Reply to Is there any place for math/science kid (not TJ level) in IB HS?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Is there any place for math/science kid (not TJ level) in IB HS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

FCPS had 237 National Merit Semifinalists this school year. 163 go to TJ, which has AP and more advanced courses, and no IB. Of the remaining 74, 68 attend AP schools and only six go to IB schools, even though one-third of the high schools in the county excluding TJ are IB.

The record of IB schools in FCPS is underwhelming at best. The six high schools in FCPS with the highest SATs are all AP. Of the seven with the lowest scores, five are IB. FCPS tried to replace AP with IB at Woodson, and the parents forced them to restore AP.  And, there has never been a plan to redistrict students from an AP school to an IB school that was not met with protests.

[/quote]

wtf? AP is better because it is offered by TJ? Seriously?  You get that a TJ diploma has a lot of extra requirements?  And that an IB diploma also has a lot of extra requirements, that are different than the TJ diploma. Doing either without summer school is a challenge-- and may be impossible if you play an instrument. It would be impossible to get both a TJ diploma and an IB diploma unless you spent 5 years in HS. Also, these programs have very different philosophies. IB is humanities heavy, interdisciplinary and needs 5 years of a foreign language, etc. TJ is (duh) STEM centric. Come back when you figure out wtf you are talking about. [/quote]

Uh, I think OP described her kid as a math/science kid. Not that IB is anything close to the humanities equivalent of TJ.[/quote]

Nope. But there are 4 types of diplomas in FCPS (non-special Ed): standard, advanced, IB and TJ. PP is saying TJ is the best school in FCPS and doesn't offer IB, which means AP must be better. I'm saying a TJ diploma and an IB diploma are completely incompatible. You can't do both. FWIW OP: my STEM smart kid (also not too shabby in the humanities and a good writer) pupil placed for IB in case he is not admitted to TJ next year. But he plans to do the full diploma. We looked hard at the requirement with him and mapped out a schedule that ended with the IB diploma before we signed off on the pupil placement. It's incredibly rigorous. He will be challenged and get a great education. It's a very good plan B. [/quote]

We spoke to some parents and kids about IB. The bottom line was that the diploma program can be a giant pressure-cooker in an American high school setting if you try to participate in other typical activities (many nights with 4-5 hours of sleep), their friends at AP schools were happier and reported fewer "busy work" assignments, and they weren't at any advantage applying to schools, either. You can try to "map out" a schedule for your kid, but he's the one who'll have to keep up with the demands of the program. Our conclusion was that it wasn't worth it. DC did AP, had excellent test scores, and is now in a top CS program at a top 50 university. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics