<p>I'm currently an IB student. I know that Chicago is challenging academically, but like IB, it teaches us to think critically, analyze well, and construct arguments in a way that answers important questions effectively. For all you former IB students, how was the transition? I notice the parallels between the Core and the IB groups, and I was wondering, how does the level of work and the level of analysis compare to the IB program? What about the general time management of things?</p>
<p>IB teaches us to synthesize ideas and to interact with our work deeply and passionately. I'm just curious to see what you former IB students think of UChicago in these respects.</p>
<p>jtm, I was thinking about posting the same thread!</p>
<p>I have a current (non-IB) student (S1) at Chicago now and a HS senior who’s in full IB (S2). What I can say is that S2’s 9th grade pre-IB English was tougher than S1’s AP Eng Lang junior year. They covered a lot of the same texts, but S2 had to go into MUCH more depth than S1 did and was graded much more stringently.</p>
<p>Having seen a few of S1’s essays at Chicago (he has taken his Hum and is now taking SOSC), I think it’s safe to say that IB English and TOK prepares one well to analyze and think in these courses. S1 is an excellent writer but had to learn the analysis part as it applies to discussing texts. S2 is also taking IB Philosophy as an optional 7th course, and that may turn out to be the most useful IB class of all in terms of a Chicago education!</p>
<p>The scuttlebutt from IB students graduating from S2’s program is that college is a lot easier for having gone through IB. You are used to the workload and had to acquire some level of time management and study skills just to be able to survive!</p>
<p>Would love to hear more comments on this…S2 wants to know if by committing to Chicago, he’s sentencing himself to another four years of IB-type workload.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t this depend on the specific IB program? I heard that some are a joke while others are incredibly rigorous.</p>
<p>Although I’m not an IB kid, I’m also very curious to the difference between tough high schools and Chicago. I’d guess that the differences are fairly similiar to the normal transition, such as less busywork and more deep thinking.</p>
<p>I went through IB at one of the more vaunted programs (think cover of US News type high school). However, IB programs at large tend to vary significantly in quality (my high school was used as a “case study” by the IBO for others looking to launch programs, and the focus groups with the auditors drove this home). That is, merely earning a passing score, especially on the SL tests, is not really saying much. Therefore, it is hard to really generalize too much between candidates who simply earned the diploma, particularly if some are at the bottom threshold of acceptability and others are up at 42-45 points. </p>
<p>That said… Presuming you went to a respectable program where most people passed (and if they took AP exams as well, got a preponderance of 4’s and 5’s), then you will likely find yourself well prepared for Chicago, although no more so than someone who was a well rounded honors or AP student. The only leg-up IB really gives you is the structural bias towards a liberal education, i.e. the requirement to do college level work in a diversity of areas, which cuts against the menu driven approach of the AP board. In this sense, I would say IB students often find a certain intellectual affinity as freshmen with students from traditional preparatory schools like Exeter or Andover, which likewise get the same approach foisted upon them with a good degree of rigor.</p>
<p>Still, I will sound a warning to IB students going to any elite college that has distribution requirements of some sort: don’t get cocky. There was a great letter to the editor once in the Maroon where a former high school classmate of mine (later Stanford PhD) opined that he initially felt “too good for much of the core curriculum,” that is, until he actually bit into it and learned just how challenging Chicago professors were willing to make any topic. He meant this in the broad intellectual sense, but more crassly I would note that it is far easier to make a ‘7’ on HL European History than to earn an outright ‘A’ in European Civilization. The same is true for basically any other subject. So all-in-all, IB may get you in the door, but it affords you no right to rest on your laurels. </p>
<p>FYI: If your school offers you the opportunity to take both AP and IB examinations, once you are admitted to a specific college check with them to see which will be the best for getting credit granted to you in the fall. Oftentimes, standards are very different between tests, or IB is not accepted at all.</p>
<p>^ Thx so much for your insight. It’s great to know that I didn’t miss out on too much as an AP student since I made sure to take AP courses in a variety of subjects. One further question though: Since real college courses are so much harder, what are your views on retaking courses that you placed out of through AP and IB scores?</p>
<p>Actually, I just realized looking through the course catalog I get zero IB credit, unless it’s out of date… does this mean I have to take placement tests for classes that I want to place higher in? I was thinking about math and physics specifically because they are 2 of my HLs and I might take a placement test for chem but I definitely don’t want to test out of a lot of it… Thanks!</p>
<p>Edit - also does anyone know why physics and math HL are one of the few subjects that Chicago does not give IB credit for? Just wondering because I looked over the course descriptions and they seemed to cover remarkably similar content…</p>
<p>Zakuropanda,
Everyone at Chicago takes a math placement test at the beginning of O-Week. Since you’ve had Calc, you’d take the calc placement test. You’ll then get a recommendation on placement. However, the math department folks are happy to talk to a student individually about his/her math background and whether it meshes with a higher starting point than a placement score might indicate. In any event, Honors Calc (160s) is not exactly chopped liver – lots of proofs, MV and a good bit of Lin Alg. </p>
<p>You may want to take the AP Physics C exams to try to get physics credit at Chicago. However, Chicago has three different levels of intro physics courses for folks with cvarious backgrounds and levels of interest. If you come in with HL but don’t want to do AP, you could always take the intro sequence for physics majors, which I understand will put hair on your chest.</p>
<p>Would it be possible to discuss with the physics department people too? I’m not sure if I want to take the physics C exam b/c I’ve never done calc-based physics and am worried enough about my upcoming IB physics exam… (the syllabi do not conveniently overlap although I do seem to have done a lot of the Emag + Mechanics) </p>
<p>Former IB students now at Chicago - does IB physics match up to intro physics? It would be nice to test out of a quarter or two (I’m not looking to skip it entirely). Anyway, I like physics so I wouldn’t mind too much if I had to retake it.</p>