Tell me about International Baccalaureate

[ObserverNY]

Originally Posted by BCDisneyFanatic View Post
...The higher level classes are slightly harder than the equivalent AP courses. ...

This is a totally broad and unverifiable statement. AP courses are one year and considered college-level. IB HL courses run for two years and are considered "college-preparatory".

AP is much more focused on factual knowledge and covering a broader range of knowledge. IB selectively focuses on a limited number of topics which it encourages students to delve deeply into. IB History focuses on politics of the last 100 years only. Note how this "omits" the founding principles of the United States.

 

[QueenRocks]

The higher level classes are slightly harder than the equivalent AP courses.

In my children's school, some of the classes are taught together. AP/IB Computer Science, for example.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Disclaimer: I have never seen nor heard of the IB before I read this thread. I have no opinions on IB's worth or relative userfulness.

ObserverNY has 7 posts. All seven are on this thread. I find that interesting and I'm a little curious what that means. Is Observer just a new DISer? In which case hi and welcome to DIS!

If not. . .erm. . .well. . .you don't feel like someone who is just entering into the fray with the rest of us. . .I don't mean to attack you personally, so if you could just explain. I'm a bear of very little brain and you're, quite frankly, confusing me. . .

 

[ObserverNY]

Hi there snarling coyote,

Great tag, thanks for the welcome. Yes, I am new to DIS. No, I haven't posted in any other threads. I am one of the administrators at the Truth About IB website. One of my "hobbies" is checking our visitor information to see how people came to our site. Someone in here had linked our site and so I decided to jump into the conversation.

Not to brag, but I will anyway, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post and Newsweek has called me "the most energetic and intelligent IB critic in the country". You could say I am somewhat obsessed with the topic.

 

[starrzone]

AP is much more focused on factual knowledge and covering a broader range of knowledge. IB selectively focuses on a limited number of topics which it encourages students to delve deeply into. IB History focuses on politics of the last 100 years only. Note how this "omits" the founding principles of the United States.

It's funny, because even when I was in IB history (and I loved it, btw!), I wondered why on earth we were learning ONLY about Europe and Russia from the 1700s- early 1900s. IB did seem a bit hyper-focused to me. Personally, I like garnering knowledge on a broad range of topics, even if the knowledge isn't quite as deep. However, I totally respect and appreciate that some people think otherwise

 

[Rora]

When I was in the 8th grade I attended an IB meeting too.

IMO- the program is great and looks fantastic for college but I chose not to go to the IB school. I wanted to be able to do other things in high school besides school work and after talking to a couple of then-current IB students I was under the impression that school work would be my life for the next 4 years.

I think I would've done just fine but that wasn't me. I wound up taking many AP classes in high school and got into a good college. Thanks to AP I started college with 30 credits and graduated a year early, with my Masters.

 

[blissventure]

I've had a little experience with these programs. One of mine did IB, the other AP. (Due to a move, they attended different high schools.) Both completed university in 3 years (with one summer semester, each.)

I'm not highly invested in either program. The benefit was they both gave my kids the credit hours needed to enter college as sophomores.
Both were accepted to professional school after college graduation.

I'm a little surprised at the strong feelings about AP/IB. For interested students, they serve a purpose in high school. I don't think most students give them a second thought once they are enrolled in college.

 

[goofy!]

IB is a scam, plain and simple.

A little radical, don't you think?

I don't, for a minute, believe IB is a scam. Just like any standardized curriculum, it will be fantastic for some and not so good for others. Many of my son's classmates have received an extremely good education from it.

I also don't believe that IB and AP cannot co-exist as you state. We have very strong programs in all 5 of our high schools. Our IB program is very strong, as is the AP program, as is the honors program. In the one high school, considered the best in the district and one of the best in the state, AP and IB coexist and both are outstanding and offer very full programs.

6 years ago when DS was exploring the IB vs the AP route, our school was one of only 2 in the country where you could also graduate with an IB certificate. You could focus on one or more of the 6 disciplines without having to do the full IB program. So, if you wanted the IB certificate in language arts, but wanted AP in the sciences you could/can do that. This was different than just taking IB classes without being in the program as you could actually graduate with a separate IB certificate in each of the 6 disciplines. This allowed for far more flexibility in a student's curriculum.

