IB Programs

Parents Forum
21

<p>"That study was interesting. I wonder what the results would be if the IB courses selected had actually been HL courses?"</p>

<p>By the same token, they only looked at AB Calculus. </p>

<p>I would think that the reason they chose SL courses is because that's probably what most kids take since they can only talk half the courses at HL. I would think they chose AB Calc for the same reason-- because that's what most commonly taken. </p>

<p>In other words, it looks to me that they tried to compare the typical IB/ AP experience-- not the options with the most rigor.</p>

22

<p>
[quote]
At our school we only have HL English and HL History (that's one of my complaints, actually, since it biases the GPAs against the math/science kids). Do any of you with kids in US IB programs have SL English and SL History classes? If so, are they available as part of the Diploma Programme or are they only for certificate students?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At the IB school my daughter attended (which is the same one that Counting Down's son now attends), all IB students must take English and History HL. Their history course emphasizes Europe and Russia.</p>

<p>It is my understanding that this arrangement was made because it was the only way in which IB students could fulfill both the IB requirements and the state requirements for graduation in English and History. </p>

<p>The state requires four years of English for graduation. Thus, it made sense to require HL English, a two-year course, for the IB students. Otherwise, they would have had to take an extra English course outside the IB program in order to fulfill the state graduation requirement, while simultaneously taking an HL course in some other subject. That would actually be MORE difficult.</p>

<p>The state requires a one-year course in Modern World History. The IB History (Europe) curriculum covers most but not all of the topics required by the state. Additional material on the history of Asia and Africa has to be added to the curriculum to meet the state requirements. Apparently, it made more sense to add the extra topics to the two-year HL course than to try to squish them into the one-year SL course. I believe that at some other high schools, history is handled differently, with students taking HL History of the Americas while simultaneously fulfilling their state's U.S. history requirement for graduation. I guess that would work in a similar way, but at our school, the kids fulfill the U.S. history requirement separately, during the pre-IB years.</p>

<p>The fact that U.S. IB programs have to go through these kinds of contortions to make it possible for their students to fulfill both the IB diploma requirements and the state graduation requirements is one of the reasons why IB, in the United States, often is not appealing to math/science-oriented students. Certainly, the worldwide IB program was not intended to be anti-science, but as implemented in the U.S., it often turns out that way. (And one of the weirder results of this is that the IB program at our school is about two-thirds female -- which is a lot of fun for the straight guys.)</p>

<p>CountingDown, in my daughter's class, the success rate on the IB exams was 100%. It was a good year. But this was also the class with 36 NMFs, when the typical number is no more than 25. So it may just have been a more-qualified-than-usual class overall.</p>

23

<p>CountingDown and Marian:
Thanx for posting all that info. I am learning what questions to ask when I visit the prospective HS again. From what I can gather from internet and what I have learned so far, IB kids sequence in English is as follows:
9-Honors English 10
10-Honors English 11
11-AP English Literature
12 -IB English
No idea if it would be HL or SL though???
For math they have IB Further Math, so this would be HL.
No idea about sciences, but during and open house it was mentioned that some kids choose to do four HL, so I guess they have options.
I am interested in how many IB and AP courses your school offers. "Our" HS offers 30 IB subject courses and 21 AP (I just checked CB site)</p>

24

<p>In our state, any student who completes an "IB curriculum" gets credited with meeting the state graduation requirements, but we would still want 4 years of English, of course. Too bad IB doesn't offer an alternate English track like they do in Math to solve the problem for the math/science kids. I guess this is the same 'why is there "Physics for Poets" but no "English for Engineers"?' question that pops up in the college threads periodically.</p>

25

<p>I'm 4 years removed from my IB Diploma, but that English sequence looks odd, unless you are completing IB requirements in an AP class. I did a prepared presentation that counted toward the final 1-7 IB score junior year, and wrote one (maybe both, but I think just one) of my World Lit papers (though ultimately not due until senior year, it was on books that were read junior year), which also counts in the 1-7 score.</p>

26

<p>Colleges give credit for SL and HL courses in relationship to obtaining an IB Diploma. My son gained a year's credit and it has helped with some of his requirements for graduation. Go to ibo.org to get a full listing of schools that recognize and give credit for the IB diploma.</p>

27

<p>overseas: I have yet to see a college that gives any credit for IB SL courses. Could you point me out to the one you're saying that does?</p>

<p>2collegewego: Yes, but they also only looked at SL Bio, which is significantly less rigorous than HL Bio.</p>

<p>Also, it's worth noting that the whole 1-year 2-year thing is actually not true. HL courses aren't required to be 2 years long, and SL courses aren't required to be 1 year long. They have instructional time requirements, as I recall, but I also believe that one can fulfill those in some ways through private tutoring. For example, I know that certain boarding students at my school, fluent in other languages than English, would do their IB Language A1 in their native language, with a 1-on-1 (or a small group) teacher brought in, and then sit the exams. Some even sat the exams in their junior year.</p>

28

<p>The University of Maryland at College Park gives credit for SL scores in some subjects.</p>

<p>Transfer</a> Credit Center | International Baccalaureate Exams (IB)</p>

29

<p>Our HS has SL and HL English and History. I think that for SL History you just take one year of the HL curriculum. She took SL Geography for 12th grade instead of HL history. DD decided not to take the HL levels since she was more interested in other areas.</p>

<p>Unlike her brothers that got credit for AP courses, she did not get any credit for SL courses even with a high score. We did not know about taking AP tests, we would have had to do that outside the school. So she is at a disadvantage in registering for spring courses compared to those who came in with a full term worth of credits and she has to take more distribution courses than others do.</p>

30

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302024.html%5Dwashingtonpost.com%5B/url"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302024.html]washingtonpost.com[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>Washington Post, November 14,2007</p>