IB course selection, help please

Parents Forum
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<p>Will he finish SL French in 11th grade and be ready to take the SL exam at the end of that year?</p>

<p>If he will, I suggest forgetting about Spanish, taking the biology course in grade 12 (when he will have an open period because of no French), and taking an easy, non-academic elective to fill that eighth period in 11th grade (chorus? computer programming? physical education?).</p>

<p>If he won’t be ready to take the SL French exam at the end of grade 11, he might still want to postpone bio until grade 12 because the second year of IB is typically easier than the first. </p>

<p>In all circumstances, I suggest choosing bio over Spanish. Having biology, chemistry, and physics on your transcript is more important than having two foreign languages.</p>

<p>IB is difficult, time-consuming, and complicated. The goal of the prudent IB student is to get through the IB program while (1) retaining as much of your sanity as possible and (2) getting into at least as good a college as you would have gotten into if you were not in IB.</p>

<p>To accomplish #1 and #2, it’s important not to overload yourself, either academically or in extracurricular activities. If there’s a shortcut, take it. If there are two alternatives, choose the easier one. You will be glad you did.</p>

<p>Also, it’s important to remember that American IB students are not admitted to American universities on the basis of their IB test scores. They are admitted in the same way that other American students are admitted – on the basis of their GPAs, class ranks (if available), rigor of their curriculum (IB gives you a boost here), SAT/ACT scores, SAT Subject Test scores (if the college requires them), ECs, recommendations, and essays. IB students have to try to maximize their achievement in these areas while at the same time meeting the IB diploma requirements. It’s not easy.</p>

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<p>Nice to see that you lack basic reading comprehension. Thankfully you don’t list your school affiliation in your info or people might make ignorant comments about you as well.</p>

<p>I didn’t say “underachievers”. I said “low achievers”. An underachiever does “less well than expected” (according to dictionary.com). Not all low achievers are underachievers… in fact, many of them are not. Please do not put words in my mouth (or on my keyboard).</p>

<p>The fact is that an IB Diploma caliber student in a non-IB class will not be with his or her academic peers. Comparatively, the IB Diploma caliber student will be in a class of low achievers. If a student that belongs academically at a top 100 school, and they go to community college instead, would you tell me that the student is among his/her academic peers? No, you wouldn’t, because the student is taking classes with low achievers. There was no insult to anyone in my post. Please use your brain next time before you launch in with the personal attacks (that are against the terms of service).</p>

<p>btw, in high school I did all my CAS hours, and at W&M I volunteered hundreds of hours of my time at the local elementary school (to help low achieving students) and gave up my senior year spring break to do hurricane Katrina relief work. I also worked with AmeriCorps where I got paid $10,000 for the entire year while I was helping run tutoring programs for low achieving (really… they were low achieving) students. So I think I do ok with the humanizing thing.</p>

<p>Thanks for your concern.</p>

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<p>@Larry - I have two with IB Diplomas, and mine didn’t find the IB curriculum nearly as challenging as others indicated - and they had challenging EC - that they performed at a very high level. Some kids function at a higher level and have more of a tolerance for stress.</p>

<p>However, I wanted to add about the curriculum - don’t underestimate TOK. It was not a fluff class when my kids took it, it was VERY time consuming, and the material was valuable and not stuff you will want to skim over in favor of the sciences.</p>

<p>My opinion is that three sciences is unbalanced, and the purpose of IB is to receive a balanced education. If you want to spend that much time on sciences, you should not be doing IB.</p>

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<p>parent1986, but OP says there are no APs offered at his son’s school. Therefore, IB may be the only way to get the “most challenging” designation from his GC if selective colleges are under consideration. The IB program Marian’s student and mine attended is selective admit (average SAT in the mid-2100s) and makes it much more intense than need be. It consistently has some of the highest average scores in the country. </p>

<p>My kid loved TOK. </p>

<p>S did not get any more credit from IB than he would have from taking the equivalent APs. In some cases, AP gave more credit. That said, he liked IB content more than straight AP. At his top two choices, the max credit they granted for AP/IB was 5 or 6 credits – so count that as another vote for sanity in test-taking.</p>

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<p>LarryQ, is this school in the US? If it isn’t, it may be that even US colleges will pay attention to predicted IB scores.</p>

<p>Also, it’s my understanding that a student can’t take a HL exam until the end of 12th grade–so even if he takes math HL this year, he may have to wait until the following year for the test. How this cuts, I’m not sure.</p>

<p>I have to say that I would consider having him take neither bio nor Spanish–he has more than enough academic classes for any US college. Could he take something like art, or chorus, or photography? 8 periods of IB and other hard academic classes is just too much. Again, I’m also curious as to why Geography is the chosen social studies course. It would be my guess that this would not be the most impressive option for US colleges.</p>

<p>Also: my son got absolutely nothing in terms of credit for any of his AP or IB grades, except that his AP score in French got him out of taking the school’s placement test. And since he was an early admit, he knew this in advance and didn’t take all the AP tests he could have.</p>

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<p>Why is it that I can’t make a comment about the IB program without the usual group of people telling me I’m wrong and their program is so superior?</p>

