The Value of AP classes

cowgirlatheart
Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:27:57 +0000

So take IB. ;)

I don’t want to start a debate (so don’t go there!), but we definetly didn’t “spit out facts” in our History HL class. The essays with the top scores were always the ones that took various opinions or views on a given topic, applied them to the facts, and wrote a great argument.

Just take a look at the IA/WL requirement for IB in the humanities courses as well as the TOK and EE papers. They really teach you to write well and form opinions and arguments rather than spitting out facts. They even have a “hollistic judgement” criteria in the EE mark scheme.

I do think that both the AP and IB programs depend on the teachers. Some of our teachers were amazing, others taught from the book and to the test to a point where it was actually annoying to attend a particular class. That being said, what class isn’t focused on the test? At least here (in my province), we have diploma exams for each academic subject at the end of senior year and the regular classes are even more focused on the exam than the IB classes. I’ve heard similar stories about US english classes being so SAT-driven that they barely do anything else but practice for it.

Taking a challenging curriculum is important, but so is developing character through passion. I agree with you there, and would opt to take a “less challenging” class than one I had no interest in. A perfect example is my schedule for this year, when I took spanish 10 in my IB spare. Most of my friends opted for grade 12 physics or biology (albeit at the regular level), because the way our IB schedules work, we can only fit in two sciences at the IB level. I can’t stand physics, so I didn’t take it. The typical response was the “oh, why aren’t you taking all three sciences?” with a disapointed sigh after I told them languages were more interesting to me (and more useful, seeing as how my plans for the next four years involve international relations).

There is value in taking a challenging course load, but only if it actually challenges you or you enjoy taking it. If you took AP whatever because it was “easy” and would look good, you would only be cheating yourself out of time that could be used for something more worthwhile to your personal development. So to answer your question: by all means, take AP/IB/honours, but take it because you want to, because it will mean something to you, because it will give you a better education, or because it will help you better understand the world. Besides, what college wants a student body full of AP clones? Diversity is good. Write your essay about how you took drama instead of AP basketweaving and learned more about shakespeare than you ever had in AP Lit. ;)