Making a High School Choice -- IB or AP for Sciences?

@VIckiSoCal, when my son was in 10th grade, he did exceptionally well in regular high school biology. I asked his guidance counselor whether it would make sense for him to take the biology subject test. The counselor said absolutely not because he would be competing with kids who had taken AP biology in 11th grade and therefore had two years of preparation rather than one.

It may have been the College Board’s intent to make the subject tests in science suitable for taking after one year of preparation, but implementation may be a different matter.

YMMV in different school systems, of course. Some school systems may have such excellent regular science courses that competing with AP kids is not an issue.

It is not a competition. It is about covering the curriculum of a first year high school science course. D17 took Chem subject test after 10th grade honors chem with about a one hour review of test material and got a 730. D20 took the bio practice test in 9th with no prep but ended up not taking the test and scored a 760. The material covered is not AP level.

Yes, SAT subject tests general cover material that should be in regular high school courses (as opposed to AP courses).

The common belief that the AP course is necessary to do well on the SAT subject test may be due to some low quality high schools where the regular high school courses are of inferior quality.

There is one subject where an AP course may be worse preparation for the SAT subject test than a regular high school course. That is physics, where AP physics 1 or AP physics C mechanics covers only a portion of the topics in the SAT subject test, although in more depth than a regular high school physics course that covers all of the topics.

The physics subject test will also touch on a number of topics typically not covered in AP Physics C Mechanics or E&M, such as thermodynamics, wave optics, some random history of physics questions, and modern physics (mostly radioactive decay and photoelectric effect). Fortunately, it is surface level only, but kids should definitely go through PR or Barrons for the additional topics and not just rely even on both Physics C courses.

Implementation of the tests is not the issue. The Subject Tests **are[/b ] designed to be taken after a regular first course. Now, whether that particular school/teacher prepares for the corresponding test is a different issue. But in all cases, AP science courses cover less breadth than is covered the Subject Tests, and those gaps are particularly wide in physics as mentioned above. Even the AP Physics 1/2 combo or both parts of AP Physics C will have gaps. Perhaps the student will be more comfortable after having taken AP and filling in gaps on his/her own, but AP is not needed.

We are an expat family with a son graduating with the IB Diploma. His school is purely IB, not a mixed IB/AP schools. We have not found the IB to be disadvantageous at all in applying to US colleges. The US schools seem to recognize that getting through the IBD program requires a lot of discipline and hard work and that the program is good preparation for college work. I do agree it is important to look at the individual school to see what courses are offered and who teaches them. My son is not STEM-focused, but his school is. Students are required to take 3 higher-level courses during junior and senior year and 3 standard-level courses. It is not unusual to see kids taking two HL sciences plus HL math, although that would be a very demanding courseload. Many US colleges do give credit for IB classes, although it varies - some give credit only for HL classes with scores of 5 or above (or even 6 or above), some give credit for any IB class with scores above the minimum, etc. I think the scores they look to are the report card grades, rather than the official IB scores that don’t come out until June or so (certainly that is the case for admissions), but I am not sure.

The amount of credit given, or in most cases, not given, for SL classes is not reflective of the work. That is why many Amerocan kids also take the AP tests. At our high school AP Micro/Macro is built in to the one year SL Econ class. Most colleges would have given my kid 0 credit for a 6 in SL Econ and 2 semesters for her 2 5s on the AP exams.

For our schools IB SL is considered “on grade level” so no university credit is given. IB HL is considered equivalent to having completed a first year university course and is granted university credit (with a high enough score). AP courses are treated exactly the same as the two are considered equivalent in terms of course content. The 2 year sequence for HL is comparable to doing grade 12 university prep/Pre-AP + AP. Both IB HL and AP are 1 year accelerated as compared to our regular university prep courses.

Can you child take AP classes on line at the IB school? Thats an option here in Colorado, and thus it can be the best of both worlds. IB is not stressful, in our opinion, had two sons earn an IB diploma. Both are in science careers, one a PhD program in physics the other a bachelors program in math and CS. IB is a slight advantage for US college admissions as students are better at writing essays. That writing extends all the way to the scientific career, as much of research physics, biology and chemistry, as well as CS these days and neuroscience, is writing and winning grant proposals.

The IB requirement for a 6000 word essay can be a science experiment writeup, one son did chemistry and the other did a physics IB extended essay. We love the broadness of the IB sciences, our kids took HL math, HL physics and HL Chemistry. Biology is equally good. The HL chemistry labs are so good, some colleges ask to see the labs for credits so save all the lab writeups from IB if your child wants college credit. The IB credits were solid at their colleges.

Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Colorado colleges are particularly generous with IB credits. Some states actually legislate that an IB diploma gets a student in as a sophomore. In the sciences I still suggest 4 years of undergrad after an IB diploma and that allows a science student to take graduate subjects as a senior in college.

As long as the teachers are solid at the school you are looking at, IB is amazing for the right student. And fabulous for science students.

The IB theory of knowledge is similar to a prelaw class. Its an ethics discussion and required for an IB diploma.
Schools like Georgia Tech require an ethics class to get a bachelors of science degree today.

IB scores for exams taken in 12th grade, and thats four of the six required exams, are released in the USA in July after 12th grade, but maybe in Europe this is different.

IB scores come out at the same time for everyone for May exams, in July.

@gwnorth I understand that colleges may think SL is not equivalent to AP and therefore do not give credit for it. I am saying that in my experience, with the SL exams my kid took and the equivalent AP exams, SL is just as challenging and is on the same level.

That is why at our school students in SL are encouraged to take the equivalent AP exam if they want credit.

Kids at our school who take SL Econ and AP econ for one year, get better scores on the AP exam than they do on the IB SL exam. The AP exams are easier and cover less material. Yet colleges give two semesters of credit for AP Micro/Macro and zero for IB SL. That makes no sense.

Our Spanish sequence is:

Spanish 1/2/3 for three years

Spanish 4 SL/AP Lang

Spanish 5 HL/AP Lit

Again, credit for AP is given at most colleges, but not for SL.