<p>Ever been to the Truth About IB website? I fell for it last year… They’re the fox news of education!</p>
<p>Yea prune, I’ve seen that site. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>D’s IB school is a magnet; it is split just about evenly between IB and the local neighborhood kids, virtually two different schools sharing a campus. IB was brought to that specific school 22 years ago precisely because it was the worst in the district. It’s the most remarkable thing, though. The two groups have almost no overlap, in the classroom or anywhere else, but they peacefully coexist. You have a bunch of overachieving, HYPS-aspiring, suburb-dwellling geeks (D’s word), and a group of low-grade, low-score, underprivileged kids most of whom will probably not make it to community college – different in almost every way you can imagine, a perfect setup for constant conflict IMO. And yet they not only leave each other alone; but the performance and behavior within the neighborhood group has markedly improved over the years. In fact, the class of '09 included the school’s first graduates of the International Passport program, and they wore their commencement regalia every bit as proudly as the IBers did, and rightfully so!</p>
<p>RE IB prep for SAT subjects test, contrary to what coreur experienced, D felt that IB did a good job of prepping her, including Bio. This points to the importance of researching a given school’s particular IB program. Some are stellar; others have problems. </p>
<p>I also want to pass along D’s observation about ToK. Like everyone else, D dreaded it going in, and loathed it when she got there. But she now says it was invaluable in preparing her for college discussion classes.</p>
<p>“The school would allow me to test out of its highest math class junior year and will be able to take Calculus BC…”</p>
<p>I’m confused. Don’t you need to take IB HL or SL Math for the diploma? I’ve never heard of anyone taking an IB exam without taking the class.</p>
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<p>At the IB school my daughter attended, no one dreaded ToK (although some resented it because of scheduling problems it caused). What they dreaded was the EE.</p>
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<p>You have to take the HL or SL Math or SL Math Studies exam for the diploma; you have to be taking a math course of some sort at the time when you take your IB Math exam; and you have to do the Internal or External Assessments (whichever they are; I can’t remember) related to the IB Math exam you will be taking. But you do not have to be enrolled in a course labeled IB Math at the time that you take the IB Math exam.</p>
<p>At my daughter’s school, there is a large group of IB students who are good at math but who do not intend to take HL Math, usually because they would prefer to take some other subject HL. These students take courses before calculus that cover all of the non-calculus subjects on the IB SL Math Exam and then, when they are juniors or seniors, they take AP AB or BC Calculus, do the IAs or EAs during that year, and take both the AP Calculus exam and the IB SL Math exam at the end of that year. I think that the majority of the class deals with their math exams this way. This approach seems to be acceptable to IB; it has been going on for many years. </p>
<p>Your son’s prospective school may have a similar arrangement.</p>
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<p>In some districts, it does; not all districts have the resources and/or the desire to fund both AP and IB programs. </p>
<p>My district, which is very large, has AP in all 26 high schools, and IB in just a few, so that is not a concern here, but that is exactly what happened in the school district in which the primary author of The Truth About IB website lives (and yes, I know her personally). Her district has one high school, and the AP program there, which had been a successful one, was essentially wiped out by IB.</p>
<p>Jay Mathews, the author of “Class Struggles,” is a strong proponent of IB; he’s coauthored books with people employed by the IBO, so I don’t know that he’s the most unbiased education journalist around. (There’s nothing wrong with being a strong proponent of IB, of course, but I think he compromises himself as a journalist when he pretends such connections just don’t matter.) Also, he doesn’t seem to look at studies he mentions critically, which I think he should do before touting their findings. It’s actually kind of scary how uncritical he is, in fact, and I’ve learned over the years to always, always read whatever “studies” he cites myself and look at the methodology before believing whatever conclusions he cites, because I’ve seen Mathews take what are essentially opinion pieces and cite them as respectable research.</p>
<p>He also takes no responsibility whatsoever for the impact of his “best high schools” list, refusing to believe that the creation of that list has any negative impact on schools whatsoever. My district’s attitude toward AP, at least in some of the schools, seems to be “Take the AP exam, the score be damned!,” which is a direct response to that ridiculous list. </p>
<p>(It’s not really open season on Mathews, though it may look like that from what I’m posting! He’s a nice guy and I’m glad SOMEone is writing about education; I just wish he’d be more the journalist – more thoughtful, more critical, more neutral, more reporterly – than he is.)</p>
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<p>LasMa, that is how IB is used in my district as well. IB isn’t intended for the “local neighborhood kids,” but rather to try to entice highly-able students to the bad schools. This does little to nothing to improve the education of the local neighborhood kids, but can make the school’s stats look better because if IB is successful (it’s not here, alas), the school then has a population of highly-able students to help balance out the poorer stats overall of the local neighborhood kids.</p>
<p>One of my district’s high schools has an excellent program that is native to that school/only in that school and is only for that school’s local neighborhood kids – no living elsewhere and traveling to that program. I wish my district did more of that: actually improve the education for the “local neighborhood kids,” rather than “improve” a school by importing better students to it.</p>
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<p>Marian, I definitely agree about EE! (and CAS to a lesser extent.) </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s just our school, but since MYP days, D had heard older students speak about ToK in hushed tones, usually followed by a shudder. When she took the class, she was very intimidated whenever she had to lead a discussion, especially at first. (Do other schools do ToK that way? – students taking turns leading the class in discussion.) She gained alot of confidence as the year went on, and like I said above, is finding that those skills come in handy at college. But yeah, it doesn’t compare to EE. I only brought it up because I hadn’t seen it mentioned. :)</p>
<p>Why do people dread writing their EEs so much? I loved doing mine; I was fascinated by the topic. I think that if you pick something you love, you’ll not hate writing it.</p>
<p>TOK is a different story, though. I ended up enjoying the class, though I don’t like the subject overly much.</p>
