OPs kid already has AP scores, 3, 5s as a freshman would indicate this kid would be well prepared for IB. MYP is not necessary, my kids school won’t offer it in highschool and frankly middle school MYP was a lot of hot air. The IBD kid in public school is self selecting. Honors and AP in freshman and soph year is the usual route.
My S19 did not have any pre-IB classes. He did have one AP class during freshman year and several during sophomore year, and he has been well prepared for the IBD program. He is doing great but the workload is pretty intense.
I’ve seen the same dynamic at our large public school. I wouldn’t worry too much about ranking - I’m sure the GC will be able to say a few words if there is a negative effect on her cumulative GPA - she’ll have two transcripts from two different schools the college admissions officers aren’t dummies.
Our school only has APs, but I am pretty familiar with the IB program. In some school diploma students get really burnt out by the intensitiy of the curriculum, perhaps because they have ECs that are also eating into their free time. I think for a kid who likes math and science in particular AP has the edge, but really there’s no clear cut one right answer. If you know any of the parents, find out where the best teachers are. That’s what really counts.
I think the hardest thing about moving to a new school is getting plugged into a new group of friends - it’s important that she get involved in a couple of school based ECs so she can get to know kids outside of the classroom.
I think that whether an IB kid needs special preparation in the pre-IB years depends on the school.
If the school doesn’t provide such preparation, then kids going into IB are coming from the normal honors curriculum, and the teachers are prepared to teach the IB curriculum to kids with that background. But if the school does provide special preparation, the teachers would expect all of their students to have such preparation, and if your kid doesn’t, that could be a problem.
It’s like the often-asked question, “Can you take AP Something without having taken regular high school Something first?” An answer that makes sense is “Yes, if the school usually teaches it that way. No, if they expect kids to have taken high school Something first.”
Similarly, if the school usually teaches the IB curriculum to kids who haven’t been specially prepared for it, then go for it. But if they make special efforts to get kids destined for IB up to speed in the years before grade 11, it might be prudent for the OP’s child to avoid the IB program.
I’m excited for your daughter that she will be entering a new school free of drama. I’m sorry for her bad experiences so far. I would wait until next week or so to make contact with the new school. Find out when the GC comes back and make an appointment for that day. I would try to talk to the parents of some smart kids at the new school - also do parents have a FB page for the school? You should join it. Around here there is a rule that kids who transfer after 9th grade without parents moving their residence would have to forgo playing sports at the varsity level for a year after the move and that would be upsetting for the sporty kids but you didn’t mention your daughter playing a sport. I hope your daughter will feel enthusiastic about the move.
My daughter transferred from an elite private to a large, good public academic magnet at the start of her junior year. Nothing quite so dramatic as your situation, though. On the whole, looking back, it was a very positive experience, and she wound up going to a college that she knew her private school counselors would have pointed her towards, where she was joined by a number of her former classmates. There was definitely some trauma involved, though.
– We had a not-so-impressive partial victory on the transcript issue. The private school had no formal “honors” “accelerated” “AP” designations. Protocol at the public school would have been not to weight any of her grades. In fact, she had had an insane schedule – accelerated math, double-credit Latin/history, plus French, plus lab science out of sequence. There were two other kids in her class with the same curriculum in 10th grade, and both wound up choosing between Stanford and Harvard. The principal of the public school finally decided he would give all of her classes “honors” weight. As a result – and as a result of the fact that there was a lot more grade inflation in the public school – she entered her class with a class rank that put her around the 60th percentile of the class. (The private school didn’t rank, of course, but if it had she would have been around the 85th percentile of a class where about half of the class went to Ivy League or equivalent universities or comparable LACs.)
I tried getting them not to rank her at all. No dice. They loved ranking.
The principal told me, “Don’t worry, she’ll be in the top 10% of the class by the time she graduates.” (She was, barely.) I said, “Pardon me, but I don’t actually care where she is when she graduates. I care where she is when she applies to college, and she’s not going to be in the top 10% then.” (She wasn’t close.)
He told me that the GC would explain it all. But the GC was completely unwilling to do that. I ultimately had to ask the principal to order the GC to include specific language in his letter, and the principal said he would, but I have no idea whether it actually happened.
– We had a mixed bag getting her into AP classes for her junior year. It really depended on the teacher. Some wanted her, others didn’t. Critically, they didn’t let her into AP Calculus (she was a year ahead of their math progression). We didn’t mind that so much, because she wasn’t interested in math at all, and there was a non-AP Calculus course available. But that course was useless, and the GC ultimately refused to say that she had taken the most demanding curriculum available because she had not taken AP Calculus. At the time, we had no idea that would happen, and no idea what a problem that might be for college applications.
– One of the biggest problems from the standpoint of college admissions was that she was not in the queue for any leadership positions for ECs. At her former school, she was the natural heir to the literary magazine, but at the new school she was way down the depth chart. The competition was tougher, too.
– The public school was very focused and competitive about getting its top students into prestigious colleges. After she had been there for a few months, it became clear that notwithstanding her class rank she was a top student. Her teachers thought so. Her PSATs made her one of only a handful of kids at the school to qualify as NMSFs. She won some regional writing prizes, and a place in an extremely competitive Governor’s School program. At that point, the school administration realized that it had shot itself in the foot a bit by taking a kid who should have been an easy “win” for the school and making her look mediocre. They did a couple things to help. Someone decided that it would be great if the school had an International Women’s Day program, and they asked her to plan it and run it. Instant leadership! They also nominated her for some other regional and district-wide honors. The principal also offered to use personal privilege to get her admitted to a great college which, unfortunately, she didn’t want to attend. (At the time, he probably could have done that.)
