<p>I don't know whether I should join the IB program when I switch schools... I'm doing Chemistry so I'm a year ahead in science and I take the most advanced classes available for me.
Is IB preferred by more colleges? I know they are given "equaql weight" but University of Florida has a definite PRO-IB bias and I wondered if other schools did as well.</p>
<p>I am also planning on taking Calculus Junior Year or possibly next year -is IB or AP better for math?</p>
<p>Much depends on the exact way in which IB is implemented in the school where you would be going. Schools have many choices in the way in which they put together their IB programs. </p>
<p>Overall, though, although schools have a lot of choice in how they put together their IB curricula, individual IB students at those schools usually find that they have fewer choices than students taking equally rigorous programs based primarily on AP courses. IB is an entire integrated curriculum, not just a group of independent courses. This puts quite a few constraints on students.</p>
<p>You will need to have a very thorough discussion with the IB coordinator and guidance counselor at your future school to figure out whether IB is right for you.</p>
<p>There are at least 4 states (FL, TX, CO - and maybe WA) that are very generous with IB Diploma grads who earn a minimum final score. Others vary in what credit they offer.</p>
<p>Marian is right in that there is a lot of variation in how schools implement the IB program. Take a GOOD look at the courses the school offers. Are those REALLY the ones you want to take? </p>
<p>We ended up NOT choosing an IB school because the ones that we were considering only had Biology - no Physics and no Chemistry. My older son was interested in taking HL Physics, so these schools were not acceptable to us.</p>
<p>Our S’s HS has a very successful IB program. He participated in 9th & 10th grade but decided he wanted more flexibility in courses so he is now taking half IB, half AP. This is the last year the system is allowing non IB diploma seeking candidates to take IB classes. It is a great curriculum for a lot of students. It depends on what your other choices are.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about University of Florida. I don’t think IB has any advantage over AP for college admission. My understanding is that with AP you will have more choice with courses you take can. </p>
<p>My son is a senior in an IB program. He switched schools (to another school in the same public school district) so that he can enroll in an IB program. He really enjoys his classes and has done well so far. His school has a good reputation for its IB program and important IB courses (Physics, Chemistry, Math and Biology) are offered. I feel that he is well prepared to handle tough classes in college. Our second son will do the same when he enters high school in a couple of years.</p>
<p>Again, if all you care is college admission then you might be better off with AP.</p>
<p>When D was in college search mode a few years ago, we attended several info sessions where the admissions people knew specifically which HS’s had good IB programs. Many seemed delighted by IB in comparison to AP–you could actually see their eyes light up.</p>
<p>My D did AP because that’s what they had at her school–took 1 in soph yr/5 in junior yr/7 in senior year–which was average for top 1% of students at her HS. AP is fine if you are at a good school and have the grades (A’s) and scores (5’s) to back it up.</p>
<p>Do the IB, if you are so inclined, since you are advanced it will most likely help you.</p>
<p>In some schools there are IB and AP students in the same class. The tests are different at the end of the year but the student can take both tests. S graduated IB and took 13 AP tests. It’s true that UF loves the IB students (definitely a leg up on admissions). Before you start in the program, definitely ask how it works at your particular school.</p>
<p>Just to clarify - It’s true that IB students can take AP exams (with or without taking the classes), but AP students cannot take IB exams unless they went thru the class.</p>
<p>Also, if you are into sciences, you are going to have to pick 2 and only 2 for your junior/senior years. If one of your IB courses is in the fine arts category, you will only be able to take one science. I have heard that some schools schedule choir and band outside of the IB school day, so you could stay in performing arts, but at our school you only have the opportunity to take 6 IB courses plus TOK. (Some schools offer the standard level courses as a single year, at our school all IB courses are 2 years long.) </p>
<p>Most of the universities we looked at were pleased with the ‘rigor’ of IB courses, but didn’t care either way if you had AP or IB. Most only give college credit for higher level IB courses, so the most credits you could get out of it would be 3. Only one school gave bonus credit for an IB diploma (would enroll you as a sophomore with a high enough score).</p>
<p>More clarification-- I believe that Economics is the only course that uses parallel material in AP / IB. The others will require additional self study to take the AP exam.</p>
<p>At our private college prep high school, the college counselor flatly stated that IB > AP > Honors, from the colleges’ perspective.</p>
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<p>not necessarily. I got the IB Diploma and the only college credits I got going in were from the AP government test that I took senior year (2 years after I had taken preIB government). No self study.</p>
<p>Hmm… I’ll have to ask the school about some of this I guess.</p>
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<li><p>I don’t know anyone who isn’t much more impressed with the approach of the IB curriculum than with the AP curriculum. The AP is really a fraud in terms of substituting for college courses. In theory, IB comes much closer to what you would get from real college courses.</p></li>
