Parent Thoughts on IB Programme

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi. Starting right off, I am indeed a student. But I have found that in the student forums, discussions of the IB programme tend to devolve into fiery slurs hurled by overcompetitive academic students being fierce fanboys of their particular program. </p>

<p>I don't have any evidence that something similar won't happen if I ask this in the parent forum, but I figured I would give it a shot. So without further ado...</p>

<p>I am a sophomore who, in a few months time, will make the decision whether to venture into the unkown waters of IB or stay on the beaten track of AP. My parents and I know little of this program, and as it is very difficult to get my counselor to concede any flaws in the IB program whatsoever (big time IB fanboy school), we are left with very minimal resources for comparison of the two big programs. </p>

<p>Thus I come to you, learned parents. Any stories, opinions supported by evidence, rants, etc. are all welcome here, with respect to the topic at hand, of course, which is IB v. AP.</p>

2

<p>My son did IB and one drawback was that he had to take 2 science classes (physics), which he wasn’t really interested in. The second physics class during senior year prevented him from taking an American Government class during the same period, which was more in his area of interest. It turned out okay, but fitting everything in for IB did limit his course choices somewhat.</p>

<p>I appreciated the well-rounded aspect to the IB program. Writing the extended essay was great practice for college. My son’s opinion is that it was a lot of extra work and in retrospect, he’s not sure it was worth it. I think he gained a lot from it and it is a plus on applications. </p>

<p>His college did not accept much AP credit, only science and math I believe. So if he had gone the AP route, it would not have helped him get college credit.</p>

3

<p>My kids didn’t have a choice, but from the research I’ve done. IB is great for kids who are well-rounded, like to write and think the idea of writing the TOK essay while you are busy with college applications sounds like fun. I really think it’s a great curriculum. That said, it’s not always completely implemented, so if you go that route, make sure you are getting the complete package. It’s probably also worth asking what the pass rates on the exams and papers are.</p>

<p>AP is, I think better for the more lopsided kid. My older son took three science APs (including Phyics C) and Calc BC. He was able to jump into advanced level science and math courses at Carnegie Mellon. My younger son meanwhile, more of a history geek was able to take AP Euro, AP US history and AP World History. His college is a bit stingier than older son’s was with AP or IB credits. </p>

<p>I don’t know if there are any issues in implementing the IB curriculum and making sure you meet your state’s graduation requirements. Here in NY our school does some handwaving to make sure kids meet the Economics and Government requirements even if they are taking the “wrong” AP course.</p>

4

<p>As a parent, my kids were never fortunate enough to be in an IB program. As a professor however, I think it wins HANDS DOWN, as absolutely fabulous preparation for university. IB students do so well and really stand out from all my other students. </p>

<p>It does sound like a huge ton of work and so it is not for every student. And possibly those who go through it would know more than me about its downsides (everything has downsides), but I’ve been consistently impressed by IB students. I so wish my kids could have done it.</p>

<p>BTW, I’m only familiar with kids that went to IB highschools.</p>

5

<p>As a college instructor, I’ve talked with probably ten different students over the years (usually freshmen) who came from a local IB program. Most said they loved it. One dropped out of the program because it was a small population at a large high school, and he said if you click with the teachers it’s great, but if you don’t, it’s horrible. He apparently didn’t fit in well socially with the IB student population either.</p>

<p>As a parent I’ve attended two IB information sessions and heard testimony from students in the program. Unanimously they agreed that junior year was a huge step up from sophomore year in terms of homework load, sometimes with more homework than could humanly be done. They described junior year as “a lot of tears.” Students who came back from college said the IB program was more challenging than their freshman year in college, and credited the TOK paper for teaching them what most of their peers were struggling to learn in college. The main drawbacks to the IB program seemed to be less freedom to choose electives and the oppressive junior year workload. For those two reasons there was a lot of migration out of the IB diploma program and into the certificate program. Despite the allegedly impossible workload, students still reported being involved in extracurriculars (usually band). My own kids opted for a magnet high school instead of the IB school.</p>

