<p>J-adoube, that may be the best of both worlds for an extraordinary student.</p>
<p>But for many, it would be too much work, consuming too much time.</p>
<p>Often, when an IB student says that he took a bunch of AP tests, he means that he took an AP test after completing the IB course in the same subject because he expected that he would be more likely to get college credit for the AP test than the IB one. He didn’t take two separate courses. </p>
<p>For example, my daughter took standard level IB Spanish and IB Environmental Systems. Because these courses are standard level, few colleges give credit for them. But she also took the AP Spanish Language test and the AP Environmental Science test, on the basis of the same courses, got 5s on both, and got 3 credits in each subject at her college. She didn’t actually take AP courses separate from the IB program in these subjects. She just took the tests. This is no big deal.</p>
<p>Taking actual AP courses in addition to the IB program is much more challenging. Kids do it, but usually only in a small number of subjects.</p>
<p>If the high school offers some AP courses to 9th and 10th graders, a pre-IB student might take one or two. Also, there is sometimes room in the IB curriculum for one or two electives during 11th and 12th grades, and an ambitious student might choose AP courses as those electives. My daughter, for example, took AP Economics as an elective as a senior, and AP American Government and AP U.S. History during her pre-IB years. </p>
<p>But 6 to 10 actual AP courses on top of a full IB diploma program seems extreme to me.</p>
<p>Marian, you are right since at least two of the classes overlap (Spanish and Physics). Since many of the teachers teach both AP and IB I guess they stress what’s important to both programs. The scores on the tests were similar (5,5–6,7). Still, for a public high school the program is rigorous and many of the students are accepted to top schools. To me even if they don’t learn anything else, Theory of Knowledge (TOK) is the clincher for the IB.</p>
<p>As for college credit, even though you might not get actual credits for many classes, you’ll probably be placed at a higher level to start with and at the end you might be taking graduate courses at the undergraduate level. They cost less and you’ll be able to finish your post-grad work sooner.</p>
<p>I think the problem with joint AP/IB is that it’s more expensive and just in general very difficult to maintain for many public schools. I don’t think my high school has the enrollment or the means to do it. There is one enormous school in the county that has both, but I think they are trying to phase out AP. They only have selected courses right now if I am correctly informed. All other county schools offer either AP or IB. It’s somewhat difficult to take the AP tests. Not impossible, but I don’t know anyone in my year who did it. It would have been too much to arrange with everything at the end. </p>
<p>I guess it depends on how the school does IB. Barring an AP curriculum, my school had a lot of core/important subject SLs set as two year courses or HL/SL splits. I took the physics SL exam, but did two years of physics (we covered the HL options too). Same with french, I did two years and it was an HL/SL split. I did HL methods, but SL methods is set as a two year course as well. English and History are automatically HL, there is no option to do them SL. These things are partly due to staffing, partly due to having a system where everyone can meet state graduation requirements with the least amount of craziness. But in an IB program where you could do one year for your three SLs, I can see how you could fit about six AP classes. I took all IB classes both junior and senior year (identical schedule really because of the two year SLs), but if things were structured differently I theoretically could have met diploma requirements, done about 3-4 AP classes junior and senior year, and maybe 2 before that. Probably would have been the same workload.</p>
<p>yes, TOK is the best thing about IB. However, I don’t like the IB program in general, as the kids don’t get a chance to take a lot of diverse classes. D is looking at taking a two year couse of IB Biology rather than one year of Bio, one of Chem. To take two sciences, she has to drop fine arts… Same problem with IB social studies- our school teaches them all as two year courses.</p>
<p>Yeah, that can be a good or bad thing depending on the student (IMO). Some students prefer to do an in depth study of one thing (although the way our science sequence is, we have to take three, I did bio freshmen year, chem soph year, and then physics the last two years). Although the history class might be two years, I think you will find it includes diverse material. For the exams, I think only the paper 3 is different (I have no idea, everyone in this area seems to do HOA). Paper 1 and 2 are based on “topics in the 21st century” and are more like world history (COLD WAR!). Although you can take different approaches to them, I’m not sure how you can get around the Cold War completely with that syllabus. So we do history of the Americas (north and south) junior year, and Topics (basically Cold War with a focus on certain leaders) senior year. </p>