<li><p>But unless you go to a school with a large, well-developed IB program, it may be hard to get appropriate courses in languages, math, sciences. My kids’ high school instituted an IB program side-by-side with its normal curriculum, which makes heavy use of AP classes. But it became clear very quickly that the IB program was not going to be able to offer the kind and variety of math and science courses that the best/math science students wanted, and also that its very heavy time requirements (including mandatory extracurriculars) was going to interfere with their involvement in work at research labs and on science olympiad competitions. For another group of students, it was going to be impossible to study two foreign languages. So that cut down on the attractiveness of the IB program.</p></li>
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<p>Nothing about IB makes it impossible to teach multiple languages or a range of science and math courses. But start-up and faculty training are expensive, and not everyone has gone there right away.</p>
<p>Well this school has a good reputation. And I think of the AP courses as classes that are truly college level -you get a textbook and you don’t have busy work. I hear (from an IB student) that they wouldn’t do it again and that almost every night they stayed up past 12 just writing chapter outlines -when would you do this in college their parents (and MY parents!) asked.</p>
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Unless they’ve changed things recently, it’s possible to take 3 sciences. It’s difficult, particularly if you take all 3 at HL, but it’s doable.</p>
<p>The real question imo is whether IB is preferred by the schools you are most interested in. The admissions folks know it well. At the first tour we went to the dean of admissions responded to a question by stating flat out, “We Love IB.” From an admissions standpoint, an IB curriculum is more of a known quantity than a mixture of regular and AP classes. In addition to the IB program you should be able to take AP classes to supplement your interests.</p>
<p>I’d suggest contacting the admissions departments of the schools you are interested in. Particularly if they are LACs they should have opinions about IB. You should also check the course catalog to see how IB credits factor into your ability to place out of freshman level classes or get the credits for them.</p>
<p>The tests themselves hold little weight – the college courses you’ll be taking are usually going to be harder than anything IB or AP can throw at you, and they’re really more for credit/placement purposes once you get to college and transfer the credit over. However, college admission officers are well aware of the differences and, in my opinion, tend to look more favorably upon IB simply because it’s more rigorous than AP in terms of structure (class distributions, tests, TOK essay, EE, CAS, etc). The quality of your school does influence how IB/AP are taught, but all I can tell you is that IB is a great leg up in admissions. That is not to say AP won’t help you either. The key is to simply take the hardest stuff you can and do well to maximize your chances. If I could choose between IB and AP, I’d definitely choose IB.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Some of the more savvy IB schools (especially IB schools located within a larger comprehensive high school) incorporate AP material into IB courses so that students can take both tests (and so that some non-IB students will take the course, thereby helping to achieve the minimum enrollment level).</p>
<p>My daughter took AP tests based on IB or AP/IB courses for English Language, Environmental Science, and Spanish Language, as well as both Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, and got 5s on all of them. But the curricula of the IB courses had been tweaked to help facilitate this.</p>
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<p>My daughter thinks that IB was harder than college – and she goes to a top-20 college. But she came from an IB program that was so high-level that more than 95 percent of the students get the IB diploma (and those who don’t usually fail because they didn’t complete a requirement, not because their test scores were too low). If you teach IB at that level, it can be harder than college.</p>
<p>^^^^Yup!
S2 will have a full IB diploma plus 13 AP exams. He is at the same program Marian’s student attended. S2 is taking a seventh subject for fun, but is not taking the exam; it is a class that isn’t covered under AP. He took AP/IB (cross-enrolled) Environmental as a soph, got a 5 on the AP. Did not take the IB because it was his intention to take HL Bio and IB doesn’t permit both – but he has found the enviro EXTREMELY helpful so far in HL Bio.</p>
<p>Kids at his IB program are advised to take the AP Lit after the first year of IB HL English because they are so well prepared. S never cracked an AP book for either Econ, Spanish or English Lit.</p>
<p>His program is a TON of work. The colleges know this. The process by which students are selected and the paces these kids are put through is staggering. Part of this is because they cover AP and IB objectives, plus require a level of depth and excellence that knocks your socks off. You should see the essays that earned S2 Cs. His 9th grade pre-IB English class was tougher than my other son’s AP Eng Lang class. The IB standards are much higher.</p>
<p>OTOH, my other son, who is a math/CS guy, would not even consider IB and went to a math/science program. IB math and CS were not deep or fast enough for him – though he would have loved the humanities side (which this particular school’s program happens to do extraordinarily well). For this S, AP exams were an early launching pad to further post-AP coursework.</p>