So I’m currently a sophomore and attending an IB World School, and have the option of transferring to an AP school if desired. I’m currently contemplating whether or not I should switch or keep schools.
Since I’ve been attending an IB School, I’ve taken courses that are supposed to “prepare” me for the Diploma Program. If I stay, I would most certainly be taking all IB courses to gain the diploma. The only “substantial” extracurricular I have at my current school is the Literary Magazine.
If I switch schools, I would have an easier course load since I would probably only take around 4 AP classes versus 6 IB classes, and have extra room for an elective or two. The downside is that I would probably have to reapply for clubs and probably National Honor Society too (which I was currently inducted in).
The social aspects aren’t really important to me. I have good friends at my current school but honestly no one worth staying for. I’m open to making new friends and I’m not that shy of a person although this would be the first time I would be changing schools.
My overall question would be: what’s better, IB or AP? I want to major in something humanities related (History or English) when I attend college so is there a certain program which should be more favorable?
Would you have access to more Humanities electives at the AP school? What about languages - would you, for example, be able to do one foreign language HL and one ab initio at the IB school, nd one foreign language AP and one foreign language honors at the AP school? If one school has more offerings than the others in your chosen subjects, it’d matter.
Would you be able to take, for instance, AP US history, AP Econ or Gov, AP English Language, AP Foreign Language, your junior year (plus ‘light’ APs like Human Geography, Environmental Science…)?
How are you in all 6 areas of knowledge - and does your IB school offer subjects likely to be okay with you (ie., math studies if need be?)
Would you be likely to get 36+ on your IB diploma (US schools are incredibly demanding of IB candidates, they want super high scores, but on the other hand colleges know it’s a super rigorous proram and therefore it’s highly valued if you do very well in it)? (If not, Ap school is better since it’s about the same to get AP 5’s and IB 6’s, but colleges value the AP 5 relatively more…; or only take into account the fact you took the class but not the final score.)
If you want to do something in humanities, I would stay in IB, From the college perspective, neither is preferred. I just wouldn’t recommend switching schools to get out of one program or the other. In addition, from my understanding from my friends that attended IB, IB is much more writing and humanities intensive usually.