Reply to Help! IB vs AP??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a parent, but IB in high school put me far ahead of my peers in a highly rated state university. Strong writing skills, but there’s a fair amount of philosophical/European style post-modern philosophical analysis (English class and atheory of knowledge) [b]which annoyed me. [/b]I came in with 24 college credits. Can’t speak to AP as I didn’t have that option.[/quote]

Just curious but why did it annoy you? [/quote]

PP: It didn't annoy me enough that I would recommend against IB, I just wanted to point it out. Honestly I just felt like some of the English and History content was B.S. In English for example, rather than reading widely, in literature, in Senior IB English Lit I remember focusing on Burnt Norton (poem by T.S. Elliot) for over a month! And that time was spent trying to analyze the idea behind the idea behind the idea, and at some point it was just making stuff up (as far as what T.S. Elliot meant). Now this is just one example, and I may have had a teacher obsessed with textual analysis. I still remember him yelling "get to the idea level!" But I would have rather read more widely and discussed more literature.

I also think if you are a good writer you can somewhat sail through English and History IB on your strong writing skills with less content knowledge, whereas in A.P., content is king in the tests. On balance, my writing has served me very well in my career, so I can't really complain. But if a very post-modern/liberal/European/philosophical bent to learning bothers you, keep in mind that it is fairly present in I.B., whereas A.P. is a bit more content/fact based than theoretical.

I don't think you can go wrong either way but if you're really unsure, research the I.B. curriculum directly.[/quote]

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