Reply to What did you think of the RMIB admitted students presentation?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you have a child there or who went through the program recently what did it offer that is special? Were the teachers better than at a regular good W school? Is it the cohort? The course offerings seem to be similar to other schools' offerings but just IB level. Does that mean they cover more information and more in depth? Was that worth it?[/quote]
My kid is a senior at RMIB.  Every school has good and bad teachers. RMIB is no different. DC had some really awesome teachers, including a math teacher that DC thinks is one of the best teachers they've ever had.

IB is more in depth whereas AP is more breadth.  For example, IB world history, they picked a few topics in world history and went really in depth with it.  There is a *ton* of writing. Every class has a research project, including math and physics.

Pros: 
Kids learn to write, and write well
Very prepared for rigors of college; you need to be well organized and self motivated
Cohort of very high achieving kids

Cons:
A ton of writing, not great if you don't like writing, although, I will say that my STEM focused DC didn't like writing much going into it, but has learned that they can write very well and writing comes very easy to them now (pro)
If you live far away, the commute can be long. I know some kids get on the bus at like 6:15am.  Luckily, we live fairly close to RM so it's not an issue
Lack of sleep
A lot of time commitment.  Most IB students have other extra curricular activities, so the added work load makes it hard to juggle everything. I know of two kids who dropped IB to focus on their e.c.s

They also have to write an Extended Essay for Theory of Knowledge. Again, just a ton of writing.  They get graded as normal per MCPS, and then graded by the IB org for their IA and EE.

Whether it's worth it depends on you and your kid.  My DC found MS very boring, so the challenge of IB was good for DC.  And of course, if you get the IB diploma and score high on the IB exams, it can only add to your profile.  I am not sure how much weight the IB diploma carries, though, because the diploma is given out end of senior year, while the college apps are done by beginning of senior year. But, the colleges can see the IB exam scores during your junior year, so they can probably get a sense of whether you will complete the diploma.

If we had to do it all over again, I think we'd still have DC do RMIB. They've had a good experience, albeit some late nights.  I think DC would've been bored with just AP classes, which they also took.[/quote]

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