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<p>A very good job. I’ve heard from many IB students (including my own D) that the first year of college is easy compared to IB. It’s not just the preparation in academics; IB teaches you how to manage your time and stay on top of multiple projects at once. It teaches you to think critically, see connections, and communicate both in writing and orally. These are life skills which help students not just in college but throughout their lives.</p>
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<p>This does not seem to make sense at all. Why wouldn’t a high school let an advanced math student enroll in the IB math HL course early, even if the student is not officially in the IB program?</p>
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<p>Most of the comments on IB seem to include that it is a very high workload, although such workload does not appear to get the student (in HL courses) more advanced than college frosh or AP level. While that may be seen as an advantage in giving students practice in handling high workloads and managing their time, it can also be seen as a disadvantage in being time inefficient in terms of the amount of time spent learning a given amount of material.</p>
<p>Depends on the kid. It’s more in-depth, analytical learning that doesn’t necessarily help on a multiple choice exam. But, it does help in other ways. My IB kid also finds college rather easy after IB.</p>
<p>This does not seem to make sense at all. Why wouldn’t a high school let an advanced math student enroll in the IB math HL course early, even if the student is not officially in the IB program?<<<</p>
<p>A ‘pure’ IB program is only for 11th and 12th grade. Many schools have a ‘pre-IB’ track, and the fact is that if you don’t do ‘pre-IB’ you won’t get into the IB in 11th grade. The program my daughter looked at (a magnet program, so you have to apply and be interviewed) is one of the oldest in the US. It is school within a school. The IB students have their own classes, their own hallway, and take very very few classes with the general population of the large high school (2000+; IB had 150 admitted freshmen, which then whittled down to about 75 IB diplomas per year). When interviewing, I asked if the IB student who was good in math could take an AP class. NO. A different music class. NO. And no other students from the school could take an IB class. So a 10th grader would not be allowed to take a more advanced math class out in the ‘regular’ school even though not officially in the IB program (only for 11/12 graders).</p>
<p>We ended up not accepting a spot in the program, but much of it had to do with the head of the program who I found just downright mean.</p>
<p>For us, IB was basically a school within a school. There was a pre-screening test and you could not just pop in and out at will. You could elect to go partial in Junior year and a bunch did. The school had no AP.</p>
<p>ucbalum, IB is not an unmixed blessing for sure. There is a lot not to like about it, including what seemed to me at times to be a really excessive workload. There was a point in junior year when I considered yanking D out of the program, it was so bad. I didn’t, because there was no place else for her to go. Regular-track would have been a disaster. </p>
<p>I’m not sure it’s a bad thing that IB gets the student no farther than college freshman level. IB is not supposed to replace college; it’s supposed to get kids ready to hit the ground running, and it does that very well. But it does come at a price.</p>
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<p>However, does it make sense for a student who is very advanced in a subject (most commonly math) to be held back in that subject, rather than at least have the possibility of taking more advanced courses at a local college after finishing the AP/IB-HL/college-frosh level courses that are more commonly ordinarily available?</p>
<p>I.e. a student ready for calculus in 11th grade can take AP calculus BC, then take multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations at a local college while in 12th grade (assuming scheduling logistics, etc. work). But it looks like the IB program puts an additional administrative hurdle in front of the student if s/he is in an IB program, holding him/her back from his/her “natural” math progress.</p>
<p>If IB is that restrictive, how did [this</a> student](<a href=“http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/30/5457373/elk-grove-teen-goes-9-for-9-in.html]this”>http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/30/5457373/elk-grove-teen-goes-9-for-9-in.html) take more advanced math courses at a nearby college while in an IB program?</p>
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<p>ucbalum, you’re right about that artificial constraint which could prevent super-students from surging ahead of the IB pace. Luckily we never had that problem. ;)</p>
<p>Many of the most talented and motivated math students self-study. Kids have been reading math books on their own for a long time now, and with the internet for help it’s even easier. He probably learned calculus on his own so he could take those more advanced college classes. The question is, did his school make him go back and take calculus when he’d already progressed beyond it?</p>
<p><a href=“http://doorways.ucop.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://doorways.ucop.edu</a> indicates that his high school offers a few AP courses, including calculus AB and BC, along with the IB courses (however, the AP course selection is missing some common ones like the English ones, probably with the assumption that most students who would take AP English are in the IB program instead). So he may have just taken AP calculus BC in 10th grade, then the more advanced math courses at the college while in 11th grade. But that still leaves the question of whether being in the IB program meant having to go back to calculus (IB math HL) in 12th grade or if a common-sense exemption were made.</p>
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<p>I would be hesitant to put “common sense” and “IB” in the same sentence, ever.</p>
<p>The IB rules are set by an international organization, not by the local school. And you have to play by the rules to get the diploma. </p>
<p>Most likely, the student did exactly what you say or perhaps took IB SL math (which would have been an utter gut course for such a student) in order to leave room in his schedule for more meaningful HL courses in other subjects.</p>
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<p>The school might allow it if the student was not an IB diploma candidate and if there was room in the class. However, an IB student would not be able to take the course early and still fulfill the diploma requirements.</p>
<p>What is the reasoning for the rule against completing an HL course before 12th grade?</p>
<p>That seems to be a significant disadvantage for any student considering an IB program who may be more than one year advanced in a subject.</p>
<p>IB is a set program. The reason you can’t take HL 12th grade math in 11th grade is because you have to take 11th grade IB math in 11th grade, and you can’t take that in 10th grade because in 10th grade you aren’t in IB. You have to check all the boxes.</p>
<p>It is a very set program if you want the diploma.</p>
<p>It is very restrictive.</p>
<p>It is very restrictive, mimicking the education programs of the IB Motherland (Europe :D).</p>
<p>Several people have mentioned situations where IB students cannot take AP courses.</p>
<p>This does not mean, however, that IB students cannot take AP tests.</p>
<p>Many colleges are much more generous about giving advanced placement and credit on the basis of AP test scores than IB test scores. So many IB students take BOTH the IB and AP tests in a subject at the end of the IB course in the hope that the AP score will give them credit even if the IB score doesn’t.</p>
<p>Example: My kid took IB HL English. She got a 6 (out of 7) on the IB test. Her college only gives credit for 7s on this test, so she did not get credit on the basis of this score. But she also took the AP English Language test (a much easier test), with no special preparation, and got a 5. Her college gave her credit on the basis of that AP score.</p>
<p>Sometimes, IB kids can even get credit for SL courses by taking the AP test in the same subject. But it’s probably best to try this only in 12th grade, just in case it doesn’t work out and the AP score is low. Scores on tests taken in 12th grade can’t have any impact on college admissions.</p>
<p>I know that a couple of kids in my kid’s IB program were taking math classes at the local U. I don’t know the details, though. </p>
<p>I think his school has done a very good job of figuring out how to make the program work well for the kids. It helped that it was 1. a magnet program so they could take some liberties with scheduling, etc. for a well-defined cohort, and 2. the program was at least 20 years old, so they had time to get the kinks worked out.</p>
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<p>this is not surprising. IB exams are on a bell curve and it is very hard to score 7’s. On the other hand, AP hands out 5’s like candy.</p>