College Discussion - View Single Post - AP vs. IB

curious77 · 03-21-2008, 07:03 PM

IB provides many levels of Math for students of varying abilities. If you have high ability in math, then you should not be taking the Math Studies course. You should be on the Math HL track, which covers materila beyond Calc BC and requires three testing sessions plus the internal assessment.
A poster above incorrectly said that theater is not part of IB. In fact it is an option, as are art, computer science, music, etc. Go to the IBO site.
Finally, as far as homeschool dad's "extended essay", he is way off base and sounds quite angry.
My S gained admission to Stanford based on his enrollment (and success in) an IB diploma program. Many of his classmates (and prior year graduates) attend the Ivies, MIT, Duke, to name a few. The IB diploma program requires a special student with characteristics that include dedication, honor, sacrifice and collaboration. These students test for multiple sessions for each course, even for SL courses. They are required to take oral exams as well. They complete internal assessments that are graded by their teachers and then a sampling is checked by international examiners to validate the scores. All of their exam papers are scored externally.
All of our high school's NMFs are IB kids. It has been that way for years. The IB kids are the leaders of the school, they are the officers of the service and academic clubs, they have the top GPAs, they serve the school and each other. The teachers love to teach them. Our school uses some AP classes within the IB program. These classes are filled with only IB students while the same AP class is offered to non-IB students. The AP test pass rate for the IB students is at least twice as high as that for the non-IB students. The senior IB students come back to school for two hours for the pinning ceremony for the IB Juniors. No threats, no extra credit, no service hours. They just do it. These kids amaze me and I am proud to watch their success in academics and in life.
To be frank, neither AP exam scores or IB scores from senior year are used in the college admissions process. We received a letter from Stanford telling us the admissions offer was not dependent on passing AP or IB exams. The school merely encouraged the SCEA students to take these rigorous courses rather than cruising for the remainder of high school.

03-21-2008, 07:03 PM	#43
curious77 Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Threads: 2 Posts: 142	IB provides many levels of Math for students of varying abilities. If you have high ability in math, then you should not be taking the Math Studies course. You should be on the Math HL track, which covers materila beyond Calc BC and requires three testing sessions plus the internal assessment. A poster above incorrectly said that theater is not part of IB. In fact it is an option, as are art, computer science, music, etc. Go to the IBO site. Finally, as far as homeschool dad's "extended essay", he is way off base and sounds quite angry. My S gained admission to Stanford based on his enrollment (and success in) an IB diploma program. Many of his classmates (and prior year graduates) attend the Ivies, MIT, Duke, to name a few. The IB diploma program requires a special student with characteristics that include dedication, honor, sacrifice and collaboration. These students test for multiple sessions for each course, even for SL courses. They are required to take oral exams as well. They complete internal assessments that are graded by their teachers and then a sampling is checked by international examiners to validate the scores. All of their exam papers are scored externally. All of our high school's NMFs are IB kids. It has been that way for years. The IB kids are the leaders of the school, they are the officers of the service and academic clubs, they have the top GPAs, they serve the school and each other. The teachers love to teach them. Our school uses some AP classes within the IB program. These classes are filled with only IB students while the same AP class is offered to non-IB students. The AP test pass rate for the IB students is at least twice as high as that for the non-IB students. The senior IB students come back to school for two hours for the pinning ceremony for the IB Juniors. No threats, no extra credit, no service hours. They just do it. These kids amaze me and I am proud to watch their success in academics and in life. To be frank, neither AP exam scores or IB scores from senior year are used in the college admissions process. We received a letter from Stanford telling us the admissions offer was not dependent on passing AP or IB exams. The school merely encouraged the SCEA students to take these rigorous courses rather than cruising for the remainder of high school.