IB Programs

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the foreign language component is that hard. My daughter got. 6/7 on French, and I don’t think her French is great.

My DD is wrapping up HL French this year, and isn’t finding it difficult, either.

She’s learned enough to be fairly conversational when we were in Montreal this summer, at least. Navigated the city with ease, chatted with servers.

We’ll see how the exams go, but so far she hasn’t found the prep too challenging.

What year of French is this in MCPS? 6 or 7? (It looks like some school offer it through level 7.) That may make a difference as to how easy/hard it is.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of anyone who thinks IB is half as rigorous as AP. Most people think they are the similar or if anything that IB is more rigorous.

They are similar, IB Math AA HL is comparable to AP calculus BC, but the IB class takes two years, while the AP only one and arguably goes in more depth.

It varies from course to course, but typically AP gets more credit. For the example above at UMD, IB math gets credit for Math 140 (Calculus 1) and Stat 100, while AP Calculus BC gets credit for Math 140 and 141 (Calculus 1 and Calculus 2).

"AP only one and arguably goes in more depth." -- no, it doesn't. AP is breadth, not depth. IB is depth.

I have kids who went through both.

Yes it does, look at the syllabus for both. IB math HL has 55 hours of calculus over two years, AP has 180 hours over one year.

AP Calculus BC specific topics like series and parametric functions are barely touched upon or missing completely. The rest are treated very superficially because there’s no time to go in depth. The remainder of the IB curriculum is statistics and a review of high school math (algebra, geometry and trigonometry).

That’s why AP usually gets credit for the second semester of calculus, but IB almost never does. At least for calculus, IB doesn’t go neither in depth nor in breadth.

Yes, which is why the RMIB students who take IB math HL also take AP BC Calc and MVC, and take the AP Calc and UMD MVC exams in HS.

This supports what the other poster was saying, if you take HL class you also need to take the AP counterpart or at least the AP exam to be competitive. A lot of wasted effort when you could go the AP route directly.

"wasted effort" is a loaded word. It depends on your goals. Lots of very high achieving kids who are STEM majors go the RMIBD route because it's challenging, especially for writing. If your goal is purely to get college credit, then yea, IBD is not worth it. If your goal is to take the most challenging programs, then IBD + AP classes is what you want. There aren't enough IB classes to fill 7 periods, so most kids take AP classes, too.

The very high achieving kids self study and do well on AP exams. If you are not that type of person, then you probably don't want to go the IBD route; just go the AP route.

Don't listen to this crappy advice. There is no need to self study for the AP exams. A student can do IBD without taking feeling they have to self study for any APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was pretty skeptical about IB but it won me over. Basically, if you are looking to maximize college credits, go with AP, if you are looking to maximize analytical writing pick IB. My kid got into his top choice and said that his FCPS IB years were much more rigorous than he is seeing in college.

So many students who went through IB say this when they get to college. It would be helpful to state which college just to give readers an idea of how IB compares to type of college attended by that former IB student...is it a LIberal Arts college, a big state school that has large classes, a very selective school with few students in each course etc..?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The IB world history HL was more in-depth reading and writing than AP courses. Less memorizing although there is that, but more analysis and depth to writing requirements. Not teaching to the test so much. My kid loved it.

+1 My kid went to RMIB. The IB history class picks a couple of topics throughout world history, and then goes very in depth. As PP stated, less memorization and much more in depth analysis reading and writing.

Someone once stated that AP is a mile long, and an inch deep, whereas IB is the opposite. That may be why a lot of colleges don't give credit for IB.

would you say IB is more like cross country and AP is more like track?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is thinking of taking IB program. She does great in her AP classes and is getting A's and is ok with the workload but we are worried if she takes IB the intensity may be too much. All of her friends are doing it and she mentions it gives a great bump for college acceptances. Curious if anyone would share their experience. Thanks!

The IB’s great bump for college acceptance is a myth, same as the supposed superiority for writing in IB compared to AP. I’ve never seen any independent evidence to support these claims.

The problem with IB is that it’s really light on actual classes, only 6 over two years, to end up with a shaky general knowledge foundation. In exchange you get busywork classes like Theory of Knowledge, “extracurricular” activities etc. When people extol the “analysis” and “critical thinking” in IB, it’s just to mask the lack of breadth and depth in the curriculum.

