<p>It definitely varies by high school. for instance, last year our high school had 351 kids take 757 AP exams (grades 11/12). The average grade was a 4.41, which i consider to be pretty good. AP courses at our school are serious business-nobody takes more than 3 junior year, and nobody takes more than 5 senior year. In each of the AP classes you get at least 1.5 hrs of homework per night, and getting an A in these classes is no small feat. As a result of the high rigor of these classes, most people at our school get 5s. I don’t want to be a naive high school student, but college classes cant be that much harder, especially when you have as much free time as you do (given that you manage that time well).</p>
<p>Cav, if you are taking 7 IB’s and the extended essay and CAS plus sports, EC’s and living a life which includes laundry things can get tight. Brain Maturity IMO increases over time. This makes upper level courses easier. When you compare that with 4-5 courses and a small menu of EC’s, it seems fairly equivalent to me.</p>
<p>Whatever, Cav, Governors schools that aren’t TJ are no joke, and full IB programs are no joke, I don’t care where you are. Some schools are harder than others, but i know plenty of people with respectable intellects who didn’t skate though high school (and still got straight A’s, they worked for them) They are doing very well now. Our valedictorian was brilliant, and she worked harder than anyone else. Shes now at Princeton and doing very well for herself. The list goes on. Grant it, I do think I went to a very difficult high school, but under your conditions its just another public high school, disregarding our IB program, history of success in academic competitions(not like TJ of course), and the supplemental Governors school.</p>
<p>vistany, it isn’t appropriate to compare the number of courses taken at one time. the 4-6 (or more 
) classes you take per semester in college are completed in one semester and are inherently more rigorous than HS courses. Even if you’re taking eight courses at once in high school, you’re taking them over the course of an entire year. And remember, none of the coursework is above the level of first year college courses, if it even matches it. I took six AP courses and two university courses my senior year in HS in addition to presiding over a foreign language club and participating at a competitive level in a varsity sport, and my courses overall were still much less rigorous than anything I have experienced at UVA. The AP courses at my high school were similar to what hopeful described above. Also, fwiw, I haven’t found any of the coursework here to be obscenely challenging so far, so any prospective students shouldn’t worry.</p>
<p>ehiunno, I’m sure that IB programs and other governor’s schools are rigorous, but I still highly doubt that they approach what students go through at UVA. Sure, you could take all math/science courses in an IB program at a governor’s school and then come to UVA and major in something easy like politics, but most people don’t do that.</p>
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<p>yeah we’ll probably get some free time off, but you also have to realize that
- you have to walk back and forth from building to building, to class, to eat, to dorm;
- you may need to wait for professors before they acutally come (if you really like that class and want to sit all the way up front in the big lecture auditorium. I really like Elzinga’s econ 201 so I go there 20 minutes earlier)
- Labs are always more than 2 hours, and the number of credit hours does not reflect that.
- You have to struggle from being disturbed by your roommate and suitemates because they make noises from 8pm to 3am everyday.
- After all, if you spend less time in “school”, you have to study by yourself. I could handle AP classes in high school (one of the fairfax public schools) without preparing ahead at all, but I find it extremely hard to follow the class if I don’t now.</p>
<p>Furthermore as people have mentioned it, UVa is a competitive school. Imagine every top student from your school is competiting with you, you are very likely to be a relatively mediocre student.</p>
<p>And when you are in college you don’t study like a high school student. UVa is not 13-16th grade.</p>
<p>Cav, I am going to ask Ehiunno and the other IB folks to help me out (confirm?clarify) with this statement. Here goes:</p>
<p>Higher Level IB exams, in particular HL History and HL Bio, are higher level than first year/level courses. The IB teachers rate them at a 300 -400 level course. Further the depth of IB has proven more rigorous when comparing an AP Science student with an IB HL Student when they are working side by side in a college lab environment. Apparently the depth of that program (2 years for an HL vs. 1 for an AP) positions those students to perform at a higher level. </p>
<p>The IB has strict rules about teachers assisting students in the work, and to my knowledge AP does not. Like college you can’t be running to the instructor every 5 minutes so they have removed the “training wheels” and force the students to be as independent as a college student would be. </p>
