<p>My school offers IB and AP courses in such a way that after I graduate I will have done:
PLAN 1
4 or 5 year courses of AP
11 year courses of IB
And recieved and an IB Diploma</p>
<p>Or I could not do I.B. and take 11 A.P. Classes (PLAN 2)</p>
<p>Which should I do if I want to go to top 50 schools, major in biology, then go to med school?</p>
<p>I took AP, but I heard that IB is more impressive because it offers a more holistic academic/social experience rather than taking AP classes in whatever subjects. IB forces you to challenge yourself even in areas where you aren’t strong, but there is no “AP Diploma” so you could be taking a simple math class (at my school, statistics is the go-to for seniors who don’t want to/logistically can’t take calculus) but AP English and History.</p>
<p>First off, I’d like to apologize, but I’m trying to get to fifteen posts so I can personal message people, so I’m splitting up this comment in a bunch of segments.</p>
<p>I am currently taking IB in my junior year and I think it doesn’t really matter which program you go into, but why you go into whichever program you choose.</p>
<p>I chose IB for a couple reasons. First, I like that it’s a program. This means (depending on the size of your school) you will know most of the people in the program well and will work with similar people often. Also, it means that they can give you long term projects with some leeway (not focused on one subject and covering several areas).</p>
<p>The main reason I like IB is because of the CRITICAL REASONING and THINKING that present in most if not all of their classes. I do not believe that AP increases the above skills (in caps) as well as IB and really doesn’t come close.</p>
<p>My friends in AP talk about how they write a crud load of essays all the time (which is fine for work ethic), but I don’t get a sense that they’ve ever had intense periods of thought that I get from English and Theory of Knowledge (great class for thinking (changes many people’s views of the world)).</p>
<p>Sorry that I’m writing a lot, but I just like IB a lot. One of the downsides of IB is that they change their curriculum every seven years (next change I heard is the year after I graduate), so sometimes you are stuck learning things that aren’t quite up to date (esp. in science), but the times that that has happened (chemistry) the teacher knew it was slightly old information, told us, and then taught us the new information.</p>
<p>Alright I’m done. But one last thing, from what I’ve heard about AP teachers (and this could vary from school to school) IB teahcer kick some serious angle-side-side (although not a real theorem ). I’d ask some kids you know that are taking these classes about the teachers, since that can change your whole perspective on a class.</p>
<p>Another thing I like (yeah I forgot some things), is the international perspective. This year in English we have/are going to read books from the US (obviously), UK (Shakepspeare), Japan (Mishima), and Russia (Ivan Turgenev).</p>
<p>Yay PM post!!!</p>
<p>I am looking into an engineering degree and career just FYI.</p>