Without a huge amount of background ( it would be pages). The atmosphere at daughters school has become so toxic we opted out of our school today. While that may sound rash, there was no way to go back. We’ve been piecing this together for 2 years and it finally sunk in that this was unhealthy for her. While I dont regret the decision, I need however to help her find her new path. As I write this, I’m in tears with fear.
So with that said, she is going from small elite, private to large good public.
She can do a.p. Or I.b. Program but I just don’t know which is better. Her personality definitely leans I.b. As she is a critical thinker with good writing and analytical skills. But I’m concerned about act scores which a.p. Would help.
how will a junior year change of schools look on applications? My son is at very elite college…will she be ruled out now?
Gpa 3.85 unweighted. 3 ap.s (5)
I’ve always thought she would end up in upper tier school and even wanted her to apply moorehouse Cain but, I am fine if this changes the situation. I’m asking for advice on mitigating a junior year transfer? Would it be better to look for another elite private school? How do I make the best of this?
Before anybody thinks this was in haste, it wasn’t. A mother has been bullying her,
Is she a rising junior? Isn’t she on summer break? If so I have no idea why you think AP would be better for ACT than IBD. if her new school has the bright kids in IB then that’s where she should be. ACT prep is just something separate, the reading and writing of IB will only help. She just needs to prep like any kid. IBD kids have good ACT scores because they are already a self selecting group. As you may know and she may not, many kids in such mixed schools think IB is onerous. That really depends on subjects and approach. If you think it is going to hurt to have left a highly rigorous school, picking a highly rigorous IBD curriculum will only help.
Where I live, no private schools compete with the IB program for rigour, parents choose private for non academic reasons.
My kids went to 3 high schools. Her life is not over.
She should go talk to the GC and determined if IB or AP/honors is better for her. One of my kids looked at IB when she was looking for high schools (she’d been in a modified middle years program) but we realized it wasn’t for her. She only took a few APs too, and she did fine in college.
Yes. Rising junior. The reason I’m concerned about act is based on mom gossip and too many websites. Sadly, g.c is out for the summer as is most of the school administration so we are going to have to make some choices without much guidance. Appreciate the input
Honestly, lots of the course work students need for standardized testing is done soph year. Doing some decent prep work for the ACT or SAT on her own can supplement that. I wouldn’t worry too much about AP vs IB in that respect.
Sounds like it has been a traumatic couple of years. You and your daughter probably both need to unwind a little. It will work out. I know kids who switched schools senior year, and they came out ok in the college process.
Not sure if this will make you feel less worried but… we have several elite private schools nearby and one is “the best”. Some of the kids do well there but I’ve noticed only slightly more of their kids move on to truly elite colleges vs the other “good but not as elite” schools. I used to interview prospectives for my alma mater (before I had high school age kids) and I observed that this school had many super-bright kids who were firmly convinced they were mediocre students. The competition was fierce internally, in part because the uber-competitive nature of the families who sent their kids there. I saw some kids who thrived but the lesson I took away from the interviews was that many kids would have been “better off” elsewhere. Your daughter’s college chances will not be harmed by moving from a school environment she finds toxic - of that I am quite sure. ACTs cover material studied at every high school. Forget mom gossip, congratulate yourself on skipping two years of private school tuition and move on to helping your D have a great junior year. Can’t advise you on IB or non but I think I’d let her do the research online and decide - it’ll be good practice for college lists next year. 
Well, she needs to be registered for classes. you will need to talk the IB coordinator over a GC in a bigger public. Don’t be fobbed off until the first day of term, that would be a nightmare in my kid’s public.
My younger daughter transferred to an international school her junior year due to job relocation. It didn’t hold her back as far as graduating top of her class (#2) and getting into a top tier college.
What was challenging was to convert her old school’s transcript to new school’s. They had different honors courses and APs. The old school didn’t do weighted GPA and the new school did. I ended up spending months in negotiating with the new school on how to convert those grades (no, D2 was able to advocate for herself at her age because it was rather political. They would have short changed her.)