<p>The IB students I’ve had in my class haven’t necessarily been my best students, but they’ve been consistently strong. I’ve also had a lot of students from the same local high school who did not participate in the IB program, and they tended to be not as strong as those who did. I can’t say the IB program made them better students, since the fact that they went through the IB program means they were probably more motivated to begin with.</p>

6

<p>You can compare the courses you would take in the IB program versus the courses you would take otherwise.</p>

<p>And you can check the universities you are interested in to see how much subject credit they will give for IB Higher Level tests versus AP tests.</p>

7

<p>Welcome to the Parents Forum. :)</p>

<p>I agree with starbright; IB will give you a wonderful preparation for college. When my D was a college freshman, she said, “I can tell you exactly who did IB.” They have been taught to think critically and analytically, to see connections, and to communicate their thoughts well.</p>

<p>Maybe the biggest downside is the time commitment. You will be doing ALOT of work (and spdf is right; junior year is the roughest in that regard), and if you have any significant ECs, you will need to learn to work all of that in with your studies. The silver lining there is that you’ll be ahead of the game once you get to college and already know how to manage your time and study efficiently.</p>

<p>One thing you should check into is how long IB has been at your high school. I wouldn’t jump into an IB program in its first year or two because it takes some time to get the program running smoothly at a given school. If it’s been there 6-8 years, even better.</p>

8

<p>My daughter did the IB Diploma Program and I have to say that it was one of the best decisions we took as a family. And I truly believe that it was one of the reasons that made her application strong and she was successful in getting acceptance to her number one choice of College and that too in ED.</p>

<p>I am from India and the National Curriculum is very limiting. Why I say this is that it is for various reasons. Firstly it involves Rote learning. Secondly it does not allow students flexibility after Class 10 as it forces one to choose streams like Science, Commerce or Humanity, and , therefore can be very limiting for someone who at 16 still want to explore options. Thirdly it does not encourage classroom discussions as teachers just want to finish the syllabus and stick to whatever is there in the textbook.</p>

<p>For my daughter IB was a dream program. She loves to read just about anything. She is a decent writer. She likes to ask questions and really likes to discuss and debate. She is as much into Science and Math as she is into languages- English, German, Spanish, Hindi and Punjabi.</p>

<p>IB allowed her the freedom to combine a variety of Subjects, Math HL, Psychology HL, Business Studies HL, ,English HL Biology SL and Spanish AbIn. IB requires one to take six subjects 3 HL and 3 SL. She challanged herself by opting to take 4 HLs and 2 SLs. </p>

<p>She absolutely loved the Program for TOK the subject which allowed her to speak her mind as she believes there are no absolute truths and it also encouraged her to ask questions, think out of the box. The EE and Presentations required for internal assessment honed her skills like public speaking, effective writing as everything had word limits, team and time management, meeting deadlines etc.</p>

<p>Since no two kids had the same combination of Subjects for the first time she was competing with herself and not others. Also the CAS got her involved in Community Service Programs which was not available in the earlier curriculum. It was in a way life changing for her. I know my post is already too long but I want to share this.</p>

<p>When she was going for a program where they had to organise a cultural event with children fromSchool of Hearing and Speech Challanged, she said to me, ‘Mom I am very apprehensive as to how will I communicate as they can’t speak or hear and so they will feel out of place with us.’ And she came back home that evening and said, ‘Mama I was wrong. They are not challanged we are the ones who are. I was the one out of place because they can communicate among themselves and with us more with their eyes and hands and signs than we can with mere words.’ And I thought to myself that I would have never been able to give her this perspective in any classroom anywhere in the world.</p>

<p>Along with these she was also involved in ECs (MUN-5 Years) and Clubs ( the Earth club, Habitat for Humanity and the AIDS club), part of media team.</p>

<p>Having said that I would also say that this program is not for everybody. One has to have an aptitude and passion to enjoy this program.</p>

