Rister_Chutophs

smart choice

bozymandias

Good luck
Not to be discouraging, but I took the IB program, and was really rather disillusioned by it. I think that the problem was more to do with my school in particular, though, than the IB program in general. Pretty much, they co-seated most of the IB classes with the AP classes that were already being taught when they started the program a few years ago (I was in the third graduating class). The problem was that the teachers still taught the AP curriculum, which isn't really the same as IB... For IB HL Math I ended up taking AP Calc AB and AP Statistics, and wasn't prepared for the IB test at all--from what I understand, IB Math has a much broader focus and is less in-depth in calculus than AP is (I'm not sure about stats, since I didn't take the AP Stats test and thus didn't bother focusing in the class at all--I learned everything for the statistics option on my own from an IB textbook). I also took IB Chem SL, and it was the same class as HL and AP Chemistry, and I was really much more prepared for the AP test (I got a 5 on both the AP and IB tests).

I think in theory, the IB program is really great in some aspects--I think you're right that IB focuses less on rote memorization and more on writing and analysis than AP in some areas. I like the idea of TOK serving as a course to bring concepts from different areas together (although it didn't really work at my school).

What I don't understand is why you'd have to repeat a year of Chinese--I don't think the IB foreign language curriculums are very strictly defined by the IBO. When they implemented IB at my school, they didn't change anything in the foreign language department at all.

Anyways, good luck with whichever curriculum you end up taking

ilovebabypink

Someone said that "IB Higher Level doesn't cover AP calc" or smthg - thts complete BS
If yuo're applying for Business - Standard IB is fine - I spoke to professor O'Connel of UPenn and she said Standard is fine because Higher covers MORE than AP calculus does
Your IB chioces look fine - don't worry about it at all

cooledge

Complete BS? Take a look at the curriculum for each, there are things that AP Calc BC covers that HL doesn't, and visa versa. For the most part it's in depth calc, like slope fields and Euler's method. Also, if you don't do the series option, then you'd be completely missing out on McLaurin series and Taylor series and whatnot. Of course, you could self study for all of these.
When she said HL covers more than BC (I'm assuming you mean that), she probably meant it covers different things. Like trigonometry, vectors, probability.
And as we've reiterated here a ton of times, SL won't prep you for all things AP Calc BC.

theoneo

I wouldn't expect a college professor to know anything about high school curricula or admissions.

dlesk

just to clarify for those of you who are a bit lost, i got into wharton with no "AP" or "IB" calculus class, just classes called cal 1 (derivatives), cal 2 (integrals), and cal 3 (multivariable derivatives and multiple integrals)... (each course was a 1/2 year course) so as long as you have a calculus background, that is the hardest for your school, you will be fine

lovechilipeppers

Thanks. I just emailed the admin office to ask whether IB HL Math meets the requirement. I'll update on that as soon as I get the reply.