It would be very unusual for an IB student at my kids’’ school to get straight As. Only a handful of As in HL Chem, only another handful in HL History and so on. And not usually the same kids. 85 to 90 diploma kids every year and 1 or 2 straight As.
This.
Some kids in IB programs don’t even like the curriculum. They’re there because they want to be with people like themselves.
When we were deciding on high schools for DS19 when he was in grade 8 2 options he considered were congregated IB and AP. He eventually decided on AP, but the biggest reason was logistics as the school offering AP was our designated neighbourhood school and the one offering IB was quite a distance and transportation was not provided. He would have done well in IB but I think in the long run AP was the better fit as it is less restrictive in terms of course selection. Volunteer work is a requirement for graduation for all students in our high schools, so I also didn’t feel like the CAS component of IB was all that valuable and would again be too proscribed. DS19 did have a few classmates who opted for the IB program. The biggest difference they observed was that the workload was significantly higher in grades 9 and 10 for the IB program (MYP) vs AP (Pre-AP accelerated). I’m curious to know if the same holds for grade 12 which is when the majority of the students in the AP program take the actual AP courses.
The one thing that I have appreciated about the way the AP program is run at DS’s school is that it is by application/selection and the students are cohorted together. There are generally 2 class sections for each Pre-AP course so the kids all really get to know each other well and support each other. In grades 9 & 10 5 of their core courses are Pre-AP. Beginning in grade 11 they choose which courses they wish to continue with with most students picking about 4-5 (a very few pick 6 but need to have approval from the principal). DS notices a differences with regards to the dedication of students to their studies between his AP and non-AP courses, especially the more gen-ed type courses. From that perspective he gets the same advantage as he would have had he opted for the IB program.
All high schools offer AP here. There is no need to transfer out of your neighborhood school to take tons of AP classes. Theres rarely a prerequisite other than a B in the subject area. IB is a magnet/application process.
All high schools do not offer APs. Fieldston made a conscious decision to do away with AP classes almost 15 years ago. It has not affected where their students get accepted to college. Many other independents have also done away with AP courses.
If the school does not offer AP classes it is not held against the student.
I meant all of our public high schools.
Again,
Maybe all public schools in your school district offer AP/IB but not all public schools offer IB/AP. I have worked in a number of public schools that did not offer IB/AP and students still went to the Ivies and other top colleges.
The context was talking about the need to transfer out of the local public high school in order to access IB. For most students they do not need to transfer out of their local public high school to get AP classes. There are less than 1000 high schools in the US offering IBD, and over 22,000 offering AP.
Not all IB programs are magnet/application based.
Our high school offers both. More students take AP than IB as there is an impression IB doesn’t allow for much ‘free-time’ however for my daughter’s class did not find that to be the case.
My DD did HL Physics, Chem, Math and SL Business, English and German Ab Initio (we lived in Germany at the time. She ended up being a Math Major. She went to SUNY Binghamton where she got enough credits through IB (and a couple summer courses) to graduate 1.5 years early.
The HS S2 attended had a country-wide competitive admit IB program. One had to do the full diploma or return to one’s local HS. It was an extremely competitive program with a low acceptance rate. Correspondingly, it would be a real pressure cooker.
Some other schools in the county had IB, but not all. Course offerings at those schools were sometimes limited because they could not always fill the classes. Our neighborhood HS didn’t offer IB.
In the end, every bit of college credit S2 brought from his exams came from his AP scores, not IB. He will tell you that he got a much better education in the IB program, though. YMMV!