| This is for advisement to a relatively small group of students, i.e. extraordinary achievers, trying to choose between IB and AP.
Which is better, IB or AP?
IB is better if you're smart and hard-working enough to complete 3 college-creditable courses as a high school student, and want enter college with up to a semester's worth of credit (15-18 credit hours).
IB is better if you're "socially conscious", because instilling social consciousness is IB's core mission.
IB is better if you want to receive training in maximal multi-tasking.
IB is better if you enjoy subsisting on 6-7 hours of sleep, because with 6 courses plus CAS, IB is not for "early"-to-bed-goers, i.e.11 PM or earlier. (But perhaps you or your parents should read up recent research showing the major negative effects of sleep deprivation on teenagers, including cognitive functioning impairment.)
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AP is better for math and science students. It lets them focus on what they're best at.
AP is better for top-caliber students who want to go to the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, et al. Such students today often take 8 to 10 AP courses. In the highest-competition applicant pools, 8 to 10 AP courses with 4-5 scores get hands-down preference over 3 AP courses with 4-5 scores and 3 IB courses with 6-7 scores, excluding athletes, legacies, minority applicants, and geographic-diversity-roster-fillers, such as "This student from Kimball Nebraska has a 2260 SAT; his teachers and gc say he's the best student they've ever had; he has taken 2 AP courses, which is all that his school offers."
AP is better for students whose schools teach, or else offer local-college enrollment in, second-year college courses. Today kids are taking linear algebra, organic chemistry, Elizabethan literature, Spanish VI and post-AP computer science these days.
AP is the only option for students who want to do 3 years of high school and then go on to college. It only takes enrolling in a summer English course to fulfill the 4-year English graduation requirement in 3 years. Obviously, unless an IB programme allowed 10th graders to be enrolled, this would be impossible.
AP is the only option for students who want to enter college with a full-year or more of credit, i.e. gaining admission from high school to sophomore standing, saving a year of college costs. (Caveat: some private colleges limit AP credits to a ceiling number, but many, and most state universities give unlimited credit.)
There's a dual-program school in my region that offers 27 AP courses and IB. The highest-aspiration, NMS Finalist students overwhelmingly flock to the AP option, and every math and science student does
IB has given public schools a much better college-preparatory pathway than regular curricula. But as a "wholistic package", it is short on flexibility and maximal college-course crediting. It's a "middle-goal" bureaucrat's invention. For example, why, if 75th-85th percentile-ability 11th graders do IB, why doesn't IBO send schools this memo: "Feel free enroll your 95th-99th percentile-ability 10th graders in the IB programme, based on their 9th grade PSAT scores, SAT/ ACT scores, or whatever measures you deem appropriate?"
AP allows 9th and 10th grade kids to take college-level classes. Last year, in AP courses that are equivalent to IB HL courses, 3050 9th and 10th graders took AP Calculus BC; 3182 took AP Physics B; 5428 took AP Chemistry ; 12,118 took AP English Lit; 4016 took AP Computer Science; 18,901 took AP Biology. There is no IB pathway for these top-achieving students, in the subjects they are passionate about. |