International Baccalaureate (IB) program

[tzolkin]

I graduated with an IB diploma in the 1990s. At my school, it was a program that you applied to before starting HS and you had to go through the entire four years. There were a few differences between participating in the IB program and taking AP classes (which I also took).

1. IB was a complete program ensuring that the students were "well-rounded"-- sort of like a liberal arts education. You could pick and choose the AP courses that suited your strengths (ex. AP Calc if you were good at math), but IB students were required to complete AP/IB Calc, chemistry, biology, English, history, and Spanish. IB students must also complete additional requirements to be eligible for the diploma including a "Theory of Knowledge" (philosophy) course, various projects, an "Extended Essay", and CAS (Creativity, Action, and Service) hours.

2. It was more writing intensive. This was the greatest benefit for me for college. I attended a prestigious private university, but still had many classmates with poor writing skills. Writing a 25 page paper during college was not a scary concept for me after all the writing and projects I had been required to do in HS.

3. There was a sense of community. While having your core classes consist of the same group of students for four years was a bit isolating at times, there were some benefits. Class discussions and presentations were more comfortable (building greater confidence) and we all knew each other well enough to collaborate outside of class. We also had more people than just a small group of friends to bounce ideas off and with whom to share our college admissions experiences and advice. (My DD, now in college, did not have these experiences and connections while taking AP classes in HS.)

 

[tvguy]

4 - you can graduate with many more college credits than standard AP - my daughter ended up with over 30 - started college as a Sophomore
7 - Colleges and Universities DO recognize the IB program as being the most Rigorous (there's that word again)
..

Taking IB or AP, if a student can handle them is NEVER going to hurt them. All the College Counselors my kids dealt with agreed on this.

HOWEVER, understand that a growing number of Universities are no longer accepting AP or IB credit. All for the same reason, they want their students to take THEIR class, taught by THEIR Professors, as laid out in THEIR program.

Also understand, that a growing number of Universities, in their admission process, are going to convert a "weighted" GPA to an "unweighted" GPA. The admissions counselors say if two students with identical unweighted GPAs are being considered, whether their High School classes were IB or AP could be a deciding factor, but the big push now is on a diverse student population, not just academics. So IB or AP classes would be considered along with other factors such as whether the student was on the debate team, or band, etc.

 

[tvguy]

IB is just an additional program that requires certain things, like Physics instead of Environment Science, and four years of a language instead of just two.

4 years of a language is the minimum here in many districts to graduate. Many students take Freshman foreign language in 8th grade, so actually end up graduating with 5 years of high school foreign language.

 

[diznygirl]

4 years of a language is the minimum here in many districts to graduate. Many students take Freshman foreign language in 8th grade, so actually end up graduating with 5 years of high school foreign language.

That's nice. That's not the norm everywhere.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

My son is getting ready to graduate from a school with an IB program. At the end of his sophomore year we decided against it for a couple of reasons. He has taken most of the same classes with the exception of the science path and he would not have had enough service hours. He also did not write the essay; although, that was on his pro IB list because he loves to write.

The reasons he decided not to: 1. marching band, 2. jazz band - Marching band is extremely time consuming, and he is not a kid that likes to stay up past midnight and work all Sunday on homework. Jazz band is an extra elective that he would not have had room if he got in all the classes. He still took TOK (Theory of Knowledge) just because he wanted to. He did not have room to take History of Americas which I believe is required, and I think there was one more IB class he would have needed.

I decided I was okay with him not doing IB because he was still taking all AP or Honors classes. And, the schools he was interested in were not schools that had a high percentage of IB. He got into all four he applied to and was given scholarship money for all of them, so I think we made the right decision. Now, I will be doing all this in one more year when my DD is a sophomore and needs to make the decision. She is much better under pressure so I am not sure which way she will go. They are also offering an AP Capstone diploma starting next year at our high school. My graduating senior actually would be able to get that, but he would have had to take their extra research class instead of TOK.

 

[tvguy]

That's nice. That's not the norm everywhere.

I understand. DD really noticed how unprepared some of her classmates were when she hit college because graduation requirements vary so much from district to district. An amazing number couldn't even write a paper.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Multiple comments about IB being rigorous in many respects, especially writing... I concur. I was stunned to see how many students at a top university could not write a paper or a lab report to save their lives. I tutored in English my first year of university, and I do credit my IB program for pushing me further on that front.

