RMIB Program Experience

[Anonymous]

Are you saying the program doesn't educate the students to have strong writing skills necessary to complete the Internal Assessments and Extended Essay? Are you saying students need to come into the program with these skills?

Not exactly. Students that join the diploma program have learned the same skills in the Honors English program in 9th and 10th grade as the magnet students, but they haven't had the requirement to write as much independently as they will need to in 11th and 12th grade in the IB program. The RMIB magnet students are selected in part based on their strong language and writing skills to begin with. Then they have two years of magnet classes that focus more strongly on writing than the regular Honors classes. They just have much more practice at writing independently. A magnet kid who was in a Humanities magnet in middle school and learned how to write a 12 page independently researched report in 7th grade is just better prepared for the independent Extended Essay than students that didn't have that experience.

tldr: They all have been taught the same skills, the magnet kids have more practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No, 120 graduated when my kid graduated few years ago (currently in college). Rate was 95-96%. Almost all got it.

Class of 2015? I'm looking at a chart handed out at one of the PAC meetings that shows that class was a little small relative to other classes:
2014 134/152 88% diploma rate
2015 116/125 93%
2016 115/131 86%
2017 142/161 88%
2018 138/161 86%
There is further breakdown showing that students from the MYP program earn the diploma at lower rates than the magnet students, but the magnet students don't all earn the diploma either (and it should be noted that 5-12 students per magnet cohort withdraw from the program prior to beginning the diploma.)

I'm not sure if we got to talking about rates of diploma attainment because people think it is an indicator of program quality, but I think diploma attainment is more student dependent than program dependent. If a student doesn't have the strong writing skills necessary, they will struggle with completing the Internal Assessments and Extended Essay to the level necessary for the diploma. It doesn't mean they aren't smart or motivated, they just don't have the fully well rounded skill sets to managed the full workload demand.

But back to the topic of RMIB program experience. One of the differences between RM's IB and other school's IB programs is that only students who are attempting the full diploma are allowed to take IB courses (with the exception of some specialty electives). In other schools, students may take certain IB courses and test in them to earn a certificate, but don't have to take the full load of IB courses that they would if they were pursuing the diploma. This may mean that some students aren't as serious about their IB classes as the diploma candidates are (because they don't need to make certain score benchmarks.) At RM, since all students in IB classes are pursuing the diploma, all are feeling a lot of pressure to do well, which contributes to the pressure cooker feeling for some students who are a little more overwhelmed by the workload than some of their peers.

Not sure this is true. Advanced students who are taking a mixture of AP and IB classes care just as much about IB scores/grades because they are looked at by colleges as the same. If you take an IB class and you get a bad IB score, it looks bad. Of course, that doesn't matter so much senior year, but it certainly matters Jr. year. I think there is the same pressure to do well, whether you are in full IB or not. No one takes an advanced class and doesn't care about the grade. The only reason for taking it is to show college admissions that you are taking "rigorous" coursework.

I think there is a small core of kids their senior year who really do care about IB scores -- those are the ones who are applying to international schools who offer admissions based on cumulative IB scores (and these international universities are prestigious and a fraction of the cost of the best US universities). Those kids are under pressure to rack up a certain total in IB score to get into their school. Usually they've been offered a "conditional" admission that depends on meeting a score target. The rest don't care that much because meeting the cumulative required score for the diploma is not that hard for a bunch of kids who have been pre-screened as good test-takers (for the magnet students).

FWIW, my DD did a mixture of AP and IB, because the IB course mandates were too rigid and limiting -- DD had an interest in a particular academic subject and preferred to take many more of those core academic classes than IB would permit. For example, a strong math student might take Calc BC, Stats and Multivariable and Diff EQ. But, this wouldn't be allowed in IB. There are other examples in each academic core subject (an English lover might also want to take Journalism and Creative Writing in addition to IB English, but can't in IB)