We’re in a bit of an odd pickle, and I’d love some more experienced advice about High School choices. We’re an expat family and I need to make a decision about high schools in conjunction with moving on to our next contract. I will have one son in 10th grade coming out of an IB Program geared toward students from the UK, and one entering 9th grade. Most of the schools we have access to are on the IB Program, but there are some that offer more traditionally American programs with AP Classes.
Basically, I’m wondering which is going to be better for science and engineering-focused kids applying to US Colleges. With two so close together, we would like to maximize the credits they can get from High School work, but I’m most concerned with making sure they’re getting a high school education that prepares them to succeed in college (ie. they’ve got a solid math and science foundation).
My worry with the IB program is both that it’s a lot of stress and doesn’t seem to be as well-understood or respected in the US as AP, and that our experience with International Schools is that they tend to be pretty focused on the Liberal Arts, and Science can tend to get the short end of the stick. I also understand that the IB curriculum can limit their course options so they don’t get the full slate of science and math – or have to chose between them at “High Level” versus “Standard Level”. The kids also have a very strong math background already, since their schools have tried to match the local curriculum which pushes math much harder at a younger age – they started Algebra in grade 5.
Is it worth majorly narrowing my options job-wise to try to find an AP high school? Can the kids decide to take AP tests independent of the class being designated “AP” by the school? Any words of wisdom from parents who have been there and done that and don’t have a dog in this fight?
No dog in the fight- and not an expert, just an observer:
It’s all about the teaching. A high quality teacher (or a school with a culture which supports strong teacher) can give a solid foundation regardless of the curriculum or the nomenclature. An inferior teacher- even one being heavily supervised and coached- is going to be hit or miss.
I think colleges understand and respect IB so I’d put that out of your head.
Getting credits for HS work- that’s somewhat random and you cannot predict upfront what’s going to be the policy once your kids get there. Some colleges will give credit for 4’s and 5’s on an AP exam. Some use the scores for placement only. Some will give you credit but it doesn’t accelerate you since you need to take a certain number of classes on their campus to get a degree- so showing up with a year’s worth of AP credits doesn’t make you a sophomore.
I think with these unknowns- pick the most academically challenging HS available to you which meets your kids other needs…
A few HS’s near me have done away with AP’s all together- they’ve developed their own courses which they say are more rigorous. Their kids don’t seem to suffer in college. A few HS’s near me spend hundreds of hours debating: move to block scheduling? More AP’s or fewer? Make IB the default option? and again- my observation is that in a school with expert teachers you can’t mess up. In a school with a lot of mediocre teachers, it’s a band-aid or just moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic. Block scheduling or IB doesn’t transform a chemistry teacher who didn’t get a degree in chemistry into some sort of scientific genius. That teacher is still going to be one chapter ahead of the kids.
Yes, kids can sign up for AP tests on their own, and many do it every year. But again- it may help, it may not.
What are the specific AP and IB HL offerings in science and math? Other subjects? For IB, are there specific subjects that must be HL, or must be SL (because the other level is not offered)?
What math is the student in in which grade? What would the math progression be in each program? If highly advanced, are there options to take more advanced math at a college?
Agree with the questions to consider in #2… Is it possible to do HL in more than one science, plus math? We have a friend who ran into trouble with IB and couldn’t work in bio, chem, and physics, and couldn’t do HL in more than one science.
Yes, kids can self study for the AP exam although I don’t always think that’s the best option especially for courses like AP chem and AP Physics.
That all said, I agree with the first poster that IB is very well respected. Many students successfully make it work. If the best school is IB, I’d go with it.
It’s possible, in theory, to do 2 HL sciences with the IBDP where the second science is in lieu of a Group 6 art subject. Whether scheduling or school policy makes it doable is a separate question. 3 sciences is not possible.
The other issue, as mentioned earlier, is that IB math may not be a high enough level for an accelerated math student.Whether there are opportunities in school or outside to do higher level math on top of the IB requirements is a topic of conversation to be had with the school.
All US colleges will understand IB and it is well-respected by AOs.
Just because IB may not be understood as much in the general population, it is very much understood by college admissions.