 

[tcufrog]

One advantage no one has mentioned is that the IB diploma is accepted internationally. Attending university in the US is crazy expensive. If you have a very responsible and adventurous child attending university in another country such as Germany or Canada may be much cheaper than staying in the US. My sister directly enrolled in a university in England for her junior year and saved a lot of money even after she travelled in Europe. An IB diploma will make that possible.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

One advantage no one has mentioned is that the IB diploma is accepted internationally. Attending university in the US is crazy expensive. If you have a very responsible and adventurous child attending university in another country such as Germany or Canada may be much cheaper than staying in the US. My sister directly enrolled in a university in England for her junior year and saved a lot of money even after she travelled in Europe. An IB diploma will make that possible.

Good point. They certainly looked favorably upon it at McGill.

 

[maddiel]

My DD23 graduated with her IB diploma 6 years ago and my DD16 should graduate with hers in 2018. I'm a fan of the program, but I realize it's not for everyone. Their (public) school does not offer AP courses although some of the other high schools in our school board do.

I would say IB is similar to a fixed price menu, whereas AP is a la carte: IB is designed to provide a complete and balanced educational package, but you might have to take some courses that you might not choose on their own and you don't have the flexibility to customize the way you might like. I really appreciate that they had to take Theory of Knowledge - especially in there post-truth times. The writing requirements in both the extended essay and for their internal assessments are also very good preparation for university - I think they are a large part of why IB does such a great job of preparing students for university. I remember reading a study when DD23 was in high school that said that IB students tend to maintain renewable university scholarships at a higher rate than other students but I can't find it online right now.

The big concern I heard from other parents in grade 9 (when the students here are choosing whether to enter the diploma prep program in grade 10) and grade 10 (when students decide whether to enter the program proper the next year) is about the additional workload. Our experience was there there are some peak times when the work load is considerably higher than normal, but that is not the case for the entire time. The IB kids at their school are very active in student government, sports, volunteerism etc and there still seems to be plenty of time for social stuff. I might be more concerned about how the workload is balanced in a school that is new to the program - it was introduced in our high school 2 years before my older daughter's class started and I did hear stories of kids having a ton of assignments due simultaneously from parents whose kids took it during the first or second years.

The marking in IB is quite different than in standard classes. I know a couple of kids who had always had 90%+ who found it very hard to adjust. Our school provides grade 12s with 2 transcripts - one with their mark out of 45 using the 7 point scale and one with each course mark translated to a percentage as it it were an academic course. It's hard to explain, but in IB, a 65% or a 70% in a course might be 6 on the 7 point IB scale which is a very good mark and might be equivalent to a 93% in an academic course. IB assessments are very regulated to make sure they are consistent from school to school and from country to country.

Sorry for writing a book....

Good point. They certainly looked favorably upon it at McGill.

That's interesting. I live in Canada (NS) and I remember being told that when DD23 was looking at universities that McGill was the least generous school in the country to IB students and didn't take the additional rigor into consideration, whereas just about everyone else in Canada did. Maybe they've changed over the last few years? She did have a classmate that went to McGill on a significant scholarship - but that classmate had a 44/45, so she was pretty outstanding.

M.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

That's interesting. I live in Canada (NS) and I remember being told that when DD23 was looking at universities that McGill was the least generous school in the country to IB students and didn't take the additional rigor into consideration, whereas just about everyone else in Canada did. Maybe they've changed over the last few years? She did have a classmate that went to McGill on a significant scholarship - but that classmate had a 44/45, so she was pretty outstanding.

My info is older... I was at McGill in Biochemistry in the late 90's and was told after I was already accepted (by a friend of a friend who worked in admissions) that they did consider it.

In addition to McGill, I had applied to Concordia, Université de Montréal and UQAM. I was accepted at all 4 and was invited to join Science College at Concordia (with scholarship). The latter accepts a small group of students and requires an interview. During that interview, they were very interested in my IB studies. I ultimately decided on McGill because I knew I wanted to move to the U.S. and knew that the name recognition would matter -- and it did.

Sooo... I can't be CERTAIN that IB mattered in my McGill acceptance -- going based on what I was told by that admissions person back then. Don't know where that stands today.

What I can say is that the IB rigor definitely helped to prepare me for Biochem at McGill. It's no joke when you hit Bio 101 class and look around at 600 other students... and are told that by Christmas more than half will be gone... and they were right.

 

[tcufrog]

If you're in the US it's a lot easier to directly apply to university in many other countries if you have an IB diploma than if you have a traditional US diploma. I have no idea what Canadian universities think of Canadian IB diplomas.