A comparable schedule for an AP student would be 5-8 AP classes plus a few regular ones. If you’re careful with your choices you can get a solid preparation in either sciences and humanities because it’s a la carte, so you can align the coursework with your interests.

AP is different than IB in terms of writing. All IB classes, even STEM, require a lot of analytical writing. AP classes not so much. The amount of writing is different between the two.

That said, you can indeed get a solid education with taking just AP classes.

+1. You can do well with either and one might be better than another for a given kid but to suggest that IB lacks depth or gives you a shaky foundation is just dumb (as in do you work for the College Board dumb)

The point is in IB you don’t get enough breadth and depth from the number of classes you take. Is one single humanities class enough preparation if you’re interested in this area? I’m doubtful.

Supposedly there’s more “analytical writing” in IB. What does that even mean? There’s less of it in AP, is that teacher dependent, built in the curriculum? Posters in this thread make a lot of assertions that don’t stand even the most cursory scrutiny.

This is one of the most important posts ever re: IB and AP.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the foreign language component is that hard. My daughter got. 6/7 on French, and I don’t think her French is great.

My DD is wrapping up HL French this year, and isn’t finding it difficult, either.

She’s learned enough to be fairly conversational when we were in Montreal this summer, at least. Navigated the city with ease, chatted with servers.

We’ll see how the exams go, but so far she hasn’t found the prep too challenging.

What year of French is this in MCPS? 6 or 7? (It looks like some school offer it through level 7.) That may make a difference as to how easy/hard it is.

At our school AP level is French 5 (the 5th year of French). 7 years is a lot of French, do you start in 6th grade? At our school kids that are not into foreign language just do 1 & 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing I don’t like about writing in IB is it’s emphasis on volume. All assignments come with a word count requirement, which creates an incentive for a verbose if not rambling style of writing.

AP courses have a more varied style and tend put more emphasis on structure. IB writing is more of a one size fits all, with a lot of writing but very similar approach and content. You get the obligatory “what do we know and how do we know it”, “it could be this because of that, or an alternative because of something else”. To some this passes as “analytical writing”, but it doesn’t always work. Its great for a major in medieval French comparative literature, it falls short for a lab report or economics paper. Because of all this you see IB papers on math and science with atrocious first person narrative stylistic choices. For what is worth a lab report in AP chemistry will look like a lab report with proper organization and concise and to the point style.

Most of the writing style in college is actually closer to AP than IB.

People talk about writing writing writing. Talk about other aspects of IB. For example, write about how AP Bio is compared to IB Bio. AP Bio is double period so labs are done in one of the periods. Is it too much info crammed into one year? IB Bio is over two years so are labs spread out, or is there a dedicated day each week for labs, or does it vary? How about level of difficulty in AP versus IB? All the threads on IB only seem to talk about the writing. Ok most readers get it, there's "more" writing and writing is "different" in AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the foreign language component is that hard. My daughter got. 6/7 on French, and I don’t think her French is great.

My DD is wrapping up HL French this year, and isn’t finding it difficult, either.

She’s learned enough to be fairly conversational when we were in Montreal this summer, at least. Navigated the city with ease, chatted with servers.

We’ll see how the exams go, but so far she hasn’t found the prep too challenging.

I don’t like how much emphasis IB puts in foreign language. If you’re immersed at home then because your parents are first generation immigrants you’ll do well. Or if your parents afford the French au-pair, language camps, European trips, tutoring etc. Elitism at its finest.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of anyone who thinks IB is half as rigorous as AP. Most people think they are the similar or if anything that IB is more rigorous.

They are similar, IB Math AA HL is comparable to AP calculus BC, but the IB class takes two years, while the AP only one and arguably goes in more depth.

It varies from course to course, but typically AP gets more credit. For the example above at UMD, IB math gets credit for Math 140 (Calculus 1) and Stat 100, while AP Calculus BC gets credit for Math 140 and 141 (Calculus 1 and Calculus 2).

"AP only one and arguably goes in more depth." -- no, it doesn't. AP is breadth, not depth. IB is depth.

I have kids who went through both.

Yes it does, look at the syllabus for both. IB math HL has 55 hours of calculus over two years, AP has 180 hours over one year.

