<p>Hey I am at an IB school from Northern VA, meaning we offer dozens of IB classes but only 1-2 APs. Compared to everything else that I have read on this board, our scores are very low (1-2 1500's, nothing higher than a 1500 and only 20 or so 1400's). I know the first thing some will point out is a weak school, but we regularly place kids into the top schools in the country (this year 3 accepted to Duke early, 1 to MIT, 2 to Stanford, 1 to Princeton, 1 to Columbia, 4 to UNC, and over 25 to Virginia.) Personally, I believe it has something to do with the fact that AP coursework prepares students much better to take standardized tests due to a focus on multiple choices tests versus the essay exams that IB prepares its students for. Our SAT II scores are even worse (although, again the sub-600 scores dont seem to hurt kids chances at the above schools) due to the fact that we simply do not cover the same material which the AP courses do. Has anbody else recognized low test scores at their respective IB schools? Any othe guesses as to why?</p>
<p>My school, IB program, has incredibly low sat scores. I know that on avg a lot of the students here score around 600 for each section.</p>
<p>I'm also at an IB school and agree that SAT and SAT II scores suffer a bit. I mean SAT II's are really based on AP since both tests are done by the same company. We still have our share of high scores, but it does take some work. We also send people to top schools with not super super high scores (1400+ and solid GPA). </p>
<p>IB teaches you to think way differently and the tests are way different so thats why I guess, but I'd never trade IB.</p>
<p>At my school IBer's scores very, some people have great scores, others don't. I think a problem is that some people are so above what is tested on the SAT that they don't remember it. Some of my friends are great at math, and are in HL math, but only got about a 600 on the SAT because they don't really remember math at the SAT's level. I also agree that IB teaches you a whole new thought process that can make tkaing the SAT difficult.</p>
<p>"but only got about a 600 on the SAT because they don't really remember math at the SAT's level"</p>
<p>math is learned by creating building blocks.. unless the base is strong(alegbra/geometry and for college: calculus), a person cannot become talented at the higher levels..</p>
<p>my dad took a mock SAT a few years back and scored an 800 on the math section, multiple decades removed from learning "basic math" with no application of this "basic math" at his work. he learned calculus so well that he can solve most problems in my book without reading the section. therefore, i would argue that your reasoning for your friend getting a 600 on the SAT is not correct. english and writing maybe different and I assume the IB program places more emphasis on writing in general, which is an essential tool for success in colllege.</p>
<p>Ya, I know what you mean about math building blocks, and agree. Yet, that is what they told me, a lot of the ones in calc did not do well, and there may be some truth to what they are saying, but ture, remembering math fundementals is very important. I do think though that IB prepare students the best of SAT writing, almost everyone scored high 600's to 700's on writing. The IB writing method is diffrent, but it drills people on the basics, which is basically what the SAT tests. However, I think all Ibers have a problem writing a canned SAT style essay, becuase most of us would much rather write about philosophy. Basically all IBers from my schools metioned what we learned in Theory of Knowledge in our essays, it was quite funny.</p>
<p>Well I'm taking Biology SL and took the BIO ecology SAT2 in november last year (i'm IB 2 now). The questions there were just terrible - We didn't do like half of the stuff from it....my thanks go to sparknotes, where i crammed up much of the stuff the night before the test (got 700)</p>
<p>well it might be the extra work load that IB students need to carry, and so there's less time to study and focus on SAT ? anyways i believe IB is worth it ^^</p>
<p>IB is definitely worth it. I'm in Ib, taking a pretty rigorous load, and I still had time to study for the SAts and manage to get a decent score.</p>