<p>Low 700s is a fine score - don’t sweat it. </p>
<p>If IB is a disadvantage for some subject tests, the colleges will take that into account.</p>
<p>^^ I think because it presumes that IB and AP brand programs are somehow inherently “better.” It doesn’t make me uncomfortable and if I had a high schooler that was interested and it was available I’d probably take a look at it. IB was being discussed a few years ago in a neighboring district but I think the decision was ultimately made that there were plenty of existing programs that met the need. I can imagine IB is popular in areas where there are many foreign families that are ex-pat and want that feeling of consistency for their kids as they spend time in a different spot on the globe. In the case of this district IB was an agenda being pushed by the area business councils as a benefit to them in attracting foreign business. The “desire” for the programming did not originate in the schools. Mind you, I don’t know anything about IB or the goals, etc. That school district and our school district are very strong…without a high number of AP or IB branded programming. Back to the original questions, it shouldn’t make any different in standardized SAT II or ACT testing unless the classes that were taken were obscure opr not relational to what was being tested I would think. None of mine needed to take SAT II as all the colleges were either or colleges and concentrated on ACT which follows a pretty straight forward path of college prep curriculum.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation, Xiggi.</p>
<p>You make some very good points about the distinctions between the K-12 and tertiary education systems in the United States.</p>
<p>Thanks, Marian. </p>
<p>I do, however, realize that the question you posed is a lot farther reaching than my simple answer could address. I also realize that parents facing choices for their children (AP vs IB vs regular curriculum) have to make more pragmatic decisions. </p>
<p>It is easy to speak (as I do) over matters of principle and discuss the “system” in general. Parents and their children have other concerns, and can only play with the cards they have been dealt.</p>
<p>The pragmatic issue is that subject tests require some attention, and not an assumption that a “good” high school program will necessarily be good preparation for all tests, or that a student will remember enough to do well in a subject taken earlier in high school. </p>
<p>IB kids at our high school seem to do really well on subject tests in chemistry, physics, literature, math II, and the foreign languages. I don’t hear of too many taking biology.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, it seems that most school systems in the US do not aspire to do anything better, for either the top students or for everyone else. Indeed, they may well be constrained by state education boards who want to insert politically motivated restrictions on many subjects (Thomas Jefferson, evolution in biology, what to mention in health class about prevention of unwanted pregnancy, etc.).</p>
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<p>Really? Seems that those scoring over 700 are not that rare on many SAT subject tests.</p>
<p><a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Subject-Tests-Percentile-Ranks-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Subject-Tests-Percentile-Ranks-2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>% with 800 / % with 700+ / SAT Subject test</p>
<p>1 / 24 / literature
3 / 36 / US history
5 / 30 / world history
1 / 23 / math level 1
15 / 48 / math level 2
2 / 27 / ecological biology
4 / 40 / molecular biology
9 / 44 / chemistry
10 / 43 / physics
5 / 30 / Latin
4 / 33 / German listening
10 / 38 / German reading</p>
<p>Scoring over 700 is certainly not rare, but you have to remember that the population that takes the Subject Tests is a self-selected, high-achieving group (because only a relatively small number of colleges require these tests, and almost all of them are highly selective). It’s not the same population that takes the SAT.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of IB. While it’s true that you don’t have to memorize as many facts in IB as AP, the emphasis is on depth rather than breadth. The large amount of writing and analysis will make college seem easy to these students - particularly in the humanities and social sciences. I know former AP students who never had to write a research paper until college.</p>
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<p>I cannot imagine getting through high school without writing a research paper even if no APs were taken.</p>
<p>Marian, with all due respect, the program your dd attended could have put the kids in a library for four years and come back to find the students were competitive for top schools-- such is the rigor of the selection process (and the size/strength of the school district and the educational and socioeconomic level of the residents). In other words, the rigor of the program has little to do with the actual curriculum. </p>
<p>That said, you raise the question of a ‘school within a school.’ The program your student attended does create a difficult situation for students in the school who are not in the program. Not only are the IB students given the better teachers, historically, their success is the only thing the administration cares about since the showcase program is advantageous to their careers. Decisions are often made that advantage IB students but disadvantage non-IB students. (For example, putting IB kids who do not have pre-requisites in IB classes so that their curriculum can continue to be ‘most rigorous.’) As a matter of fact, few top neighborhood kids who are not in the program-- students who would have been near the top of their classes at other area public schools and competitive for many colleges-- are accepted to elite colleges because the top percentages of the class are taken up entirely by IB kids whose weighted averages are much higher because of ‘pre-IB’ classes that inflate their weighted gpas.</p>
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<p>Umm, who said that such scores are “rare”? (Not me, since I have read CB’s reports.) </p>
<p>The logical conclusion, then, is that a lot of students self-study, and/or…2) many students take the subject test with the corresponding AP Class. (Scoring high on the the US History Subject Test just ain’t that difficult if one has just finished APUSH, and done well.)</p>