– The college AOs she spoke with all assured her that they were familiar with both schools, knew how to read her transcript from the old school, and understood the issues of transfer. One of her old-school teachers wrote her a supplemental recommendation that addressed what she had done there.
– Ultimately, she was not accepted at the most selective colleges to which she applied, and there was at least some indication that her class rank and non-most-challenging-curriculum were problems. However, she would not have been a shoo-in to those colleges coming from her old school, either. She applied to some colleges that were very popular at the old school for students like her, and that got few if any applications from the new school, and she was accepted there. She felt fine about that.
– Socially, she had a very hard time at first in the new school. There were some girls there she knew, but she was not super-compatible with them. She said, “I haven’t eaten lunch alone since first grade. But this school is so big, I don’t register as the new girl who might be interesting. I just look like one of the hundreds of people you’ve never met and are never going to meet.”
– What turned things around for her: Homerooms were assigned alphabetically, and she was only two or three alphabetical places away from her class’ super-charismatic valedictorian and class president. Over the course of a few months, he figured out that she might be interesting, and more or less yanked her into his circle. Which wasn’t necessarily the circle of super-academic kids, but was a circle of good students who were also do-ers. The class president’s girlfriend became her best friend (and vice versa, and they still are).
My son went to a very good East Coast boarding school for 2 years, and then returned home to a large public high school. The transition was frustrating (dealing with the guidance counselor and registrar) I’ll never forgive the GC for telling my son he should strongly consider going to community college… That kid just made the deans list his second semester of Freshman year in college. OP, if you want more details, let me know. We hired a very good college counselor in Boston who was familiar with the boarding school, their reputation and grading. He helped us tremendously with our school selection. Remember that both school’s transcripts will go with her college applications. It will all work out!
Hi OP. No time to read everything but I want to say that in the 80s I did just what your daughter did and it changed my life from a misery to a normal teen life. In fact, I switched midway through junior year. I got good grades and ultimately went to an elite college.
As you know, when a person is a poor fit at a private school, it is just horrible.
Things that were hard: there are always transitions. In some classes I was far ahead, in some far behind (schools always make choices about content, and ordering of topics). It did take some time to make friends. It was very noisy. Teachers have more students and more paperwork, which means getting grading done is harder. This can mean less grading of English assignments and thus less writing. For me, that was a nice change since my prep school teacher picked on me and my public one was perfectly fine.
As for AP, IB. IB is a ton of work, but might get her friends quicker. Don’t do that unless she is up for the academic challenge and the sheer volume. At least where my son went to HS, the best STEM kids largely did AP because the IB program was greeted more toward the liberal arts. That is about school choice.
Be prepared for your daughter to have a crappy rank, since she won’t have had as many quality points in the earlier years. Don’t worry. Colleges know how to read a transcript. My mom stepped in and helped sort this out for me but it really didn’t matter.
Good luck to your kid.
I don’t think ether choice would be wrong—your daughter will be fine either way. I think the IB program would give her a slight edge because it’s known for its rigor and it’s less common than AP. IB students are extremely well-prepared for college and it sounds like it’s more suited to your daughter from your comments. Here’s a one minute video with the assistant dean of admissions at Stanford talking about how they view IB applicants.
i agree with other posters that IB sounds like a better match. It’s a smaller cluster, thus a tighter community. Our HS doesn’t offer IB, but my nephews did the IB program at their school. It’s very rigorous – one dropped the diploma path and did the lesser status (I think it’s called certificate or something). He was not a particularly great student, so it was not a surprise he dropped out of the diploma path. The final exams senior year are extremely difficult. It sounds like your daughter will be a good fit and up for the challenge. Best of luck!
I would just like to share with you that my son left his private school for a large, competitive public school at the start of his Junior year as well. He went from a class of 50 students to 350 students. The private had a few hundred students in the whole school whereas the public had 1400 students. While I was quite nervous (it felt like Kindergarten all over again), the experience was quite positive. The public school had more electives and “room” to be an individual. He made friends easily at the new school and keep his old friends form the private and even mixed the two groups together. He won awards at the public school and did just as well as he did at the private school. He took A.P. classes which I think helped with college admissions. He even wrote his college essay about the decision to leave the safety net of private and take the chance on the large public. Honestly, I think the whole experience helped him get into colleges and has left him better prepared to go away this fall. It made him less “cookie-cutter” and I believe the transition has left him far more prepared than his private school friends for this next leg of the journey. I think it will help your quest for elite colleges - they are all looking for unique individuals. Kids from top private high schools with great stats are a dime a dozen.
I know many who are now opting for online college classes in high school (or at their local community college if available) rather than worrying about A.P. or I.B.
Good luck. I too was worried that colleges would think there was something “wrong” with a late transfer or that it would confuse his transcript but honestly I think it did just the opposite. It showed he could be successful in two vastly different settings.
One caution on the local community college online classes. My college age daughter picked up a few to satisfy distribution requirements. She believes they are equivalent to middle school courses at her private high school in rigor. They did not match the rigor of her regular high school courses, much less the AP level. So while they can be useful for a limited purpose, their shortcomings are significant. YMMV, of course, as all schools are different.
Chiming in that this does not need to be a crisis. You are fixing a problem. Either AP or IB curriculum is fine for college admission purposes. Make the best choice for the social and academic growth of the high schooler you have right now. College will sort itself out.