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<p>The IB Bio would have done a good job, perhaps a great job, of prepping my daughter for the Bio Subject Test if they hadn’t taken 3 years to do it. The material was not the problem; it was the timing. By integrating it with other topics and stretching it over three years, you don’t finish learning all the Bio concepts you need to know until the end of your senior year - long after you need to take the SAT Subject Test for admissions. </p>
<p>The program is great when viewed in its own little world, but it doesn’t always fit very well with the wider outside world. The IB kids are going to be some of the most motivated and hardest working kids around. They are nearly all going to go to college, so the program better fit within the college application process and calendar. Whoever designs the IB curriculum needs to think these things through better.</p>
<p>^ The thing is, the IB is not a solely American thing, so it cannot be tailored just to fit the American application process. Most other countries also have the IB, and many of their college processes are completely dissimilar to the American process.</p>
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<p>I think people dread it because 1) it’s a lot of work on top of an already-full class schedule; 2) you often don’t get to pick what you because it doesn’t fit well into the strict rubrics for the EEs for various subjects. </p>
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<p>IB is international. It is not specifically designed to mesh with the U.S. educational system, and the way that it fits into the university (to use the international term) admissions process in the United States is very different from how it fits in in other countries.</p>
<p>In many other countries, IB students are admitted or not admitted to universities based largely or entirely on their IB exam scores (or their predicted scores, if the actual scores are not yet available). In some countries, they may need to take specific subjects HL in order to qualify for university programs in the same subjects. The students do IB and nothing but IB during their two Diploma Program years, and they don’t have to take any other tests or fulfill any other requirements in order to graduate or to be admitted to higher education. The goal of IB students in most other countries is to get the highest possible IB test scores. Top students are shooting for scores in the 40s (out of a possible 45).</p>
<p>In the United States, the situation is very different. IB students, like everyone else, are judged on their GPAs, the rigor of their curriculum (they get a big plus here for being IB Diploma candidates), SAT/ACT scores, SAT Subject Tests (for some colleges), extracurricular activities, and essays. They also have to fulfill all the requirements for high school graduation as well as the IB Diploma requirements. In most cases, they do not have to choose their HL subjects based on their intended college majors, but they may be constrained in their choice of HL subjects because of high school graduation requirements. (For example, a lot of U.S. IB students MUST take HL English so they will fulfill state requirements of four years of English in high school.) Except for the scores on the one or two SL tests that some students take in 11th grade, which are of no more importance in the college admissions process than AP scores, IB exam scores play no role whatsoever in college admissions for U.S. IB students applying to U.S. universities. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, their universities will never even know whether they obtained the IB Diploma. The goal of U.S. IB students is to maximize the quality of their entire college admissions package – and, secondarily, to score high enough on HL exams to place out of certain courses in college (or alternatively to score high enough on AP tests taken in the same subjects to achieve the same goal). Also, they would like to get the IB Diploma (which requires a score of 24, with certain other stipulations), even though it has no real effect on their lives. For those who get the diploma, their actual IB scores are meaningless (except, perhaps, on a personal level).</p>
<p>In summary, U.S. IB students have to do more things and fulfill more requirements than IB students in most other countries do, but they do not need IB scores anywhere near as high as those that their foreign counterparts need.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
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<p>coreur: I see what you mean, that structure would definitely be problematic in terms of prepping for the SAT Subjects. And I hope you don’t think that I was contradicting you about your experience; that was not my intent at all. :)</p>
<p>Ahh… This is stuff that is good to know. The school has some sort of deal with the state with regards to the state requirements, so they’re not required of IB people.</p>
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<p>Well, then I guess IB is not very suitable for college-bound American kids then is it?</p>
<p>Could someone explain what exactly is the “deal” with IB Biology? Is it possible to go straight into higher level?</p>
<p>Probably depends on the school/state graduation requirements. Here, there is a state-wide Bio exam one must pass in order to graduate. IB students take a pre-IB Bio class freshman year, which also happens to be excellent preparation for the SAT-II Bio-M. They take pre-IB Chem soph year. Physics is (technically) an elective, but everyone takes it since that’s what college expect. Options there are regular, honors, AP, IB SL or IB HL. The pre-IB courses here are taught with the same depth and intensity as full IB courses, in part to get the students used to IB expectations and methodology. This also helps account for the school’s very high scores.</p>
<p>S2 is taking HL Bio now and it is definitely not an intro level course – but someome who is willing to bust tail and work hard could certainly do it without a pre-req.</p>
<p>In my son’s IB magnet program, they take preIB bio as freshmen and preIB chem as sophmores. I’m think (but am not sure) that they don’t offer SL Bio. My son is now taking HL Bio which is a 2-period course. I think this is great because they have time to do more serious lab work than would fit in a 50 minute class. Chemistry HL is also taught as a 2-period course. Physics is offered a more typical way–SL one year with a one period follow-on the next year for HL.</p>
<p>Hmm… Is there any reason why I would rather take Spanish than French? I’m not very interested in the third world countries (not being hateful: think how few big businessmen speak Spanish but not english)</p>
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In general, Spanish is a little easier than French. Beyond that, which one is more useful depends on what you plan to do in the long run. I think for most people who live in the U.S., Spanish is likely to be a bit more useful than French. There are more places near (or even in) the U.S. where you are likely to encounter people who speak only Spanish, as opposed to people who speak only French.</p>
<p>well i’m not concerned with US usability… I am slightly disillusioned with our ultra conservative country.</p>
<p>I just noticed that you live in Florida. Is this even a question, really?</p>