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<p>If the school has a pre-IB chemistry course that provides good preparation for the SAT Subject Test, the problem is solved. Engineering programs tend to require an SAT Subject Test in either chemistry or physics, so it doesn’t really matter that the student can’t take the Physics Subject Test. But not all schools with IB programs have a pre-IB chemistry course with an appropriate curriculum to meet the expectations of the Subject Test.</p>
<p>Both my kids had double period science classes in HS, AP and IB.</p>
<p>Marian – yes, the EE and TOK can no longer be blown off. The coordinator really stressed this with last year’s seniors, because there were several in the prior year who would not have earned diplomas under the new rules. I know one student who was particularly worried because noone there had ever passed a math EE. </p>
<p>Atacom, as I had posted on the other IB thread, S2 had written most of his paper over the summer. Even the IB students I know who had finished and turned in their EEs in September were severely stressed senior year.</p>
<p>S2 wound up with stress migraines halfway through senior year. Every one of the five doctors he saw, upon learning which HS program he attended, said they had seen other patients from this program. To me, this said a lot about the culture of the program and our area in general, as well as the need for the school to pay serious attention to stress management and better workload coordination.</p>
<p>I will confess to feeling pretty bitter about IB last spring. Now that I see S managing his time and performing well in college, and not stressing out, I have calmed down a bit.</p>
<p>I agree that it really depends on the student and the program. For my D1 (now a college freshman) - she was very focused on engineering and still is and opted to do a full AP load and had the same work load, if not more so at times, over her IB peers. Her HS offers AP sciences in double blocks and she took 2 her senior year. It was completely the right decision for her and she also developed a healthy study habit and has always been a strong writer. Our problem was because her school was known for being an IB program, not being in IB made you the unwanted step-child so we had some battles with the GC but in the end I think we helped the GC see that some kids could and should flourish with a non-IB course load. D graduated with 8 credits in science, 6 in math and 5 in engineering - she was not one meant for the IB program but IB focused schools don’t always see that so it really helps to really look at your child and the program offerings and what they want to get out of it and go from there.</p>
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<p>The school in question cares more about its near-100% IB Diploma pass rate, which is central to its reputation, than about the health, welfare, or academic futures of its students. Once you understand this concept (which my daughter figured out very early), a lot of things fall into place.</p>
<p>Our school does AP science classes as 1.5 classes. Usually labs are paired with gym which is also every other day.</p>
<p>In our county the IB programs just beginning - they are in schools with a lot of low-income kids and they don’t have too many (at least not yet) graduating with full diplomas. </p>
<p>I have to say, both my kids who went the AP route (8-10 APs) were not at all overworked in high school. Older son has found college easy to adjust to, younger son a little less so. (But that’s actually been our experience every time he starts a new school.) I think the biggest problem for him is that our school is just not as writing intensive as it should be.</p>
<p>When I was in high school I wrote a 3-5 page paper every single week in English, my kids were lucky to write a 3-4 a semester.</p>
<p>Love this thread as this decision needs to be made in my house within the next 6 weeks. I am amazed by the differences from district to district. From my older D’s observations (who just did the APs,) the IB kids are very stressed and there was grousing at the end of her senior year from some of the IB kids that “we could have had a life in HS and gotten into the same colleges!” She’s a college freshman now and has transitioned well; the lack of IB hasn’t seem to hurt her.</p>
<p>Our district has a lot of AP/IB combo classes (which D1 was part of) and the IB kids have additional writing assignments. Most IB kids take both the AP & IB tests in May to get maximum university credit. I just took a look at the recommended path for junior year and quite frankly, D2s schedule will be almost the same whether she does IB or not; the only question is will she take pre-calc honors or IB math. </p>
<p>This is not my decision to make. It is my D’s. However, I am concerned about the stress level & lack of sleep. The IB kids do become a tight group & my D is already close friends with many of them so there is a social component. She tests well & is already a hard worker. I still can’t make peace with the fact that I don’t see any benefit to IB over AP in our district; the phrase I usually trot out is “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze ;)”</p>
<p>D is home, eating a snack before heading back for a meeting for one of her EC’s. I asked her if she felt stressed, she assured me she did not. Great grades, has time for a life and some time consuming ECs.<br>
Our high school has a 90%+ pass rate for the diploma. The program isn’t easy, and it’s not for every student. But none of the students are becoming ill over the program (at least none I know of, and I believe I would hear). There are a lot of pre-IB classes, in part to make sure the students can handle the work load. No harm, no foul if they decide not to continue in IB, they just take APs. The students partipate in sports, student government, mock trial, outside ECs etc. The school works with the students to make it all happen, the principal is very committed to the program, I suspect that helps the situation. The students take their SL exams as Juniors, The HL exams are taken Senior year. They are asked to have their EE topic and advisor by April/May Junior year…and to have a rough draft ready in Sept of their Senior year. According to the advisor, it doesn’t always happen that way, but they work it out.
