<p>Hi all, I'm a sophomore and Wharton is my dream school. :) Since Wharton requires the applicants to take the AP Calc exam, I'm planning to take the BC exam at the end of my junior year. (I'm currently taking Advanced Pre-calculus at my school.) The problem is, I still have not decided if I should take AP or IB in my junior and senior years. I'm currently leaning more toward IB. In this case, will the first year of IB Mathematics HL cover AP Calc BC material?</p>
<p>From my own experience, Math HL I won't cover it. Maybe if you get a practice book and study pretty hard on the stuff you miss. You'd need to learn all about series, some stuff with limits, parametric and polar derivatives, arc lengths, and some other theorems without a Calc BC class.
Even HL II didn't really cut it for me though. Most of the new stuff I learned was in stuff that the Calc BC test didn't cover, like statistics and vectors (by the way, if you decide to take the BC test at the end of senior year, ask your IB Math teacher to do the series option, because that's essentially the option that's on the BC test).
So basically, you wouldn't cover everything just in class. However, you'd get the base material, with which you would need some self study to do well on the BC test.
Good luck!</p>
<p>I would go with IB, overall its considered to be a better option because it will help you work on other parts of your application (including an IB diploma)</p>
<p>Do you know that Wharton requires an AP exam for sure? I'm going to take three semesters of calculus, but we don't have an AP curriculum at my school...so how can they "require" me to take the AP exam?</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>I agree with spiralcloud, you'll be a lot more ready for college with IB. But specifically for the Calc BC test, you'll just need to study a bit more.
But heads up, most other corresponding AP tests are prepped for nicely by IB HL I classes (English, Chemistry, Psychology, Comp Sci from especially, from my own experience).</p>
<p>What are you guys talking about? Wharton does** NOT** require you to take the AP Calc** Exam*. They DO, however, highly suggest taking an AP Calculus **course* and the SATII in Math.</p>
<p>Wharton only strongly recommends that you take Calculus by senior year to prove your mathematical competency. There's no preference between AP and IB. I've heard that Math HL isn't as comprehensive as the AP program so I would recommend the latter unless it gets in the way of completing your IB diploma.</p>
<p>Btw this is a question that would be better answered by someone in Wharton itself. Like a dean. Or the website.</p>
<p>Heads up, my impression of IB and AP Math is that IB is broader, while AP is deeper.
Also, IB Math gets more into statistics, which I'd imagine would be helpful for your business classes.</p>
<p>But if it "requires" you to take an AP class too, then that's not fair for the people that don't have AP classes at their schools, right? That doesn't seem right...</p>
<p>The requirement you refer to is in fact a myth.</p>
<p>Theoneo's correct. They strongly recommend you take Calculus in high school. It's not a requirement, and a specific AP class or AP test is certainly not required either. If calculus was available to you to take, you are expected to have taken it, but nothing beyond that.</p>
<p>Thanks so much.</p>
<p>So which schedule do you think would be better?</p>
<p>THE AP ROUTE</p>
<p>10th grade:
AP Lang
AP Calc
General Chem
AP Euro
AP Econ
Chinese 7
Orchestra</p>
<p>11th grade:
AP Lit
AP Stat
AP Chem
AP Psych
AP Comp Sci
Chinese 8
Orchestra</p>
<p>THE IB ROUTE</p>
<p>IB English HL
IB Math HL
IB Chem SL
IB Econ HL
IB History HL
IB Chinese SL (but I would be repeating 10th grade material)
TOK (cannot take orchestra)
+ AP CALC BC by self studying</p>
<p>The AP route: I can take orchestra and more variety of the courses, and get more college credits. It might be easier to get good grades than taking the IB route. I wouldn't have to self-study AP Calc. I would be able to interact with more students as well.</p>
<p>The IB route: I like it because APUSH gave me an impression that AP was mostly memorizing and regurgitating information. I think IB would enable me to actually learn and write a lot as well. I would be able to get close with the teachers. I've also heard that Ivy League schools somewhat prefer IB. However, I would be repeating one year of Chinese, and the advantages of AP I listed above do not apply.</p>
<p>This is probably the biggest dilemma I have faced in my life. :( Please help me out! :)</p>
<p>Does it matter if you take AP Calc AB or AP Calc BC?</p>
<p>take bc, not ab</p>
<p>"This is probably the biggest dilemma I have faced in my life. Please help me out!"</p>
<p>-wait till you have to choose a college :D </p>
<p>(unless you have a clear favorite )</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. :)
I think I'm going with the IB program.</p>
<p>smart choice</p>
<p>Good luck :)
Not to be discouraging, but I took the IB program, and was really rather disillusioned by it. I think that the problem was more to do with my school in particular, though, than the IB program in general. Pretty much, they co-seated most of the IB classes with the AP classes that were already being taught when they started the program a few years ago (I was in the third graduating class). The problem was that the teachers still taught the AP curriculum, which isn't really the same as IB... For IB HL Math I ended up taking AP Calc AB and AP Statistics, and wasn't prepared for the IB test at all--from what I understand, IB Math has a much broader focus and is less in-depth in calculus than AP is (I'm not sure about stats, since I didn't take the AP Stats test and thus didn't bother focusing in the class at all--I learned everything for the statistics option on my own from an IB textbook). I also took IB Chem SL, and it was the same class as HL and AP Chemistry, and I was really much more prepared for the AP test (I got a 5 on both the AP and IB tests).</p>
<p>I think in theory, the IB program is really great in some aspects--I think you're right that IB focuses less on rote memorization and more on writing and analysis than AP in some areas. I like the idea of TOK serving as a course to bring concepts from different areas together (although it didn't really work at my school).</p>
<p>What I don't understand is why you'd have to repeat a year of Chinese--I don't think the IB foreign language curriculums are very strictly defined by the IBO. When they implemented IB at my school, they didn't change anything in the foreign language department at all.</p>
<p>Anyways, good luck with whichever curriculum you end up taking :)</p>
<p>Someone said that "IB Higher Level doesn't cover AP calc" or smthg - thts complete BS
If yuo're applying for Business - Standard IB is fine - I spoke to professor O'Connel of UPenn and she said Standard is fine because Higher covers MORE than AP calculus does
Your IB chioces look fine - don't worry about it at all :)</p>
<p>Complete BS? Take a look at the curriculum for each, there are things that AP Calc BC covers that HL doesn't, and visa versa. For the most part it's in depth calc, like slope fields and Euler's method. Also, if you don't do the series option, then you'd be completely missing out on McLaurin series and Taylor series and whatnot. Of course, you could self study for all of these.
When she said HL covers more than BC (I'm assuming you mean that), she probably meant it covers different things. Like trigonometry, vectors, probability.
And as we've reiterated here a ton of times, SL won't prep you for all things AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>I wouldn't expect a college professor to know anything about high school curricula or admissions.</p>