<p>I suppose hubris isn’t part of your vocabulary.</p>

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<p>IB has been wonderful for our D. It may not fit every student (nothing is a great fit for everyone).
Junior Year
Spanish 4H (SL exam)
AP Bio (first year of Bio HL)
AP Calc AB
AP US History (first year of History of Americas HL)
English HL (1st year)
Psych SL (SL exam, elective)
TOK (night, 2nd semester)</p>

<p>Senior Year
Biology HL
English HL
Math SL
Visual Art SL (Does not need it, just wanted to take it)
History of Americas (HL)
TOK (night, 1st semester)</p>

<p>Looking back, she could have skipped the Bio AP test, should have taken the Psych AP instead to increase the potential college credit. I doubt it will make much difference, her top choices limit the credits anyway. </p>

<p>Are there other options? Is the choice limited to either 2 languages or 3 sciences? Has he done a year of Visual or Performing Arts, as required by some schools?</p>

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<p>parent1986, I’m sorry you felt attacked. Not my intent. I pointed out that the IB program my kid attended made things a LOT harder than they needed to be. S2 developed migraines midway through senior year. When the docs asked him where he went to HS, they ALL nodded their heads – every one of them had seen other kids with stress-related illnesses from this program. It was pretty damning evidence to me that there are better ways to run IB, and I am glad your kids’ school took a saner approach. </p>

<p>OP had said that his S’s school doesn’t have AP. If it did, that’s what I would suggest a math/science student who wants a strong grounding in bio/chem/physics do instead of trying to all of them via IB.</p>

<p>I also agree with you that IB works better as a balanced education. The hard-core math/science kids we knew did not do IB, but went elsewhere so they could take courses that tracked better with their interests. S2 was always a kid who liked to connect the dots across a number of disciplines, and that part of IB really appealed to him. OTOH, my math/CS son wanted deep, not broad and would have died a thousand deaths before taking five years of a foreign language (unless Java or Haskell counted as such). :)</p>

<p>S2 thought TOK and IB Philosophy were two most useful classes he had in HS. TOK made him a better debater, thinker, analyst and writer. He was not sorry he took IB.</p>

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<p>IB is standardized/regimented (audited)… much more so than AP (especially when compared against full-IB dilploma requirements). But there are variations from school to school.</p>

<p>At our hs, it was not possible to take an IB class unless headed toward the full diploma (except where there were some combo IB/AP classes). Another hs down the road allows students to pick/choose IB courses, like AP. At our HS, all SL classes are done as 1 year courses and HL as 2 year sequences. Per my CC reading, that can vary too.</p>

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<p>Mom2Mom, at our house, AP Bio is one of the exams S2 was VERY happy he took – he got a 4 on the IB (noone does very well on the IB Bio exam from his school), but a 5 on the AP. For him, taking AP Euro was one exam where taking it made no difference – IB score was very strong. </p>

<p>Junior and senior years we sat down together and figured out which AP exams were more likely to hedge his bets when compared with his IB scores. He took SL Math Studies because he had already taken AB Calc and AP Stat. It maximized his IB points for math and he got AP credit/placement for the calc/stat. He is not a huge math guy, and this approach was one way he tried to manage stress. (Ditto the honors physics vs. AP or IB.) The IB folks at his school recommended the kids take AP Lit vs. AP Lang/Comp. A 4 on the AP Lit got the same amount of college credit as a 6 or 7 on HL English. S had a 5 on HL English and a 4 on AP Lit, which was the same amount of credit as a 5 on AP Lang/Comp, so he didn’t take Lang/Comp. Colleges don’t give credit for SL Econ, so he took the APs. He took the Spanish AP to hedge on Spanish SL – he took both junior year and wasn’t taking Spanish senior year, so he wanted to be sure he had credit/placement after five years of taking it. </p>

<p>Yes, we had a spreadsheet for all of this. :wink: While he wound up taking a lot of APs, at least half were to 1) make sure he had placement/credit options for Standard Level exams, for which colleges seldom grant credit, and 2) make sure he had scores on either AP or IB that would get him credit/placement. If college were more flexible about accepting IB exam scores, a lot of these gymnastics would become unnecessary. </p>

<p>In addition, a number of the classes S took were cross-listed as AP/IB so there would be enough students to fill the course. The school had a hard time filling some AP classes without IB students, and so combining gave everyone in the school more opportunities and choices for advanced coursework. The teachers taught both curricula, which increased the kids’ workload because there was not always full overlap. ETA: S’s IB program was also a full diploma or bust scenario. If you left the program, it was back to your local HS.</p>

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<p>My kid thought TOK was, er, cattle excrement.</p>

<p>Every IB student is different.</p>

<p>And despite the regimentation, every IB school is different. </p>

<p>parent86’s kids had a very different IB experience than my kid did, and the difference is likely due both to their personal characteristics and to the characteristics of the different schools that they attended.</p>

<p>Larry, even though we can help you with generalities here, you will learn even more by talking to students and parents who are familiar with the IB program at your kid’s school. There are almost certainly things they can tell you that we can’t.</p>

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<p>Even at the same school–the same one Marian is talking about–TOK can vary a lot depending on the teacher (as well as whether your kid likes that kind of approach). My kids liked it, but more with one teacher than another.</p>