My daughter who ended up being a Math Major took HL Math, Chem and Physics and SL English, Business and German Ab intio (we were living in Germany).
She got over a year of college credits from her IB diploma at SUNY Binghamton.
I would tell you to have absolutely no qualms in sending them to an IB Diploma School.
Make sure they have HL courses in the STEM classes they want, of course.
As far as stress, yes, it is a lot of work, but they are prepared when they go to college. They have done an Extended Essay so know how to do an in depth research paper. They know how to
It’s extremely common for kids to take 2 sciences to HL in my kids’ school. A dozen, will take a third science to SL, and a couple will take Chem, Bio and Physics to HL, all three will not count for the diploma. But they take the exams for potential college credit or to be well prepared for the courses in college. We have 8 periods, so there are some kids with some pretty insane schedules.
IMO don’t look at it as future class credit in core subjects, the IBD will help off load gen eds most of the time, but the core stuff of science and math should not be relied on. Look at what offers the best prep for college and is taught well… Credit is often overrated. It is likely you have good IBD schools to choose from. As for the lack of knowledge, when my kids were in HS (US, red state, ultra low education funding) I could have driven them to any of 4 IBD schools. There are more IBD kids from the US than any other country AFAIK. Many kids do 4 HLs with 2 sciences. Unis are very familiar with the IBD. It is not a novel program or a hook.
My son did both AP and IB classes, and I think IB tend to be more meaningful. The research papers may take a lot of time, so you need to be well organized, but otherwise it’s not inherently more stressful. Some schools have both and one class will prepare for both AP and IB exams. The issue some advanced kids run into is that you can only take HL in the last year of school, so they take Math HL instead of or concurrently with harder math classes (like dual enrollment with their local college).
In some high schools, students do not have to be in the IB diploma program to take IB courses, but they do at other high schools.
If your high school is one of the less restrictive ones where any student can take IB courses, another option is to take selected ones according to interest, without having to be constrained by the rigidity of the diploma program.
Non US schools that teach just the IBD will probably produce better scores than the US 8 period AP/IB combo though. One student at my kids school’s IBD award night got a 39 and it was like she walked on actual water. It was an education for me because I thought a decent IB score for bright kids was over 40. However the school spits out students with IBD and maybe 10-12 APs and some get into tippy tops every year. I would have loved my kids to go to an IBD only high school that had an appropriate schedule though. 8 periods made into 6 plus TOK sounds like hours of extra class time. I have learned in teh US that the IBD score is pretty meaningless. That won’t be true of other countries.
My opinion (as someone who had no access to an IB program so hasn’t looked into it that closely) is that IB is a sounder program in general. The kid who goes through it will be more well rounded and better prepared for college work. That said, for some kids it can be too stressful, and if you have a kid who is really much more interested in STEM than humanities and social sciences AP may be a better bet. My oldest for example did linear equations as a senior and took 3 AP sciences, he took a pass on AP English options, but did do AP Econ and APUSH as well as AP Latin all of which he found pretty easy. My younger son who was much more well rounded (he loved history and took 3 history APs}. but also did 2 science, and Calc BC, I think would have thrived with an IB program if it had been available. As Blossom points out, the most important factor is really the teachers. That will always trump the theoretical program.
That describes IB course selection at my high school to a T, although my experience is fairly dated at this point. Personally, I doubled up on IB Bio and Chem HL but opted for AP Physics C since IB Physics doesn’t incorporate calculus – unless that has changed in recent years.
I majored in the sciences in college (Earth & Ocean Sciences) and thought IB was great preparation.
Fellow expat here, though wrapping up six years overseas and heading back to the U.S. in June. D19 and S22 did the last two years at an IB school in Geneva, after four years at an American-curriculum school in London. Chiming in with others to assure you that IB is no impediment at all for U.S. college admissions, and in fact can be a leg up. It’s a great program. Also, not sure where you’re headed, but we found that schools in Switzerland that offer both IB and the U.S. high-school diploma give the latter short shrift.