I don’t mean to repeat myself, but really the important information is very school/student specific. How does your school handle EC’s? What happens if you opt-out? What are the AP options? What does your student want to do? FYI, beware the scare stories. Have your student talk to an older student they know, not in front of a crowd, to get the real story. In a crowd, someone they don’t know well, it’s sort of “bragging rights” about how hard it all is…kinda like labor stories at a baby shower, if you know what I mean.
By the way, D would love double period science classes, none of them are scheduled that way…sounds like a great idea. She’s taken a lab science every year and loves it, but wishes she had more time.</p>
<p>SCIENCE/IB HINT FOR ENGINEERS - SOME OF THE TOP COLLEGES REQUIRE A FULL YEAR OF CHEM and PHYSICS., </p>
<p>At our HS, the pre-IB students do bio in 9th grade and phys/chem (1 semester of each) in 10th. Our son then opted to do HL Physics in 11th/12th grade. Only through college research did I discover that some of the top schools would need him to have a full year of chemistry (and it needed to be the same class) or a semester at a college. </p>
<p>I never figured out why the GC didn’t mention it during senior class scheduling… he was clearly a top student with an interest in engineering. We scrambled and got lucky - he had one free block and it happened to be when SL chem was offered.</p>
<p>I agree that it can be tough to do scheduling for IB at a small school with only one section of IB classes. It is more complicated if there is only one section of music classes, in our case Advanced Jazz Band.</p>
<p>Marian – AMEN – but you forgot the part about how their scores exceed the world averages by one point or more! 
I still think a lot of the stress is specific to the school – S1 was NEVER under that kind of pressure, and neither were most of his friends (and their college results reflected that). </p>
<p>Part of what adds to the stress of the IB program S2 attended is that for most of the kids, it also involves a lengthy commute. S1’s MS and HS program was 19 miles from our house, across the county in heavy DC area traffic. Was on a bus by 6:15 am every morning for seven years. Leave this particular IB program, and in most cases, you are headed back to your regular HS. This program is full diploma or bust and the kids know what the stakes are. </p>
<p>S2’s IB program was five miles from our house – not as close as our local HS, but close
enough that after school activities were feasible. He was on the bus by 6:40 am and got home from football practice around 6:30 pm. He’d hydrate, eat and then start HW. </p>
<p>RobD, I am so glad you are here on this thread, since I have never had a chance to sit down and write a lengthy personal answer to your IB dilemma! I wind up target-bombing answers on threads and never get back to the longer, more considered responses. Mea culpa.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I would agree that one of IB’s strengths is all the writing. We were talking about his in the car last night on the way to drop off S2 at the airport. I had three classes a semester in HS where EVERYTHING was essays. S1 was able to slide through with some appalling Honors English classes at his HS and was only pushed to write well in AP Lang. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but S2 took Pre-IB 9th grade English the same year S1 took AP Lang. IB was unquestionably more difficult. They read many of the same books, but S2 had to write a lot more and was graded to a much more rigorous standard.</p>
<p>“Mathmom, I would agree that one of IB’s strengths is all the writing” - I agree too</p>
<p>My son is strongest at math/science, but he retook the SATs in fall of senior year, in hopes of getting his writing score up a bit. We were floored that it increased a full 100 points from junior year without any extra prep other than IB workload.</p>
<p>^^^yup! The IB English teachers were really tough on S2, but the SAT essay scorers thought S2 was a darned fine writer – or at least knew how to hew to the rubric! :D</p>
<p>The IB English teachers were tough on my daughter, too, but she took the AP English Language test with zero preparation and got a 5, which enabled her to avoid an otherwise-required freshman writing seminar in college.</p>
