curious77

Pruneface: The operative word is "grandfather". AP has been around much longer in the US than IB. Things have changed, greatly.

smart.cookie

I'll raise another point:

An IB student in the US is far more likely to get into Oxford or the like in Great Britain because the IB curricula is highly preferred to the AP curricula.

Additionally, look at schools like Wittenberg that offer half tuition to full tuition scholarships to IB diploma candidates. One can argue that AP is preferred, but in practice the reverse is true.

IB forces a Creativity, Action, and Service component to every student's education and in addition requires diploma candidates to write an extended essay of 4000 words to be eligible for the diploma. AP is a sampling of different subjects at whatever level College Board deems appropriate, whereas IB is an internationally selected and moderated curricula that stresses multiple intelligences in all of the diploma candidates.

So if AP is available to you, take it, but if IB is also available, take IB over AP.

I am up for debating all of the points I have raised.

tokenadult

How is that international students get into both Oxford and Cambridge with only AP scores? It doesn't sound to me as if IB is so strongly preferred.

djdopeslap

You probably already know if you're an IB candidate. IB appeals to a certain type of person; someone that truly has a love of learning as an integrated whole. All of your IB classes relate back to each other.

As for AP, some subjects are harder than IB; some are not. I think the great thing about the AP program is the wide range of subjects that can be taken, depending on your individual strengths.

I've found that AP Chemistry was much harder than IB SL; IB English blows AP English Lang and Lit out of the water. World History is about the same. It just depends.

So if you're pretty good at everything, do IB. If you're amazing at one or a few subjects and want to specialize, do AP.

Hermann

how big a role does the other subjects that you choose in the IB matter? i mean, the supplementary subjects that are SL in level? i'm considering doing economics or business at undergraduate level, so i will be doing HL maths and Chemistry, but what if i decide to throw in the seemingly easier subjects for SL like geography...will i be at a disadvantage?

Isurus

Is IB worth it? I go to a school that has IB, but otherwise could be better. Should I try to transfer to another school that doesn't have IB, but more APs, and, well, a greater number of students who care about their grades? I've made up my mind, but I'm having second thoughts. Thanks.

swim2daend

IB is definitely worth it. I'm an IB diploma candidate heading into my senior year and I think everything I've went through so far has been worth it. I still have a normal high school experience, but I decided to take the opportunity to enhance my education. I've also done AP and can say I like IB so much more than AP. The subjects are very scattered and cover very interesting subjects. IB is much more rewarding. The extended essay actually may have been my favorite assignment I've ever given. Basically an essay on ANYTHING.

jook

My school (private) only had AP. Another (public) school nearby had only IB. It was supposedly touted as being a better program. I thought AP was pretty damn challenging at times, but I obviously can't compare it with IB.

cookie4college

I go to a high school that has both very strong programs for AP/IB. From what all of the past students say about IB is that it is a waste of time. The trend seems to be that IB students don't really get into better colleges than those who only do AP. However, if you want to earn more credit for college, then taking many IB HL tests would be beneficial. It just seems that doing IB for the sake of getting into college does not help...

melin720

At my high school IB is a A LOT harder than AP.

2/3 of people who started in IB as a freshman dropped out by senior year. They couldn't take it anymore.

Also, there are a bunch of people over here who drop out with like 3.0 GPA and then get straight A's once they're in AP.

AP in my school is complete ********. An IB kid with 3.5 weighted GPA can shoot up to 4.6 in two seconds if they choose to drop out of IB and do 6 AP classes.

I know a kid named John who got a bunch of C's in sophmore IB, dropped out, junior year took 5 AP classes and got straight A's. Wow....

And this guy named Max who dropped out with 2.9 GPA after first semester of junior IB and cruised out with straight A's second semester and he would come to our IB table during lunch and say "this **** outside of IB is easy as @#$&."

Is that fair to IB students who work their ass off to get a lower GPA? No.

I guess that means IB isn't worth it here.

But the thing is that IB kids who graduate from our school come back a year after college saying "holy **** college is a lot easier now that I did IB! It's freakin' crazy!"

Lol...

So it depends on your perspective on if it's worth it or not. In our school at least.

Do AP and live through high school on the beach, get into Ivy then get shot down once you're there (because of sudden dramatic increase in level of courses) or do IB and not get into a really good college but excell once you're in there (and get in a damn good graduate school).

cribelle

Is IB necessarily better/harder than AP? And what's the difference between the two?

Just curious, as my high school only offers AP.

Premed789789

Like many other people here my school offers both IB and AP. I've started visiting colleges and while they do like both, I have heard from almost all of the schools (including top colleges like Penn, UVA, Duke, and the top Ivies) that they prefer IB to AP when it comes to admissions decisions, mostly because IB makes you a much better writer and critical thinker than an AP student.

Also, while its true that IB restricts your course options, I would disagree that AP automatically equals more difficult classes. At my school, English is unquestionably more difficult in IB, and all of the AP and IB sciences and math classes (except for Physics, where AP is more difficult) are taught together (same class).

The IB kids who come back to our school to visit while in college also say that IB required more work and was in general way more difficult than college. I've heard this from students who are attending Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Harvard, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, and Chicago.

Finally, IB students at my school are unquestionably the best of the best, whereas AP classes, with the exception of the sciences, are seen as classes that every student who isn't capable or willing to do the diploma program take.

college kid92

lol! ur already worryign about this for ur eigth grader? serously? it doesn't really matter it all depends on the school and how its ranked

CheyenneM

I went to an IB school for three years (Fresh & Soph = Pre-IB, Junior = IB). When I was pre-IB we took AP classes and then IB as Junior/Senior. In my opinion IB is harder then AP, especially HL, I took HL Bio, HL English and HL History. Most colleges only take credit from IB if you took HL and got a 6 or 7 which is very hard to do. Most colleges take credit from AP if you have a 3, 4 or 5 depending on the class. It's really unfair considering IB program is 2 years opposed to 1 year for AP and IB is harder. If you want to be prepared for college take IB if possible, if not do AP. Like most people said just do the hardest classes possible.
And my friend who did IB got into Yale, both AP and IB look good.

omgitsalex123

IB rocks socks hands down