As far as IB or AP. If your kid has a choice I would go with AP because my daughter didn’t have a choice and had to go with the IB route. What I mean by choice is this, If the school views IB as the most rigorous route then your daughter would have to do it in order to get the GC to check off that box in the LOR (meet with the GC and ask him/her). What my kid didn’t like about IB was it was very formulated, a lot of busy work and didn’t necessary teach critical thinking. Another draw back is IB courses are not tailored for SAT IIs and APs exams. She had to get a lot of tutoring to do well on SAT IIs. My kid went to a top private high school in the States. She didn’t IB courses were that advanced and she was bored. When she went back to her old high school for a visit they asked her about IB and if they should consider it. My kid said absolutely not. She thought her education at her old high school was more advanced than at her new school.
Another challenge aspect of transferring junior year is possibility of losing leadership roles within school. At the same time if your kid has a lot of ECs outside of school then I wouldn’t worry about it. I encouraged my kid to apply for some positions within school, like coordinator of ECs or tutor for English, and not run for student government (no chance of getting elected as a new student). My kid also made a great effort in getting to know her new teachers, a lot of after class “play dates,” working with teachers on volunteer and after school programs. It was all in preparation of getting good LORs from those new teachers.
If your kid is getting bullied at a small school, it is the right choice to move her. My kids went to a small private so I know how difficult it could be when there is a wrong dynamic. Your kid will thrive in the new school as long as you have a positive attitude. My kid cried the first month because she missed her old school and friends, and plus she didn’t speak the local language that well. It clicked for her one day and she loved her new experience. I hope the same for your daughter.
A potential problem is the transfer of GPA. At our private, classes are not weighted. At the public, the weighting goes up to 6.0, but classes transferred in from the private are capped at 4.0. So transferring automatically ruins your GPA and puts you in the bottom half of the class at the public, where a 4.0 is the midpoint. Check it out to make sure what your procedures are.
I’m not sure what decisions you think you need to finalize at the new school without the school guidance counselor. Maybe things have changed…but at our school, that person was the one who actually looked at your chosen courses, and made sure that there were seats available in the schedule for the students.
Call the school. Sure, public schools are not having regular classes, but the school administration works innthe summer (except during scheduled vacation times for them), and the school counselors have extended school year days when they work.
There should be someone answering the phones at the public high school. This might nit be the best week to make your call with a major holiday on Wednesday. But you can try.
Also, the principal has an email address. Look on the school website. An email to that person saying your kid is new to the school and asking when she can receive some scheduling help will get answered.
Good luck. It sounds like you made a thoughtful decision.
My son attended a boarding school and there were always kids who transferred in at the beginning of junior year. Different reasons – wanted IBD, wanted the environment (for the kind of reason you have), family had to move, etc. None were impacted for college. Good for you in prioritizing your daughter’s wellbeing.
Re: AP versus IB
Look carefully at what courses are offered in each program. She can try to construct a remaining high school schedule from the requirements and offerings for each option to see which is more appealing to her.
Kids transfer schools all the time. There’s no penalty for that. (Compared to a private school you may need to hire a private college adviser but that’s about it, and if you read CC you’ll find lots of information without needing a college counselor.)
IB is automatically seen as “most rigorous” by adcoms. So, if your daughter can handle 3 higher-than-AP classes plus 3 advanced classes in different subjects, IB would be more comprehensive than AP.
(Because SLs rarely give college credit, she could take the ‘matching’ AP exam if she really wants to).
That being said, AP is more flexible in choice of classes - you can easily double up, emphasize some fields rather than others, etc.
In order to help you help her choose IB classes, we would need to know what she wants to make in and what math and foreign language classes she completed this year.
We moved our daughter from a small, progressive private school to a large public with a small IBD program in junior year. No honors/APs at the private.
She tried our in-district public first (APs only) and it was a disaster. The problem was that she went from small classes, and attentive teachers to very large classes where she felt isolated in the classroom; she sat alone at lunch, etc. We made connections with students and teachers prior to her start but they are busy and it didn’t help much.