<p>The other issue I think we are all missing is the school we are comparing. Let’s face it UVa is one of the most academically demanding schools in the country. IB Kids from our school who go to Tech for example find it very easy. Kids from our school who go to UVa must work their butts off to perform at historical (A) levels.</p>
<p>FWIW I would put an IB kids writing skills against a TJ kids writing skills any time. Sure your talking about math geniuses here but a full IB student must be good at everything.</p>
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ya just had to throw that in, didn’t ya? Trust me, I met kids from all over, from public to elite privates, APs to higher level IB. Tech was hard for all of us, at least in engineering. That statement above might fly in the b-school, but since the majority at VT are engineering, that statement is ignorant and naive and wrong. Full IB kids are not rocket scientists, they just worked a tad harder. Doesn’t mean they’ll perform better in college.</p>
<p>Shoe, generally, yes it does.</p>
<p>Vistany, I would hardly go so far as to say 300-400 level. I do think they are much more difficult than universities give them credit for, I don’t know about bio but I know History and English were MUCH(x218064) more difficult than their AP counterparts (and I would know, I took both tests) and yet they are generally given the same (or fewer) credits. They are definitely beyond the 100 level classes. I would say they rest on the 200 level, but my experience with humanities classes here is limited at best.</p>
<p>Ehiunno: you’re wrong. Very wrong. I knew TJ kids at VT that found the e-school curriculum challenging. And it wasn’t one, or two, it was a majority. Many still did well, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It was a very ignorant statement.</p>
<p>My evidence is based upon what folks (including E School) say about Tech when they return in Dec for IB graduation. They wear huge smiles and are so happy about Tech’s generosity to IB students. By contrast the UVa kids were suffering.</p>
<p>As far as the 300 - 400 IB Topics HL it is the opinion of the folks who teach it, not mine. To me HL English and HL Math seem to be the ugliest.</p>
<p>FWIW TJ kids going to Tech were not the cream of the TJ crop. Tech is a fabulous school and everyone loves being a Hokie but you don’t bust your butt @ TJ for four years with the hope you willl land a ticket to Tech. Most of those kids are hoping for a Cal Tech, MIT nod in my experience.</p>
<p>Shoe, my statement said nothing about TJ kids or VT. All I was trying to say was that IB kids are better prepared than their AP counterparts. That doesn’t imply that they will find it easy, just that they are well prepared.</p>
<p>There is nothing to substantiate that IB kids are better prepared than AP kids,
ehiunno, other than your personal experience . I couLd very well say the opposite. Kids who get into UVA should be able to
handle the work load, regardless of what program they chose to partake in.</p>
<p>Actually in this study the edge in math and science goes to IB</p>
<p>[Jay</a> Mathews - AP vs. IB vs. Neither: A Plea for Peace and Love - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111300695.html]Jay”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111300695.html)</p>
<p>I took IB, AP, and Governor’s School at a fairly competitive HS, so I’ll try to comment. IB classes are about the equivalent of a lower level college course, but across the span of 1-2 years instead of 1-2 semesters, and it is definitely not anything close to a 300 level course. Also, depending on your Gov School and the kinds of classes you take, Gov School classes would be the same. Being an AP or Honors student is much easier than being an IB or Governor’s School student, and AP classes barely even touch college courses despite the fact that they are ‘supposed’ to. Additionally, the whole IB Program makes its students work harder, thanks to all the extra things you have to do (CAS, EE, the 10 or so assessments). Students who go through that are (a little) more prepared for coursework in college than AP.</p>
<p>As for TJ students, I’m friends with MANY of them (I’m in an organization where practically half of them are from TJ, plus it’s hard to not be friends with TJ students considering how many of them are here), and I wouldn’t say they are any better academically than many of the well-performing people in an IB class. After all, both pull out the best students of their areas. Also, just because it’s for “Science and Technology” doesn’t mean TJ kids are all a bunch of geeks aspiring to become professors at MIT. Most of them are fairly well rounded individuals with interests in everything, just like every IB student.</p>
<p>You made half of my argument but I think we are both adding to the confusion. AP is a take your best shot offering where a student pursues his/her strengths. IB certificates can work the same way. But an IB diploma candidate has to do the entire curriculum as well as the CAS EE TOK. No way to play to individual strengths in that game, you have to be able to do it all.</p>