AP Calculus BC specific topics like series and parametric functions are barely touched upon or missing completely. The rest are treated very superficially because there’s no time to go in depth. The remainder of the IB curriculum is statistics and a review of high school math (algebra, geometry and trigonometry).

That’s why AP usually gets credit for the second semester of calculus, but IB almost never does. At least for calculus, IB doesn’t go neither in depth nor in breadth.

Yes, which is why the RMIB students who take IB math HL also take AP BC Calc and MVC, and take the AP Calc and UMD MVC exams in HS.

This supports what the other poster was saying, if you take HL class you also need to take the AP counterpart or at least the AP exam to be competitive. A lot of wasted effort when you could go the AP route directly.

"wasted effort" is a loaded word. It depends on your goals. Lots of very high achieving kids who are STEM majors go the RMIBD route because it's challenging, especially for writing. If your goal is purely to get college credit, then yea, IBD is not worth it. If your goal is to take the most challenging programs, then IBD + AP classes is what you want. There aren't enough IB classes to fill 7 periods, so most kids take AP classes, too.

The very high achieving kids self study and do well on AP exams. If you are not that type of person, then you probably don't want to go the IBD route; just go the AP route.

Don't listen to this crappy advice. There is no need to self study for the AP exams. A student can do IBD without taking feeling they have to self study for any APs.

lol.. ok, don't listen to me.. I only have a kid who went through RMIBD and got straight As, a 32 IB score, and all 5s on their APs who self studied. Their friends all did the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was pretty skeptical about IB but it won me over. Basically, if you are looking to maximize college credits, go with AP, if you are looking to maximize analytical writing pick IB. My kid got into his top choice and said that his FCPS IB years were much more rigorous than he is seeing in college.

So many students who went through IB say this when they get to college. It would be helpful to state which college just to give readers an idea of how IB compares to type of college attended by that former IB student...is it a LIberal Arts college, a big state school that has large classes, a very selective school with few students in each course etc..?

dp.. from people I know...

Ivies, Duke, USC, NYU, flagships... all over the place. Some are STEM majors, some business majors.

I think the thing with IB is that it requires the student to be well organized and do a lot of work -- things that college students have to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the foreign language component is that hard. My daughter got. 6/7 on French, and I don’t think her French is great.

My DD is wrapping up HL French this year, and isn’t finding it difficult, either.

She’s learned enough to be fairly conversational when we were in Montreal this summer, at least. Navigated the city with ease, chatted with servers.

We’ll see how the exams go, but so far she hasn’t found the prep too challenging.

I don’t like how much emphasis IB puts in foreign language. If you’re immersed at home then because your parents are first generation immigrants you’ll do well. Or if your parents afford the French au-pair, language camps, European trips, tutoring etc. Elitism at its finest.

+1 on this. If you’re not in those categories or languages don’t come easy, avoid IB diploma. It will tank your gpa or you’ll have to spend a lot of time and go through a lot of stress. I wish we considered this before.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the foreign language component is that hard. My daughter got. 6/7 on French, and I don’t think her French is great.

My DD is wrapping up HL French this year, and isn’t finding it difficult, either.

She’s learned enough to be fairly conversational when we were in Montreal this summer, at least. Navigated the city with ease, chatted with servers.

We’ll see how the exams go, but so far she hasn’t found the prep too challenging.

What year of French is this in MCPS? 6 or 7? (It looks like some school offer it through level 7.) That may make a difference as to how easy/hard it is.

At our school AP level is French 5 (the 5th year of French). 7 years is a lot of French, do you start in 6th grade? At our school kids that are not into foreign language just do 1 & 2.

So people are taking AP French in sophmore year? That seems early. It seems at most schools like it is junior year, which would be the 6th year. But I'm confused because MCPS offers 7 years of French language. If AP is in the 5th or 6th year, what are they teaching after that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing I don’t like about writing in IB is it’s emphasis on volume. All assignments come with a word count requirement, which creates an incentive for a verbose if not rambling style of writing.

