Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted no problem at McGill and St Andrews with all his APs, no IB. He's in a writing-heavy major, and the lack of IB didn't have any negative consequences.
Don't overthink this, OP.
Me again. I going to disagree with the pro-IB poster and encourage you not to hyperfocus on IB. My kid above who was accepted at McGill and StA went to Walter Johnson HS, and compared to BCC, which my youngest attends, it's a better school. The teachers are generally good caliber, and the complement of APs is more reliably offered every year. BCC has some trouble offering the more difficult APs consistently every year because some years there isn't as much demand. Some lower-income MCPS high schools in other parts of the county offer relatively few APs. It's difficult to gauge because on their website, they all say they offer all the APs, but MCPS schools are not created equal. The best ones are Walt Whitman, Winston Churchill, Walter Johnson. BCC is a very good school, but not the best. For privates, the best co-ed is Sidwell. For boys there's St Albans. For girls, maybe NCS (it has a tough reputation at the higher grades, especially in writing).
STEM APs reach a higher level than STEM IB classes. Yes, IB teaches much better writing, and that's very important, but you
need to factor in the caliber of the teacher who is leading the class - you might want to ask around whether IB teachers at BCC are any good. I know for a fact that the IB Spanish isn't great, because they have a joint Spanish 5 / IB Spanish that my DD is taking this year, and the level is lower than her Spanish 4 from last year!
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}