I did have one of those driven, high achieving students that would have been the perfect candidate for the IB program. Even in middle school, he was choosing classes to better prepare him for his intended college major. However, after much deliberation, he chose to go the AP route. His plan apparently worked for him as he entered his choice university as a 2nd semester sophomore.

What were some of the factors influencing is decision?

1) He wanted to do sports in high school. Adding in any kind of extra curricular activity is difficult while immersed in the IB program. At the orientation meeting, very few students said they were able to juggle both IB and extracurriculars such as sports or band/orchestra.

2) Our district is very open about how the IB program is not better than the AP route, just different. Both programs are outstanding in academic excellence. Depending on what the student's strengths are and what they are interested in pursuing, in some cases the IB program would be beneficial, in other cases the AP route would be better. If I remember correctly, we received a list of universities that accepted the IB credits vs. the ones that accepted the AP credits. My son's schools of choice/major were all AP schools with only some recognizing the IB program. Thus he was better off, for his intended major, in the AP program.

3) Being an IB student vs an AP student did not seem to affect scholarship opportunities at all. For instance, the HS my son chose to go to had a strong AP curriculum but no IB program. His graduating class of less than 500 received over $7.5 MILLION in scholarship offers. This was about par with the high achieving high school that had both the AP and IB strand.

4) This is the only negative we ever found with the IB program and it was not a scientific assessment at all. We went to dinner one night with a major university admissions counselor. With no knowledge of my son considering the IB program, she made an off hand comment about IB students regarding how her university always keeps a close eye on IB students as freshman. Not academically as they have that down in spades, but socially. She stated that since these kids have been so focused on work for 4 years and have had little social life, that they often flounder socially when released from the IB constraints. She said that the IB program is a flag to the school counselors and they worry the most about the IB candidates making the transition as incoming freshman. This coincided with some other stories we had heard of IB college freshman not being able to handle the social pressures of college life. It was interesting to hear what were anecdotal stories to us verified by a university expert in her field.

The AP route worked better for our child. Op's best bet is to interview current and past IB students who have the same interests as her son and see if the IB program was a good fit.

 

[ObserverNY]

Hi goofy,

Very interesting post, especially the part about the college admissions officer stating they "keep an eye" on incoming IB freshmen. I have to tell you, that's the first time I've ever heard that kind of comment and it is disturbing to say the least.

I can tell you quite confidently that you were given misinformation regarding your school being one of only two in the country to offer an IB "certificate program". How can I be so confident? Because IB does not officially offer a "certificate program". An IB Certificate is nothing more than a grade report issued to a student after the student takes the IB exam. A student will receive their IB Certificate even if they fail, it merely reports the score of 1-7 obtained on the exam. This is one aspect of the IB rhetoric employed by school administrators that bugs me the most. Parents are told, "Well, the full Diploma is considered the most rigorous, but many of our students can make a very good choice by becoming IB Certificate Candidates." The assumption by the average parent, is that a student will have to successfully PASS the exam to earn the allegedly prestigious IB Certificate. Not so. The Certificate itself is nothing more than a certificate of participation, hence, the only sort of "candidate" you need to be, is one in search of a checkbook for the exam fee.

It is also a common misconception that IB is some sort of "standardized" curriculum. It's not. IB courses may vary from school to school and country to country. At the DP level, the courses consist mainly of guidelines which schools must then adapt to comply with State requirements and standards.

One other thing. It sounds as though you live in a very large district with large high schools. In small districts like mine where there is only one HS with 650 students 9-12, IB eliminates AP and Honors classes because the cost of running all 3 levels is unsustainable and the number of students to adequately fill each of those classes, simply doesn't exist.

That said, I'm pleased your son went the AP route and wish him well in the future!

 

[ObserverNY]

Goofy,

One other thing, just to compare different types of high school education and scholarship opportunities....

