schools, would the credits gain him sophomore standing so that he gets priority registration? That’s what I’m looking at for the big public schools where my kid is accepted. Last weekend we were at UW Seattle, and I spoke with someone in CoE there and it seems that with an IB Diploma my kid would have be able to register earlier than other freshman since they’d come in as a sophomore, so perhaps there’s a better chance of getting the needed classes all throughout the four years. However, at UW all first years are undeclared for engineering and GPAs come into play for placing into the desired specific engineering track, so my kid may take Calc and Physics all over again with the idea of getting an A in those classes to boost the GPA since the material would be mostly review. [Although @momofboiler1 raises a surprising perspective on that.]The UW CoE advisor did say that old finals taken over the summer would be used to help with placement, and that if Calc was repeated, there would not be additional credits awarded toward graduation (since the IB Math credits would already have been counted toward reaching sophomore status). My kid took the IB Math Analysis SL (7) exam last year, and is in AP Calc BC this year. What I recall from when I took IB Math SL is that Calc I in college was 100% review and once I figured that out, I only showed up to class for the exams - not that I’d ever endorse that approach these days, and I wasn’t an engineering major, I took the non-engineering Calc I/II/III classes.
I’m learning each school, and each department within that school, can have their own policies regarding IB credits and whether they can be substituted for major course requirements. So, unfortunately, that needs to be sussed out at each school’s engineering department. I wish it were easier to find out that info, but the school’s website of IB/AP credit equivalents seems merely to be the starting point.
Be careful – some students do this but then do not pay enough attention to the course (because they saw the material before) to earn A grades.
Also, while this is unlikely for most engineering students, pre-meds should be wary about doing this, because it looks like undesirable grade-grubbing to medical schools. But where there is competitive secondary admission to major to be concerned about, find out whether that admission process also frowns on repeating AP or IB credit for the same reason.
In addition, repeating what one already knows is a waste of time and tuition that could be used for a free elective (usually later after getting a head start on the required math sequence). As you also note, some colleges do not allow for duplicate credit units if the student takes a course that repeats AP or IB credit.