IB Diploma or certificate with AP?

Pre-College Issues International Baccalaureate (IB)
1

Hello guys I’m currently a rising Senior at my high school which offers both the IB diploma as well as AP classes.

We just got our schedules today, and a lot of my peers are planning to switch out of the diploma program (Mainly because of Spanish 5 and its rigor) which has started to worry me. I’m however taking Spanish 4 but I’m not perfect with Spanish and the 1st part of the IB exam starts in January as opposed to May.

Ever since 9th grade I have set my goal twords getting the IB diploma. But the fact that a lot of my IB peers are instead going for the certificate or AP, is making we worried that I have completely underestimated the IB DP.

Another concern is that if I go for the certificate with some AP, then I will look bad on Admission papers because I haven’t taken the diploma program or challenged myself to the highest level by taking the hardest course offered to me.

And my final question is how easy/hard is scoring AT least a 5 on an IB test? How do you prepare for the test? And when should I start preparing?

I am willing to sacrifice basically all of my free time for the IB Diploma but I want to be prepared as early as possible.

Here is my schedule for this year

1–HNR Chinese II
2–Comp.Programming (Java)
3—IB TOK
4—IB 20th Century topics
5—IB Spanish IV
6—IB Physics HL YR2
7—IB Mathematics SL
8—IB Language A HL YR 2

2

Is your IB Spanish class SL or HL? HL foreign language is supposed to be pretty difficult but if you’re in IB Spanish IV and not V I’m assuming it’s SL. SL language should be fairly manageable. In addition, since you’re a senior, you’ve already completed one year of the program so might as well finish it. Colleges won’t really care though if you decide to switch an IB class with an AP class. To them, IB and AP are practically the same. As long as your school marks that you took the most challenging curriculum, you should be fine.

3

IBDP is regarded as the most rigorous program to most universities in the world. If you are good at analysing text and writing, getting a 5 is not that hard in SL subjects. However, for top schools, getting 7s in HL subjects are expected.