AP courses have a more varied style and tend put more emphasis on structure. IB writing is more of a one size fits all, with a lot of writing but very similar approach and content. You get the obligatory “what do we know and how do we know it”, “it could be this because of that, or an alternative because of something else”. To some this passes as “analytical writing”, but it doesn’t always work. Its great for a major in medieval French comparative literature, it falls short for a lab report or economics paper. Because of all this you see IB papers on math and science with atrocious first person narrative stylistic choices. For what is worth a lab report in AP chemistry will look like a lab report with proper organization and concise and to the point style.

Most of the writing style in college is actually closer to AP than IB.

People talk about writing writing writing. Talk about other aspects of IB. For example, write about how AP Bio is compared to IB Bio. AP Bio is double period so labs are done in one of the periods. Is it too much info crammed into one year? IB Bio is over two years so are labs spread out, or is there a dedicated day each week for labs, or does it vary? How about level of difficulty in AP versus IB? All the threads on IB only seem to talk about the writing. Ok most readers get it, there's "more" writing and writing is "different" in AP.

People always bring up how good IB is in writing, look up thread. Personally I think writing in IB is one of the most overrated aspects.

I’d summarize it as quantity over quality and one size fits all.

Internal assessments in math and sciences are are some of the worst. Do you need to write 20 pages document as part of your math assessment? Sorry but no, it might be useful in English and history, not in math and sciences. These are busy work time sinks pretentiously called “analytical writing” and “research”, while the fundamentals aren’t even covered properly.

Far more useful is to teach how to write a one page mathematical proof and a lab report instead of rambling over pages after pages. That’s not good preparation for college!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is thinking of taking IB program. She does great in her AP classes and is getting A's and is ok with the workload but we are worried if she takes IB the intensity may be too much. All of her friends are doing it and she mentions it gives a great bump for college acceptances. Curious if anyone would share their experience. Thanks!

The IB’s great bump for college acceptance is a myth, same as the supposed superiority for writing in IB compared to AP. I’ve never seen any independent evidence to support these claims.

The problem with IB is that it’s really light on actual classes, only 6 over two years, to end up with a shaky general knowledge foundation. In exchange you get busywork classes like Theory of Knowledge, “extracurricular” activities etc. When people extol the “analysis” and “critical thinking” in IB, it’s just to mask the lack of breadth and depth in the curriculum.

A comparable schedule for an AP student would be 5-8 AP classes plus a few regular ones. If you’re careful with your choices you can get a solid preparation in either sciences and humanities because it’s a la carte, so you can align the coursework with your interests.

AP is different than IB in terms of writing. All IB classes, even STEM, require a lot of analytical writing. AP classes not so much. The amount of writing is different between the two.

That said, you can indeed get a solid education with taking just AP classes.

+1. You can do well with either and one might be better than another for a given kid but to suggest that IB lacks depth or gives you a shaky foundation is just dumb (as in do you work for the College Board dumb)

The point is in IB you don’t get enough breadth and depth from the number of classes you take. Is one single humanities class enough preparation if you’re interested in this area? I’m doubtful.

Supposedly there’s more “analytical writing” in IB. What does that even mean? There’s less of it in AP, is that teacher dependent, built in the curriculum? Posters in this thread make a lot of assertions that don’t stand even the most cursory scrutiny.

Arguing that IB lacks depth because some of its classes require 2 years is a good example of an assertion that doesn’t stand the most cursory scrutiny.

Lets see:

Two year IB Math HL AA gets the same college credit as the one year AP Calculus BC

Two year IB HL Physics gets the same college credit as the one year AP Physics C

Two year IB HL Chemistry gets the same college credit as the one year AP Chemistry

Hopefully you see the pattern. That’s true for all HL classes compared to the AP counterparts, humanities included.

Interpret this how you’d like, but to me it looks like IB HL classes are a hybrid of slow paced college classes. Doesn’t exactly inspire depth to be honest. If you’re relying on the IB courses alone over two years in the diploma program, you’re stuck with two HL classes (ie the slow paced college level classes) and four SL classes, roughly the equivalent of regular high school classes. Thats six classes in two years!

That’s the problem with one size fits all approaches that IB is modeled on, they can’t be too rigorous because they risk loosing enrollment. They can’t be too much like regular classes, because there’s no incentive to sign up. In the end IB is trying to strike a balance and set itself apart through other features, TOK, EE, “analytical writing” etc. of dubious benefit to the students.