His graduating class of less than 500 received over $7.5 MILLION in scholarship offers

My daughter attended a half-day program at a specialized public high school for the arts. Her 2007 class of 83 students received $8.2 MILLION in scholarship offers, as compared with her local IB HS with 160 students and $1.3 Million.

 

[purplegirl247]

I graduated from IB in 1997 and loved it. LOVED. IT. Immediately became a second-semester sophomore and got a full ride from an out of state college.

As some have said, IB is not for everyone. We had a lot of kids drop out over the years, but those of us who graduated had very little complaint. At my school, not only did they *not* do away with AP classes, but those of us in IB were allowed to take both the IB and AP exams in the subjects that we took classes in (and most of us did quite well on the AP exams, so the curriculum can't be *that* different).

I enjoyed my time in my IB classes and was still a pretty well-rounded kid: had a boyfriend, a part-time job, hung out with my friends, etc. I would totally do it again.

I know OP said her son proably wouldn't enjoy IB and has probably moved on, but I just wanted to provide an alternate viewpoint for future readers. Some of these posts make it seem like not only is IB evil, but the administrators take some sort of sick pleasure over making students miserable. Not so, at least at our school!

 

[cabanafrau]

My eldest DD also attends a 1/2 day HS program, but it is focused on the areas of math, science & technology. I cannot remember the figures from last year at the moment, but I do know that in 07/08 the 68 srs. who graduated received $4.6 million in scholarship offers, which is pretty much typical for graduating classes from that particular program.

There is a fledgling IB program in the area which has attracted many students who are unable to get a slot in the program my daughter is in. They haven't graduated a class yet, but I do know I have heard some rumblings that they have so far been unable to obtain some type of certification to guarantee they will in fact be able to designate their student diplomas as such when they finally have a senior class graduating.

It's been interesting reading this thread here and there because this IB program heavily recruited DD & she flat-out refused to consider it on the basis of their dog & pony presentation she saw in middle school. I've wondered if DD didn't make a mistake snubbing the IB path since it promised an entire day of advanced classwork instead of her 1/2 day program combined w/ our home HS' meager AP & Honors offerings. We know several kids who have opted into the IB program, hoping they can boost their odds of getting into certain colleges & attracting scholarships. What's odd is the workload is nothing at all like what many of the posters in this thread have described. Matter of fact, some of the kids specifically refused to test for DD's program because of it's reputation as burial by homework, yet their parents managed to convince them to take the IB path which had no reputation for a crushing workload & wasn't sold that way.

Of course, everyone we know in the IB program touts how much their kids are learning, much moreso than they could have anywhere else. Just from chitchat w/ parents I wasn't impressed w/ any of the curriculum described, but I thought I was missing something. DD has actually seen some of the actual coursework from different friends & told me she is so happy with her decision. She insists the material she has seen is not impressive in any way whatsoever, more in line w/ our home HS' curriculum.

What I've read on this thread definitely leads me to believe all IB programs aren't created the same -- kind of ironic IMO. What I know about the one started here leads me to believe there's a reason they don't have that certain credential or certification level. I'm not willing to write off IB entirely, but this has given me a lot of info. I'll pass on to some other parents with kids getting ready for HS.

Thanks so much for all who have contributed some great info on this thread. Sometimes it's kind of hard to talk w/ other parents about these issues because people get their hackles up and get defensive or competitive about their child's abilities & the coursework they choose or qualify for.

 

[ObserverNY]

Cabanfrau,

What an honest, objective and thoughtful post. Thank you for that. Superlative, quite frankly, one of the best I've ever read, and I've read thousands.

I fully support math/science/technology magnets, in fact, I wish we had some in my neck of the woods. I was fortunate that the half day program offered at our BOCES was paid for by my district for both of my children. It costs the home district approx. $8,500 to send a student there for the 1/2 day. In our case, the school is one of the best kept secrets in the County and a number of districts refuse to spend the money to send students there. In my case, they supported it without question because I was such a pain in the touchas over the IB issue. But I am grateful that they provided an educational experience for my kids that has led them to success in college, careers and life. (Even if they did have to ride on a bus for an hour to get there)

Congrats to you and your daughter for not buying the IB "dog and pony show". I prefer to call it snake oil.