IB: Part 1 Rant; Part 2 Cliff Notes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are both good programs. Not too many people think students coming out of European HS are poorly educated. Some schools in our area are IB and that is what families have to figure out if they don’t want the hassle that comes with pupil placement. It is not an easy proram to figure out but when you do, your HS courses are pretty much set.

Biggest point made in above post- way less flexible than AP program so that should be a factor as people decide

[Anonymous]

To be marked most rigorous, you don’t have to be a diploma candidate. Being a Diploma candidate is an automatic qualifier. You can also qualify by taking at least 20 honors, IB and AP course.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My kid got the IB diploma at Robinson and was very well prepared for the excellent college she went to. I am glad that we live in that school catchment area.

Just so you know, your child would have been prepare for that same college if they had taken AP classes. Like the vast majority of the other kids at her school. A strong student in IB would be a strong student in AP and vice versa.

Probably, but the programs are different. Doing the extended essay requirement involves higher level research than what most kids would get in AP classes.

Or some would argue less if compare to students taking AP Research or most any of the AP science courses.

Exactly. IB is not more rigorous but it is a lot more pretentious. But, hey, PP should make sure their kids jump through lots of hoops if they want a special hoop-jumping diploma.

AP Research culminates in a 4 to 5K word paper. Extended Essay IB requires a 20K word paper. Different levels of depth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got the IB diploma at Robinson and was very well prepared for the excellent college she went to. I am glad that we live in that school catchment area.

Just so you know, your child would have been prepare for that same college if they had taken AP classes. Like the vast majority of the other kids at her school. A strong student in IB would be a strong student in AP and vice versa.

Probably, but the programs are different. Doing the extended essay requirement involves higher level research than what most kids would get in AP classes.

Or some would argue less if compare to students taking AP Research or most any of the AP science courses.

Exactly. IB is not more rigorous but it is a lot more pretentious. But, hey, PP should make sure their kids jump through lots of hoops if they want a special hoop-jumping diploma.

AP Research culminates in a 4 to 5K word paper. Extended Essay IB requires a 20K word paper. Different levels of depth.

To each their own. Most scholars find easier to write longer research papers and much harder to write a strong short research paper where every word has to count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got the IB diploma at Robinson and was very well prepared for the excellent college she went to. I am glad that we live in that school catchment area.

Just so you know, your child would have been prepare for that same college if they had taken AP classes. Like the vast majority of the other kids at her school. A strong student in IB would be a strong student in AP and vice versa.

Probably, but the programs are different. Doing the extended essay requirement involves higher level research than what most kids would get in AP classes.

Or some would argue less if compare to students taking AP Research or most any of the AP science courses.

Exactly. IB is not more rigorous but it is a lot more pretentious. But, hey, PP should make sure their kids jump through lots of hoops if they want a special hoop-jumping diploma.

AP Research culminates in a 4 to 5K word paper. Extended Essay IB requires a 20K word paper. Different levels of depth.

To each their own. Most scholars find easier to write longer research papers and much harder to write a strong short research paper where every word has to count.

While most would agree that the length of a written piece does not determine its value, if you’ve met a teenager, you’d know many of them struggle to write 500 words well. To write 20,000 for most high school students would be quite a challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got the IB diploma at Robinson and was very well prepared for the excellent college she went to. I am glad that we live in that school catchment area.

Just so you know, your child would have been prepare for that same college if they had taken AP classes. Like the vast majority of the other kids at her school. A strong student in IB would be a strong student in AP and vice versa.

Probably, but the programs are different. Doing the extended essay requirement involves higher level research than what most kids would get in AP classes.

Or some would argue less if compare to students taking AP Research or most any of the AP science courses.

Exactly. IB is not more rigorous but it is a lot more pretentious. But, hey, PP should make sure their kids jump through lots of hoops if they want a special hoop-jumping diploma.

AP Research culminates in a 4 to 5K word paper. Extended Essay IB requires a 20K word paper. Different levels of depth.

Our school says IB essay is up to 4K words?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be marked most rigorous, you don’t have to be a diploma candidate. Being a Diploma candidate is an automatic qualifier. You can also qualify by taking at least 20 honors, IB and AP course.

This is likely going to vary school to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ -To be marked as "most rigorous" for college applications you must be a diploma candidate (again, this may be Robinson-specific”

I often wondered about this-but suspected it!

I have heard UVA (Dean J) say multiple times they look at which HL classes a student takes-so yes, I think it’s important to take math/science/english as your HLs.

NP and we are not at Robinson but our experience with teaching IB candidates vs those who only took a few IB classes here and there is that W&M puts a lot of weight on IB candidates but UVA values high GPA more.
In other words, we’ve seen many UVA admits where a non-IB kid with above a 4.3 will get into UVA in favor of an IB diploma kid with a 4.0-4.3, whereas WM will select IB kids with 4.1 and above and non-IB kids with 4.4+
So just tell your kid that the As matter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be marked most rigorous, you don’t have to be a diploma candidate. Being a Diploma candidate is an automatic qualifier. You can also qualify by taking at least 20 honors, IB and AP course.

How 20? They only take 16 classes in high school total?

[Anonymous]

I would be wary about skipping physics. Many selective schools want to see physics, even from non-STEM majors because it requires more deep thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be marked most rigorous, you don’t have to be a diploma candidate. Being a Diploma candidate is an automatic qualifier. You can also qualify by taking at least 20 honors, IB and AP course.

This is likely going to vary school to school.

I don’t know about other schools, but this is the case at Robinson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be marked most rigorous, you don’t have to be a diploma candidate. Being a Diploma candidate is an automatic qualifier. You can also qualify by taking at least 20 honors, IB and AP course.

How 20? They only take 16 classes in high school total?

You take 7 a year so that’s 28. 2 are PE which obviously won’t qualify. But that leaves 26 opportunities.