 

[JaxDad]

This is not just a zombie thread, I promise!

My son was just accepted into an IB program. I am very excited for him, but also concerned about the workload. I appreciate the posts on this thread and the other IB threads I have found.

Does anyone have recent experience to add? I am very interested, so thank you.

 

[aprilchem]

7 - Colleges and Universities DO recognize the IB program as being the most Rigorous (there's that word again)
.

I agree that this is a YMMV thing. My institution also accepts AP scores of 4 or 5 on most exams for college credit but IB is not accepted for credit at all.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

I am laughing at myself because I just read through the whole thread including the first part of my own comment before I realized it was me!!

So, my DD is going the IB route. She and her counselor just made her schedule for the next two years. I don't think the workload looks like it will be that much different from my DS who did almost all AP classes. She will, of course, have the paper that he did not have.

One thing I learned is that it is common for our kids to take both AP and IB tests. Example - She will take IB Math next year as a junior and then be ready to take the Standard Level Math IB test. Her senior year she can take AP Calculus. Also, our AP Language class is junior year and AP Lit is senior year. Those are also both IB classes so after you take both you take the IB English test.

She is going to take the higher level IB test in Psychology, so her junior year she will take AP Psychology and then her senior year will take IB Psychology. So, if she wants, she can take the AP test her junior year and then do the IB test her senior year.

If this thread resurrects in two years, I will be an expert in the differences of AP and IB!!

 

[JaxDad]

I am laughing at myself because I just read through the whole thread including the first part of my own comment before I realized it was me!!

So, my DD is going the IB route. She and her counselor just made her schedule for the next two years. I don't think the workload looks like it will be that much different from my DS who did almost all AP classes. She will, of course, have the paper that he did not have.

One thing I learned is that it is common for our kids to take both AP and IB tests. Example - She will take IB Math next year as a junior and then be ready to take the Standard Level Math IB test. Her senior year she can take AP Calculus. Also, our AP Language class is junior year and AP Lit is senior year. Those are also both IB classes so after you take both you take the IB English test.

She is going to take the higher level IB test in Psychology, so her junior year she will take AP Psychology and then her senior year will take IB Psychology. So, if she wants, she can take the AP test her junior year and then do the IB test her senior year.

If this thread resurrects in two years, I will be an expert in the differences of AP and IB!!

Thanks for your comments!

 

[smiths02]

I took an IB program in high school (c/o 1999). I got a full tuition scholarship to Emory. I also got an offer of full tuition and dorm/food expenses at a state university (UC Berkeley). Classmates got scholarships (not all full) and acceptance to Stanford, Cornell, etc. None of the people I am thinking about were athletes.


At my school, most of the classes were AP/IB so you could take the test for both and get credit for both. However, since I had a tuition scholarship, I took my time and double majored instead of skipping a year.

I don't know about the 4 year language requirement that others have posted about. I took 3 years in high school, but I also took 1 year in middle school (8th grade).
I know some people did have to choose between IB and MUN classes, so there is not as much time for electives like band, sports, etc.

Also, since this is the first time they are offering it, beware that teachers might not be versed enough in it. We had a great English teacher. The English class was AP/IB. The teachers at my school knew how to teach to the AP test, but not necessarily IB. I have a friend who passed the AP test but not IB and did not get her IB diploma. For English, my score on AP was better than my IB score as well.

I know at the local high schools, students take 1-3 AP classes generally, with IB, you are in all advanced classes junior and senior years. I did have a facial twitch by the end.

 

[mamacatnv]

DD and a fellow IB diploma friend opted for a gap year, the rest of the friends group headed to college.
DD says that even at course level she felt burnt out as did a few of her friends. One thing to note, several of her friends have said that college is easier than high school was and these kids are at big schools, ie: Berkeley, Harvard, UT, TCU and A&M plus a few more. The workload of the IB program definitely prepared them for college.

While DD did very well on all AP tests she took, she did not do as well on the IB tests. I'm not sure if it is because frankly, she didn't care, by that point she was burnt out and done. I wasted $500+ on tests IMO but it is what it is.

She has never regretted dropping from Diploma to Course and enjoyed her Sr. year of high school. Her ACT score and grades combo landed her a full tuition/housing award, not her IB courses. I am sure the more elite universities give credence to the IB curriculum and its rigor BUT its high school, have a bit of fun!