<p>But some people I am sure would prefer to try more different things. I think I liked the way things were for me. As it was, senior year I had only I think two different teachers from the year before. We started off fast in the fall and all the teachers knew exactly what they were dealing with, what individuals needed. Everyone talks about senioritis, but senior year through the IB exams was without harder than junior year and my most productive year in school, even including this first semester. For some students, this relationship was probably essential to them completely a higher level class, to be honest. I think that the system in place had immeasurable benefits in some of those respects. Obviously some students don’t need that. It depends. And it’s hard to know what a student will want or need in the 8th grade. Like I said, if my neighborhood school was AP, without a doubt that’s what I would have done. It’s the path of least resistance, but if most things are equal except AP/IB, I would say the local school should always win out. It really is less stressful in multiple ways.</p>
That seems to be a problem with scheduling at her school rather than a problem with the IB program.</p>
<p>I took Biology HL, Chemistry HL, AP Physics C, and band. A friend took Biology HL, Chemistry HL, Physics HL, and art. Another friend took Chemistry HL, Physics HL, band, and orchestra and was drum major of the marching band.</p>
<p>At my D school, 2700 students, they offer AP and IB, although IB only has about 130 students. D is a senior and on her 6th AP in addition to IB, but I think in large part it was possible because of block scheduling. She had two AP’s sophomore year, 3 as Junior, and just 1 this year as they did away with block schedule. It was extreme, and the pressure of the end of Junior year was too much looking back on it now.</p>
<p>I will be the dissenter here and report that my daughter thought that TOK was mostly cattle excrement (I’m trying not to get censored here).</p>
<p>She also thought it had an extreme left-wing bias.</p>
<p>She enjoyed it despite this, mostly because it was the easiest course in the IB program (at least as taught at her school), and the arguments were entertaining (even though she was one of only two people in the class who ever spoke in favor of conservative viewpoints).</p>
<p>Obviously different strokes for different folks…</p>
<p>In my son’s program he will end up with SLs in Bio, Math, Spanish, & TOK; and HLs in Eng, Hist, & Art-- so a humanities/Arts kid CAN emphasize that within the IB curriculum…</p>
<p>Very often, a humanities/arts emphasis is easier to accomplish than a math/science emphasis.</p>
<p>It seems that the people who plan IB programs in the United States often discover that in order to meet both IB and state curriculum requirements, it is most practical to teach both English and History to all students at the higher level. In my daughter’s program, everyone had to take these two courses HL, but they had choices in all the other areas. This was more appealing to the humanities-oriented people than the math-science types.</p>
<p>Of course, every school cannot offer all possible choices within the IB program. For example, at my daughter’s school, chemistry and environmental systems were only offered SL, and biology was only offered HL; the only science where you could choose your level was physics.</p>
<p>State graduation requirements, and I think a lot of schools find that in terms of HL tests, their overall history and english scores are much higher than say, HL methods. I don’t really know why but this is certainly true at my school. The state graduation requirements could probably be changed for IB diploma students, but I think a lot of programs have just realized overall that choosing HL history and english for the candidates works out better than letting everyone choose themselves and then dropping classes later and being switched into others when the material gets too hard. </p>
<p>Everyone has to take 4 years of english and history anyway, and I don’t think anyone in my class made any attempt to drop out of IB english or history. It’s a lot of work, but people don’t really get to the point where they just can’t comprehend the material and are going absolutely nowhere in the class. It might not be their forte and they might not be able to get an A/7/6, but with good faith effort most can get a B/5/4. By contrast, HL methods starts with about 35 juniors signed up from algebra 2/trig, and by the end of junior year the past two years has ended with about 15. I’ve heard similar things from other nearby schools. I really don’t know how I made it through HL methods. Some luck, a couple of heart attacks, and I’m torn between whether I would do it again knowing what I do now. Part of me says yes because it turned out okay, but part of me says no because it was incredibly stressful, especially at points last year. Maybe it’s our math sequence, but it’s just a lot to cover in two years.</p>
It was extreme, and the pressure of the end of Junior year was too much looking back on it now.</p>