We then transferred her to another public with an IB program (this was not a simple transfer; I had to prove to the school that this was a student they wanted in the program as she was bypassing the normal application process.) The IB class has less than 20 kids and they take most of their classes together. This made her feel like she was part of a community, similar to the private school community.
She is getting a better education than the private (though it was not an elite). The work load is tremendous, approx. 3-4 hours homework every night incl. weekends (b/c program is limited she is taking a harder course load than most). My daughter finds HL Chemistry very hard but that’s probably because she took it without any prior Chemistry class (private school sequence was Chemistry in the third year). @Lucylovertoo AP is probably just as good as others have mentioned (and you have much more choice of courses), but please consider the social aspect of IB vs AP with the transfer— a small community within a larger one via IB made it the only one that would work for our daughter. This was also a factor: she is quiet and an introvert socially, but we’ve been told an active participant/leader in the classroom. A number of kids drop out of IB every year because of the rigor—I imagine this would not look good so something to consider.
^^ Dropping out of IB has not been a problem for kids at our school if they do it to pursue academic interests. If a school offers economics only as AP and a kid has an interest in that or if a kid wants to take more science and no more FL, it’s not a problem to frop the IBD so long as they follow through successfully. Our school allowed kids to choose AP and IB classes independently - no requirement to be enrolled in any specific track.
@cafe9999 , HL Chem IS hard!!!
How do you already know her AP scores?
“IB is automatically seen as “most rigorous” by adcoms.”
Says who? I’ve never heard that.
In terms of strategizing about college admissions, I agree with others who have said that an important question is whether GC checks the “most rigorous curriculum available” box on the GC rec for AP or IB, or both. At our IB magnet school, only full Diploma kids get that designation, unless they are not diploma kids because they are taking college class instead of IB class. While it varies by school, broadly, IB is about critical thinking, reading and writing whereas AP tends to involve more content memorization/mastery. I’m not sure how AP could help with ACT prep, as the ACT reading, english and math are all pretty much about speed, and I think of science as “science reading comprehension.” I can see where AP classes might help with SAT2s though. We found during college search for our Diploma kid that admissions reps talked about how IB students have learned time management, how to manage heavy workloads with on-going projects and deadlines. Those are valuable life skills that help with adjustment to college. Personally, my kid didn’t find IB full of busywork, more the opposite, with a lot of ongoing projects. CAS hours weren’t an issue for him because he was an athlete and musician, so all he had to make sure he did was service hours.
Bigger picture advice? Breathe . . . . one of mine moved from a small, supposedly personal touch high school to the public magnet, and it was at the public school where he found teachers who “got” him. Public is not necessarily “bad” as compared to small, private, just different. Sounds like this is absolutely the right move for your daughter, so take some time to exhale about the fact that you have made a decision to improve her experience, and that must be a huge relief all around. After this week, call the high school, explain that she is a transfer student, and ask if there is someone in guidance who can meet with you. At least at our public high school, the principal and the head of Guidance as well as some other top administrators work through July, and get early August off. So there is likely to be some skeletal staff available to work with you.
Are you hoping that your daughter will apply to competitive, elite colleges?
If not, the difference between IB and taking good AP courses might not be an issue.
@oldfort Were you successful in getting the weighting changed on your child’s transcript? We have the same problem (no weight at private for first two years so even though our daughter took advanced and supposedly all “honors” classes and A+s were weighed as 4.33, the he public school won’t add any weight and capped all her grades at 4.0) I spoke to the IB coordinator and college counselor and they shot me down, said by end of senior year her rank will rise significantly (doesn’t help with ED/EA). Our daughter has a 4.0 uw but her rank is at 6% as honors, AP and IB are given the same weight. Regardless, OP, we aren’t too worried about this as we expect it to be addressed in her college application by her counselor or by my daughter if they won’t address it, and the benefits of the transfer outweighed some of the drawbacks.