9

<p>Another vote for pro IB here. My daughter is at at a top LAC where many of her classmates went to the top prep schools in the country, whereas my daughter went to a public school in one of the worst performing states in the country. I believe the rigour of IB greatly contributed to her keeping up academically with her classmates. She has zero regrets in doing it.</p>

10

<p>Our district’s IB program starts with the middle years program in 7th grade. There are 90 spaces and students have to formally apply. By senior year, the program dwindles down to about 30 kids. Some of the attrition is social but most of it is from sophomores who watch the juniors in the year ahead suffer tremendous anxiety because of the work load.</p>

<p>For the kids that make it through, most say that college is easy compared to IB. In my area of the Southeast, the colleges that most kids apply to seem not to give preference to IB kids vs kids with heavy AP loads.</p>

<p>If you are concerned about going to college with credits, credit for the IB program really depends on the particular school. There is one small school in our state that takes IB kids as sophomores. Other schools don’t give credit but the IB kids tend to test out of most lower level classes.</p>

<p>We moved right before my daughter’s junior year so she didn’t complete the program. I’m not sure if she could have handled the junior year work load because of her ADHD but she is a great writer as a result of her IB experience.</p>

11

<p>Thanks for all of these excellent comments! We have lots to think about, mainly the bits about drawbacks of new IB schools (we’ve only had it about 3 years here, 4 when I enter) and the difficulty of doing heavy ECs with IB. I guess I’ll be knocking another hour off my nightly sleep if I do this ;)</p>

12

<p>There are a number of old threads on this that you could also read. My kids both did IB, and liked it a lot. I think it’s important to get some evaluation of how well the specific school delivers IB. How have the kids done in terms of getting the diploma? Do the best teachers teach IB or AP?
I also echo the advice that if you’re a heavy-duty math/science person, IB is probably not the best choice, because it can actually hold you back, especially in math.
As far as credits, at my kids’ school, many of them take the corresponding AP test when they take an IB SL exam.</p>

13

<p>I am a little concerned about the fact that you’re only making the decision now.</p>

<p>At the schools in our area that have the IB program, kids sign up in 8th grade, and some of their 9th and 10th grade classes are modified to help prepare them for the IB courses that they will take in 11th grade and 12th grade. Occasionally, a student is admitted into the IB program late, without having taken the pre-IB courses. Often, these kids struggle.</p>

<p>It sounds as though in your school system, kids are dropped directly into IB without any pre-IB warmup of any kind. I wonder how well this has been working.</p>

<p>One more point: I know that this is a minority opinion, but my IB kid was unimpressed with the content of TOK.</p>

14

<p>Our school lets students decide at the end of 10th grade whether they will do full IB, AP or a mixture. The student has to have achieved certain math and language levels to qualify for the diploma program. We don’t have warmup either–(just take AP US government in 10th grade so that you fulfill state requirements). There is an IB middle years program but only a minority of IB diploma kids attended that MS (my kids went to spanish magnet middle school). </p>

<p>My kids go to a HS with a very successful IB program (good scores) and a large selection of AP classes so the top students do either the full IB or all AP and then argue about who suffers more. Generally it is agreed that junior year IB is the worst. My S did a certificate approach–picking and choosing ap and ib classes based on the teachers and his interests. I agree that for lopsided kids in sciences/math the AP may be the better route. Still, AP may then make you more lopsided… Most IB HL and SL math programs encourage students to take BC and AB calc tests (our school pays for both IB and AP tests) and also the AP language test in your foreign language. Some universities are MUCH less accepting of SL IB credits which is a shame because they are just as strong preparation as AP. For example, Carnegie Mellon did (like mathmom pointed out) give S credit and advanced status for his BC calc result but not for the HL math…they gave him AP spanish credit for the AP test he took as a 9th grader and could have aced as a 6th grader but not IB HL A spanish (bilingual diploma) which is a 2 year college level course that is taken by kids in Spain. Go figure?! Not all SL courses cross over with the AP–SL physics does not really prepare you for AP physics, history of the americas is not adequate prep for APUSH so you have to do extra prep (when? what free hours?). </p>