<p>I have been lurking on CC for some time and have received an extraordinary amount of insight and advice. Thanks!! With so many IB parents on this thread, I am hoping someone can explain how GPA is calculated from IB grades. My S’s school marks with the IB 1 to 7, with 7 equivalent to an A+ and 6 equivalent to an A and so forth. However, the school does not calculate any GPA. The grades will be tallied along with the bonus points to give a running predicted score.</p>
<p>Most colleges state GPA range, and so it is useful to know the approximate GPA conversion in order to gauge safety/ match/ reach schools. Thanks for any insight!</p>
<p>S2’s school gave out standard letter grades (on a 4.0) for all courses, though IB, AP and Honors got an extra 1.0 in the weighted GAP. I’m not sure S2’s school provided a predicted score – just the scores for the IBs he’d already taken and the title of his EE.</p>
<p>In terms of colleges granting credit for IB exams, many of them limit credit to HL exams with a 5 or higher, the idea seeming to be that an AP 5 = IB 7, AP 4 = IB 6, etc. I do recall that there are a LOT fewer 7s on IB exams than AP 5 scores for most subjects, though!</p>
<p>“With so many IB parents on this thread, I am hoping someone can explain how GPA is calculated from IB grades. My S’s school marks with the IB 1 to 7, with 7 equivalent to an A+ and 6 equivalent to an A and so forth.”</p>
<p>[A</a> guide to the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme for universities and colleges - how to interpret IB grades and transcripts](<a href=“http://www.ibo.org/diploma/recognition/guide/slidef.cfm]A”>http://www.ibo.org/diploma/recognition/guide/slidef.cfm)</p>
<p>This is how one Canadian university does the conversion:</p>
<p>[International</a> Baccalaureate - Grade Conversion](<a href=“Office of the Registrar”>Office of the Registrar)</p>
<p>I think a reasonable conversion is:</p>
<p>IB 7 = A
IB 6 = A-
IB 5 = B+
IB 4 = B
IB 3 = C
IB 2 = D
IB 1 = F</p>
<p>You can argue that an IB 7 = A+ and IB 6 = A but many high schools don’t award and many colleges don’t give any extra weight to an A+ so it would mean an IB 7 = IB 6, which clearly IB does not intend to be the case. And if you look at the IBO link I provided above, they say for the EE and TOK, an A is excellent and a B is good. Since an IB 7 is excellent and an IB 6 is very good, I think it is more reasonable to assume an IB 7 = A and an IB 6 = A-.</p>
<p>Using similar reasoning to what I used to conclude that IB 7 = A and IB 6 = A-, you could argue that the scale should be:</p>
<p>IB 7 = A
IB 6 = A-
IB 5 = B
IB 4 = C
IB 3 = D
IB 2 = F
IB 1 = F</p>
<p>That is similar to how the Canadian university interprets the IB grades. But that seems harsh to me and there is no distinction between an IB 2 and an IB 1. So I would go with the first conversion.</p>
<p>Then for an unweighted GPA (meaning the highest is a 4.0), I think this is a reasonable conversion:</p>
<p>IB 7 = 4.0
IB 6 = 3.7
IB 5 = 3.3
IB 4 = 3.0
IB 3 = 2.0
IB 2 = 1.0
IB 1 = 0.0</p>
<p>Most high schools and college admissions calculate a weighted GPA. Many give 1 extra point for an IB class or an AP class, although I have seen some that give 2 extra points. Some give 0.5 extra points for a pre-IB or Honors class. Some count pluses or minuses, some don’t. </p>
<p>I think if you want to estimate the weighted GPA, this is a reasonable conversion:</p>
<p>IB 7 = 5.0
IB 6 = 4.7
IB 5 = 4.3
IB 4 = 4.0
IB 3 = 3.0
IB 2 = 2.0
IB 1 = 1.0</p>
<p>Another Canadian university conversion but note that they use a 4.5 scale so look to the end of the page for the explanation using percentages to put this into better context for a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p><a href=“Rady Faculty of Health Sciences | University of Manitoba”>Rady Faculty of Health Sciences | University of Manitoba;
<p>In this CC thread from 2005, the student indicates that her high school uses this conversion and it is listed on her report card:</p>
<p>IB 7=A+
IB 6=A-
IB 5=B
IB 4=C</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/56588-ib-grade-conversion.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/56588-ib-grade-conversion.html</a></p>
<p>Yet another Canadian university conversion:</p>
