<p>Bern.</p>
<p>AP Govt – My son has it for a full year. Prior to 2010-2011 it was a half year course. My son has it this year and thought it would be “easier” than he heard because it was being stretched out. Boy, was he wrong. They go into more depth than prior years. Most others we know only have it as a half year course.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. Here AP Music Theory is 1/2 year, but the pre-requisite is Intro to Music Theory. </p>
<p>Regarding the weighted GPA, at our school, everybody takes PE all 4 years and “most” electives are not weighted. So in general if you take 5 weighted academic classes, 1 elective, and PE, you would have a 4.714 for all A’s. If you take 5 weighted academic classes, NO elective, and PE, you would have a 4.833 for all A’s. According to our school profile, the top GPA is 4.667, so it doesn’t appear that even the tippy top kid forsakes electives for the GPA boost. (my conclusion).</p>
<p>My kid is not in that league, but it was worth it to me to do the calcs to understand your question.</p>
<p>I don’t even know how to do the calculations :(</p>
<p>RobD, popped in here by accident, but saw that your D has decided not to do IB! She will be happy to have a life junior and senior year, and 7-8 AP exams are nothing to sneeze at. Both of the guys’ schools offered 25+ and noone took that many, with one or two masochistic exceptions.</p>
<p>None of S2’s IB exams gave him more credit than the APs. Where I can see the advantage of IB now that he’s in college is that he can crank out long papers and does very well on them. For a kid who never got an A in IB English, he has gotten nothing but A and A- grades on college papers. He also had the study skills to manage the workload.</p>
<p>S2 had to write a math paper for the Math Studies IA. Think he spent an hour on it. S1 writes real math research papers. Those I read and “smile and nod.” :)</p>
<p>For us all classes (including Honors) have regular grading (4.0 = A), and only AP gives you an extra point (5.0 = A). We only offer I think 8 AP classes (AP Eng Lit, AP Eng Lan, AP Bio, APUSH, APWorld, APGOV, APEcon and AP Spanish). Most of the top students don’t take AP Spanish unless Spanish is there primary language. For my older son ('10), there were 6 valedictorians. A 7th girl did not make the cut-off because, although she had taken all the same classes, she took AP BIo senior year (and 2nd semester grades are not counted) and she had taken 4 years of drama (3 years production drama) which diluted her GPA. She is attending Cal Berkeley so in the end it didn’t really matter. But I felt bad that she wasn’t recognized at graduation.</p>
<p>I have come across this thread while googling some thing last month and I have been following the thread ever since. Congratulations to all of your kids for such hard work, they are a truly special bunch of kids. And congratulations to the parents out there for your dedication, care and support you give for your children. I see my own reflections in all of you.</p>
<p>My S13 is in a public school in New England. My husband and I had done all our education outside USA, so when it comes to what to do with S13, we find ourselves at our wits end. I have gained a lot of information in last month through this thread. Just looking at a child’s schedule gives a lot of insight. I am looking forward to join you all for the rest of our journey through high school years,</p>
<p>Cheers</p>
<p>^^Welcome to the thread. I love comparing what kids are studying in different parts of the country.</p>
<p>We’re going back and forth on IB for my S. He’s convinced that the classes are so difficult that more than one IB class and he’ll fail everything (he’s a bit dramatic). I’m convinced that he has poor study habits and doesn’t know the meaning of homework. He makes very good grades without trying.</p>
<p>So, am I correct in assuming that even if some colleges don’t give as much credit for IB as AP, that he may still gain the valuable study and work experiences that I am hoping he will gain? I’m not too concerned about it being too challenging for him, I think he is smart enough to rise to occassion, but it will take some major effort on his part (and mine to stand over him at first) to ensure that the work gets done in a timely fashion.</p>
<p>I strongly believe that for my boy, a little more academic challenge and push for time management skills will prepare him more for college than any of the actual coursework.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear the thoughts of others as he registers in a week or so, assuming the snow melts and he ever goes back to school!</p>
<p>My D will be taking AP Music Theory (not string theory lol!) next year and it is a full year class. She has had two years of theory in her music studio classes to prepare her for the AP class. We have not heard from others how difficult the course is. AP Government is a full year class as well at my D’s school and is taken almost exclusively by seniors.</p>
<p>At my D’s school, an A+= 99-100, A= 94-98, B+= 90-93, B= 84-89, C+= 80-83, C=74-79, etc. The +'s get a .5 GPA bump. Starting with the class of 2013, honors classes are weighted .5 and AP classes are weighted 1.0. Prior to her class, honors and AP were weighted the same. My D actually earned 6 high school credits under the former weighting system in middle school that were down graded in the new system. All high school classes taken in middle school are on your transcript and counted in your high school GPA. It is very interesting to see how things are done at other schools around the country. I know longer feel like we are in a vacuum not knowing whether my D is on the right track or not. Thanks to all for sharing!</p>
<p>My DS was talking to the chem/science olympiad teacher the other day about IB. DS told him he wasn’t going that route. Teacher said that it would be good for him if he were going into law, but for engineering (my DS’ interest), he thought AP route was better. Just one teacher’s opinion. I actually thought that was kind of a black and white way to put it…but DS and I had already discussed and it was already decided.</p>
<p>Anyway, in our school, the grades for honors classes are multiplied by 1.05 for GPA; AP classes are multiplied by 1.1. I don’t think they actually do the weighted GPA till junior year, but I’m not even thinking about that yet. Just making sure he is doing the best he can. In our school, if you have a 90 average of all 4 quarters plus midterm, you are exempt from the final (although you still have to take NYS regents exams). I’m pretty sure he’s over that in all his classes right now - that’s definitely a goal for him (and they are all honors classes).</p>