IB is an international standard, used for university admissions all over the world. It isn’t designed to align with typical American course sequences like AP is.

I don’t disagree with what you said. I only take issue with the IB cheerleaders that claim IB is the pinnacle of high school education when it’s far from it. Classes are slower paced compared to college, for what is worth some students may need and benefit from it, some won’t.

AP’s are designed as college classes, not typical American college classes. AP Calculus has the same syllabus as an American, European or any other university in the world. IB on the other hand is not. Half of it is review material of high school math, which is why is taught over two years.

You are just making stuff up now. Tbh neither IB nor AP is equivalent to a top college class. Plenty of students find that out when they get to college.

Leaving that aside, inferring that receiving the same credit for HL IB and AP classes means that the classes are equivalent and therefore HL IB goes at a slower pace is just something you made up in your head.

Finally, if it matters, plenty of colleges give credit for SL (1 year) IB classes.

I meant the slow pace in the IB class is due to spending time to review high school topics. Top students students don’t need to review linear equations and quadratics, and would benefit more from going straight into calculus topics.

It matters how colleges view these advanced classes in relation to their own, that’s a proxy for rigor.

Besides that, there’s the opportunity cost for the student. If you spend two years in the HL class, then you don’t have room in your schedule for other classes that might be of interest.

I tend to agree that IB may not be the best path for math or possibly even for STEM generally but it’s very possible to do IB diploma and AP math.

Also if you are just concerned about the *number* of topics covered in a class then I agree AP is probably better for you than IB but that doesn’t mean AP is more rigorous (or better prep for college or of more interest to college admissions officers).

It depends what you mean by rigorous and the evidence is in the finer details. Contrary to what has been said in this thread to me it seems that IB AA teaches more to the test than BC. At least in the AP course there’s some effort to go over fundamental theorems in calculus with a modicum of proofs. Examples are Intermediate Value, Mean Value, Fundamental Theorems of Calculus etc. which are either absent or presented in the IB class more like a recipe to follow because there’s simply no time to go in depth. When you have a few instruction hours for limits you’re not discussing the squeeze theorem and as a consequence you won’t prove the derivatives of trigonometric functions, you’re just going to apply the formula being shown in class.

I’m very skeptical that the supposed depth of IB curriculum has any substance at least in math. This being said I’m sure plenty of kids can be successful in stem majors with this background, but given the choice I’d rather go with AP.

Do you have any basics for your claims?

The squeeze theorem takes 5 minutes to demonstrate.

http://educ.jmu.edu/~ohmx/squeeze_proof.pdf



Calc BC crams 2 semesters of college courses into one HS year, so obviously it can only do so superficially without proving the theorems, right?

That depends on the local high school and teacher. College board gives a lot more latitude on course content and organization than IB. You don’t need to teach a prescribed syllabus, you only need to pass the course audit. Magnets generally teach the real deal college level.

Two semesters for Calculus 1 and 2 is standard, that wouldn’t be considered crammed. Supposedly AP is for students that can handle college classes in high school, not for ones that need a watered down, in between, course version. The truth is that it varies, that’s why we have AP Calculus AB, which is about 3/4 of Calculus BC, or AP Statistics which is taught over one year in high school but over one semester in college. The redeeming quality is that the AP classes align well with college classes and its easy to decide what you’ve mastered and what to take next.

IB HL AA suffers from the same shortcomings and more, not really a college class, but a mix of advanced and basic topics put together under the same label. Sometimes you see it getting credit for a combination of Calculus 1 and/or Statistics, but it’s not comparable with either. Occasionally you see people jumping straight into Multivariable after HL AA which is ill advised.

This is somewhat misleading. The College Board doesn't dictate what happens day by day (and for English classes, doesn't dictate specific books, poems, etc.), but the Course Audit does dictate the objectives in a detailed way: 2.2 Defining the Derivative of a Function and Using Derivative Notation
1.D Identify an appropriate mathematical rule or procedure based on the relationship between concepts (e.g., rate of change
and accumulation) or processes (e.g., differentiation and its inverse process, anti-differentiation) to solve problems.
4.C Use appropriate mathematical symbols and notation (e.g., Represent a derivative using
f ′(x), y′, and dy/dx

[Anonymous]

Some people on this thread are so invested in this topic both personally and professionally.