<p>My D is doing the full diploma and I am concerned about the amount of work. First week of junior IB schedule with a varsity sport and she has not gone to bed before 12:30am. </p>

<p>I think IB is the best choice for her because she is uncertain what she wants to study in college, will benefit from the extended essay and she can do a full bilingual diploma because our school offers HL A Spanish as well as HL A English. I just hope she can pace herself and accept that straight As is probably neither a reasonable nor a healthy goal.</p>

15

<p>OP, my kids had the same choice and they chose AP.</p>

<p>One of my kids is very well-rounded but IB would actually have held her back. Certain courses had to be taken junior and senior year and she was ready for the material earlier. This is not uncommon in our school and tends to occur in math and foreign language. Also, we found AP sciences stronger. The same kid took 7 years of science in high school, including several APs, and I’m not sure she would have had that flexibility in her last 2 years if she had done IB. And, last but not least (to her), she really didn’t care for the readings in IB. She spoke to each teacher, compared the reading list, and didn’t like the philosophical slant of the books chosen in IB. I do not know, however, if the reading selection is chosen by the specific teacher. By the way, that kiddo wanted to go to a top lac. The parents and administration at our competitive suburban school tell new parents that the kids who go to top schools from our hs all do IB. It’s not true. Dd had great results and got into top-10 and top-20 lacs. I think the difference between her and most AP kids is that she was not lopsided and did AP in all subject areas.</p>

<p>Another of my children is very committed to music and taking a full IB program would have limited opportunities in music. That kid is taking a combination of AP and IB courses. </p>

<p>I would urge you to talk to the teachers involved in both programs. Both teachers will probably champion their courses, but you should ask specific questions about books chosen, test results, hours of homework, etc. I would expect that either a full IB or full AP schedule would add more than an hour a night to a typical soph homework load.</p>

16

<p>You might want to check how many students at your school end up with the IB designation? A parent on a thread that I frequent indicated the IB test passage rates were lousy at her student’s school and thus many students who pursued the program never got the designation. If that is important to you then that is a consideration (even though the IB diploma designation comes after college admittance.) I also understand that the requirements are somewhat rigid so how your h.s. administers the program and builds in meeting all the requirements (e.g. with or without flexibility for other h.s. mandated classes) may determine whether it ends up being a nightmare or not.
Good luck with the decision.</p>

17

<p>My children also chose AP over IB. They are well rounded, and intend to pursue engineering and/or math/science majors. For them, IB was much too light on math and science. At an IB/AP overview, it was said that IB tends to appeal to students who tend to see things more holistically and AP can appeal to students who see things more in black and white.</p>

18

<p>IB can also be a challenge for a kid who, for example, wants to be in chorus, band, or orchestra all four years in high school, because IB adds required courses and may make scheduling difficult. My kids were only able to get the schedules they wanted by taking a required health course online.</p>

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<p>My D was in a private, non-IB high school, and ended up taking 10 AP courses overall, earning 24 credits at her very good college. We had several friends in IB programs at the same time and what I noticed was that, at the time my D was relaxed and happy at the end of her senior year, preparing for AP exams but not really stressing about them because they would not matter toward her college admissions at that point (she was already accepted and had earned many AP credits in her junior year), her friends in IB programs were loaded down with work to prepare for their IB exams, which did matter greatly toward whether they would earn the IB diploma. That sounded like a crumby way to spend the last semester of your senior year.</p>

20

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<p>My daughter, who went to the same IB school as Hunt’s offspring, managed to be in the band class all four years only by taking health and two tech ed courses (required for high school graduation) in summer school, thus killing the better part of one and a half summers, and by choosing some of the less demanding options within the IB program. And nowadays, I’m not even sure that tech ed can be taken in summer school – there have been some changes in that program.</p>

<p>One logistical problem with IB is that there are certain things that MUST be taken in 11th grade. It’s the most awkward year to schedule. And this can interfere with life for students whose favorite “extracurricular activity” involves a class that meets during the school day (such as band, orchestra, chorus, journalism, or drama).</p>