<p>Our school has a lot of great electives that are half year. Some of them are on-level classes, with an option for honors level in the same class. DS needed a half-year elective this year (to go against the half-year required health class) and he took Genetics on the honors level (and didn’t have to take the final).</p>
<p>Maybe your full year AP Government are really comparative government courses. At our local high school comparative government is a year course that ends up with 2 APs - U.S. Government and Comparative Government. My 2014 son will take that next year because he is interested in foreign affairs.</p>
<p>Thank you megpmom. It is nice to know what is being taught/ how is the system like in other parts… So many variations and so many options, I am overwhelmed…I must admit. Our school system has not started with their next years scheduling yet. There are no IB options, Just AP courses offered. So we didn’t have to make that choice. I know that a lot of students where I teach are trying to make this transition- to decide whether to go IB route or not. (I teach IB Math courses at a charter school here).</p>
<p>Kelowna: It’s not as complicated as it sounds once you get comfortable with the formula (and you’ll have to find out the exact cutoffs and gpa values from your guidance office. Ours has it right on the website.) I’ll give you an example:</p>
<p>In our district an A is a 91-100 but different grade ranges have different gpa value points. Say my D gets a 91 in chemistry, a 94 in algebra II and a 97 in English. And to keep things simple they’re all regular level classes. At our school a 91 equals 3.5, a 94 equals a 3.7 and a 97 equals a 4.0. I’ll add those three gpa numbers together (11.2) and divide by 3 (the # of classes) to get a gpa of 3.73. It gets more complicated depending on how your school handles honors & AP/IB.</p>
<p>Welcome Donivrian!</p>
<p>Momom: at our school most kids take both the AP & IB exams for a class so they can get credit. US schools are usually more apt to give credit for AP but that seems to be changing a little bit. The workload for IB is intense. D1 told me of kids completely losing it more than once. I can’t imagine a kid participating in IB unless they were completely on board with it. My kid in pre-IB is doing homework till 11 at night. Once they’re in the program junior year, it goes up even more. Plus there’s the CAS requirement. I totally get what you’re saying about wanting to push him but if I were you I’d see if you could talk to some current, local IB parents & find out what your program is really like.</p>
<p>CD: I’ll PM you :)</p>
<p>Thank you RobD. I’ll definitely take that under consideration.</p>
<p>Welcome Donivrian. Bot my H and I have been educated in Europe, then we lived in Canada for a while and after learning all that I could about that system, we moved to the US 
Very different, and what is absolutely amazing are differences between the school districts and between individual states!</p>
<p>RobD - thanks for the explanation. I will know more tomorrow, but looking at the report card, looks like A=4.0, A-=3.667 etc. I am going to sit down tomorrow morning, before the meeting with the IB coordinator and jot down questions. Honestly, I don’t think our school has a “profile”, is that even possible???</p>
<p>Blueshoe - how many years and what instrument has your daughter been involved with?
Mine has been playing violin for ten years now but I think that it is actually the piano lessons that have helped him in his AP Music .</p>
<p>Kelowna, my D has been playing the violin for five years. She has auditioned and participated in many regional events as well as played in her school’s top orchestra. She also participated in our area’s youth orchestra for a brief time, but had to retire because rehearsals conflicted with the sports she plays. Outside of her school directors, she has had no formal teaching. However, she participates at the same level with many who have private teachers.</p>
<p>Kelowna: I think it’s pretty common practice for a school to send out a profile sheet when they send out transcripts. It might not be something that’s on the website (ours happens to be, but the one currently available is two years old 
so since you’re meeting at the school anyway, I’d ask if they have one and if so could you have a copy of the current one. </p>
<p>It’s a tool for colleges to see what kind of system the child/transcript came out of; helps to figure out if a child took advantage of courses available, or if they were in a school where perhaps there were no APs.</p>
<p>Today is our 3rd snow day this week. Unheard of for Texas. S’13 has finished all of his homework, practiced piano and voice for hours, leveled up in WoW and has now begun baking (much to the detriment of my diet). I am going to insist that he take some to the neighbors. Opening night for the school musical has been cancelled for tonight. They missed two dress rehearsals, so all of the kids are being blocked from classes from noon - 4 to rehearse on Friday. Plus, S’13 will miss 3 days of school next week for All State choir. I just hope he stays on top of all of his work.</p>
<p>Thanks!
I am taking rapid notes before my meeting in about couple of hours.
Any last minutes thoughts what might be an important questions to ask in regards to the IB program/plan ?
S is determined to do an IB - this is one of the reasons he is commuting more than 30 miles each way to this school
In our school all kids are expected to take English HL, S will take Math HL (discrete math) and Science HL (probably physics, but keeping an open mind for chemistry as well). For art he will do IB Film and he wants to do it HL. This puts him at 4 HL courses/exams. So we are most likely left with History SL and Spanish SL, both of which have to be taken junoir year. I know nothing about the History exam, I was hoping he would take AP Euro next year . With Spanish I would like him to continue all 4 years, so even if he takes AP/IB Spanish as a junior and writes Spanish SL paper, I would like him to continue with Spanish HL course as a senior , without taking the actual test at the end. Will have to find put if it is even possible.
TOK course is a two semester course that they start in the winter of junior year and continue through the first semester of senior. So we will need some kind of a course that is only one semster to do early next year, before the TOK begins.</p>
<p>Oh, so much to think about, it makes me feel overwhelmed…</p>
<p>Grrrrr…
Just got a call that the meeting has been cancelled as the advisor is sick !
It did not put me in a good mood, everything has been arranged and now I have to jump through the loops of my work and her schedule again…:mad:</p>