DS was advanced in elementary school and was accepted to the local IB for middle school. The IB was very rigid in their approach and I reached out to the IB organization itself that indicated it was a local decision to not offer advanced curriculum. Ultimately we found a charter that was a bit of a commute that worked well.
The program at the charter was accelerated, but not much. The teachers were generally good. The best part was the cohort. DS did very well in middle and now in high school it has been a bit disappointing but he has done well and found courses to keep him challenged (plus he participates in different academic competitions).
The IB high school has a more advanced set of kids but at this stage DS is way beyond their curriculum. If I were to move to a different city and had a younger child I think I would try to ascertain if there was a middle or high school in the vicinity that frequently has kids that perform well on the AMC tests.
@belleweather, We are also Americans living overseas. My son’s international high school offered both IB and AP tracks. Kids chose one or the other and in some cases, sampled a little of each. This was especially true of students who wanted or needed exposure to American History because they were planning to graduate from a US high school.
Teachers were divided along party lines, which, to me was unfortunate because it watered down the talent in both streams, and led students to choose teachers over curriculum. I would have preferred for the school to commit to one or the other.
When my son researched academically rigorous American colleges in 1993, we found that the IB Diploma was widely understood and respected. I’m sure it is even more so now. He was in the humanities, not sciences, but overall IB kids from his high school did VERY well in admission to colleges and universities in the US and all over the world.
The abstract thinking and analytical skills developed in the required Theory of Knowledge class were invaluable in preparation for college level writing assignments. As a general statement, I felt that IB courses were not well suited to subjective subjects like visual art, though the focus on verbalizing creative concepts was also helpful in college level studio courses.
My son’s high school issued a letter grade for each class, independent of the IB exam score. This is not the case with all IB schools which can make calculating GPAs tricky. Since fInal IB exam scores are not released until spring of the senior year, college adcoms need to be accustomed to working with predicted scores. In many countries outside of the US, gap years are common and students apply after final scores are available.
As it turned out, my son received zero college credit/advance placement for his IB classes, but I think that was more a function of the college’s policy, than a reflection of their perception of the IB or his performance.
Also, to your question of taking AP exams… it is definitely possible. At our school, many of the SL classes were also the AP class (chem, FL). This will vary from school to school, but with a little effort, your kid can get the AP credit if that’s important.
Personally, I think the IB program is stronger but also more work. While it’s always a little reckless to simplify to this extent, AP tests are geared toward testing mastery of subject matter while IB is more geared toward critical thinking using mastered subject matter.
One of the challenges for IB schools in the US is that they have a shorter school year than most of their foreign counterparts, so have less time to cover the material. I suspect that is one of the reasons for the sentiment that it’s so much work.
Another reason why IB may be more work for U.S. IB students is that they don’t just do IB. They also have to meet state graduation requirements and U.S. testing expectations, and this doesn’t happen automatically.
For example, at my daughter’s U.S. IB school, students were required to take English and History as two of their HL courses. This was necessary so that they could meet state graduation requirements. But it limited their options.
In addition, it was a challenge for students who planned to take SAT subject tests to arrange their academic schedules so that they would be prepared to take these tests at the appropriate time. With many IB courses being taught as two-year sequences in grades 11 and 12, students would not necessarily be prepared to take subject tests at the end of 11th grade or early in 12th grade, which is the latest time when these tests can be taken. This situation was especially difficult for students applying to programs (especially engineering programs) that require science subject tests. Those kids often took extra science courses (regular or AP) on top of the IB program.
One more point: If your student is planning to do IB abroad but applying to U.S. colleges, I would inquire about how the student’s credentials will be evaluated. Students from U.S. IB schools who apply to U.S. colleges are NOT evaluated on the basis of their IB scores. No college ever asked my daughter for predicted or actual IB scores (and she never submitted any because she didn’t use any them to try to place out of courses). She must have been evaluated on the basis of other things. I’m not sure whether students from foreign IB schools even have those other things.
Science subject tests are designed to be taken after a first year high school.course, not AP or IB level. A good student taking 9 and 10 grade bio and chem can have 2 science subject tests done before they even start IB. Math 2 is best take near rhe end of pre calc, which is 10th grade for most of our IB students and 11th for the rest.