<p><a href=“Redirect Error”>Applicants with International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement Courses;
<p>As you can see, there is no standard way of doing the conversion. I would call the admissions department of schools that your child is interested in and ask how they do the conversion.</p>
<p>“My S’s school marks with the IB 1 to 7, with 7 equivalent to an A+ and 6 equivalent to an A and so forth. However, the school does not calculate any GPA.” - Ask for advise from GC and other IB parents in your district.</p>
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<p>The conversions given above make sense , but remember that in most U.S. schools, IB students get letter grades in each of their courses, just as other students do, and it is those letter grades that determine their GPA. Students have at most two IB scores to report to colleges at the time they apply (they can take a maximum of 2 SL IB exams as juniors), but they have a whole transcript full of letter grades. </p>
<p>It’s important to remember that U.S. IB students applying to U.S. colleges are judged the way everyone else is judged – by the rigor of their curriculum, their GPAs, their SAT or ACT scores, their SAT Subject Test scores if the college requires them, their ECs, their essays, and their recommendations. Their status as IB diploma candidates gives them a boost in the rigor-of-curriculum category, but they still need all the other things. </p>
<p>This is radically different from the way in which IB students in many other parts of the world are judged when they apply to universities. For them, their IB score (the predicted score, later to be confirmed by their actual score) is the single most important factor – maybe the only factor – in admissions.</p>
<p>This means that students in different parts of the world have very different IB experiences. In the United Kingdom, for example, getting a 33 on your IB exams puts you in a different category from a student who gets a 43, and the two students will likely end up at universities at substantially different levels of academic prestige. In the United States, the difference between a 33 and a 43 is basically meaningless (except in terms of placing out of a few college introductory courses). But on the other hand, British students don’t have to worry about SATs, Subject Tests, ECs, etc., because they aren’t judged on the basis of such things; they only have to worry about IB.</p>
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<p>I think IB 6 or 7 should be equivalent to AP 5 and IB 5 to AP 4, but colleges do not seem to agree with me.</p>
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<p>That assessment makes sense to me, too, and pretty much lined up with S2’s scores. However, he had two IB scores of 4, but got 5s on the corresponding APs!! Of course, both of those classes involved some specific organizational skills as part of the IA, vs. the AP, which tested knowledge, so to me, that would explain the wide variance in scores. By the time he got to the end of the EE, he FINALLY understood the importance of reading the rubric, and did very, very well on the EE and TOK papers.</p>
<p>So many very helpful responses; thank you! To clarify, my S is a junior attending an international IB school, and is a dual USA/ Canadian national. S’s GC feels that the US GPA calculation is meaningless, and insists that the US school will just look at the IB points for admissions. Historically, most of the kids attend UK/ European schools, and so it is very difficult to ascertain GPA calculation from other parents. </p>
<p>We do get visits from some US schools; mostly in the top 50 and high ranked LACs. Some Ivy Leagues told my S, that competitive IB applicants need at least 37 points, and over 40 points would be very strong. They also said that a 7 is considered “A+” since only 3 - 5% would score a 7 on the exams, and a 6 would be an “A”. However, it seems, that most of the US does not differentiate between A/ A+. Oddly, though the admissions counselors make these generalized statements on school visits, none of the US schools will clarify how to convert the in-progress marks to a GPA. </p>
<p>At this point, we are just trying to determine a good range of prospects. Since we are living overseas, there is limited time to visit schools.</p>