<p>Is this true?
A friend of mine told me that ivy leagues do not accept AP students from schools that offer IB courses because AP courses are not the MOST challenging courses one can take.</p>
<p>Please let me know. I'm in the middle of writing college essays!</p>
<p>Well, you’re probably screwed, but think of it this way: if they don’t want you, then why would you want them? Do you want to date a guy/girl who considers you “not good enough” based upon some number or other?</p>
<p>Nonsense. Both my daughters took APs instead of IB in a school that offered IB and they both went to Ivy League schools. Probably the only difference is that full IB kids automatically get the most rigorous designation, whereas the transcripts of the AP kids probably get a closer look from the GC to determine that they did in fact take all honors and AP classes (formal “most rigorous” designation is determined by the high school, not the college).</p>
<p>This isn’t true. Admissions into the Ivy Leagues don’t only depend on your level of classes, though they are* important. Is there a reason why you took AP classes rather than IB?</p>
<p>That is not true at all. I’ve headed the alumni interviewing committee for Harvard in my area, and have personally heard from Harvard admissions officers (and from adcoms at other top schools) that the admissions regards AP and IB equally.</p>
<p>Where i live there are is an IB magnet program as well as high schools with lots of APs. Sometimes, the only students admitted to Harvard from my area are students who’ve chosen the AP curriculum.</p>
<p>That really isn’t true, so I don’t think you have anywhing to worry about.</p>
<p>On a side note…why do people keep capitalizing IVY and spelling it “ivy’s”? It doesn’t stand for anything and I’ve always seen them called the Ivies.</p>
<p>Also, an apostrophe indicates possession.</p>
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<p>Not always. It can be used to pluralize a short acronym or number.</p>
<p>True…but it doesn’t really work here…</p>
<p>I think the misconception here is that a student is judged in part by what other students achieved given the same opportunities and academic environment. We tell a student ‘If your school has 10 AP classes and you only take 3, your course rigor may not be judged as highly as a student who took 6. If your school offers only 5 APs and you took 3 then you are probably in better standing.’. This is to help students understand also that 3APs at high school A does not necessarily equal 3APs at high school B.
From this I think there is confusion when you have an IB magnet program within a high school that also offers AP classes. Students worry that IB is preferred inherently and will ‘throw the curve’, making their APs pointless. I disagree, as others have. Ultimately the IB student is not preferred over the AP. There are too many variables of the student as an individual, thus universities select the student, not the IB or AP program.</p>
<p>Just write about how those evil, vicious IB bullies discriminated against you brave, oppressed AP kids, and how you lead a revolution to overturn that classi-cist evil-ocracy and instituted the egalitarian AP-ocracy.</p>
<p>But really, if you’re applying then you can’t do anything about it anymore, can you? No use worrying about it.</p>
<p>Will your GC mark “Most Rigorous” on your application? If so, there’s not much too worry about.</p>
<p>The biggest issue is that schools with IB programs invest a lot of money and effort in these programs and in finding IB-certified teachers. This likely means that not as much attention is paid to AP teachers and classes in general, which could affect your AP scores, an (albeit small) factor in admissions. It might also mean there are fewer AP classes than there are IB available, which, if your school weights grades, could impact your rank.</p>
<p>Rank is what has traditionally kept AP students in my school from doing as well as the IB kids in admissions.</p>