AP vs IB
 

My son is a HS freshman, and his school offers a lot of AP classes and an IB program. He is smart but, by his own admission, has some issues with motivation.

I am trying to do some research to start a conversation with him about whether he should do IB or take AP classes as an overall approach.

From what I can tell with my online research, both programs looks good to colleges and colleges, in general, give credit for both AP and IB classes (assuming you score high enough on the relevant tests). There does not seem to be much difference in terms of what looks better to college admissions (though I might be wrong about that).

IB seems . . . harder, I guess. It is more holistic. AP just lets you take a bunch of AP classes buffet style. So you can pick and choose what looks good to you.

IB requires more of a commitment--more writing focused. Big essay requirement, etc.

So for a kid who wants to learn better self-motivation, that program seems pretty good. It seems really hard to fake IB. But I also worry that something that intense might be a bit . . . too much. When he could just take AP classes instead (which, of course, are not easy).

I know some folks here are in education and some folks have/had high school age kids.

Any and all insights are appreciated.

My family faced this a couple years back, with our oldest a candidate for the same stuff. But our county-wide school system runs its IB program through certain schools, meaning she'd basically need to pick up and relocate to another area school to do it, and at the time that felt close to a dealbreaker. She went on to take many AP/honors classes, mostly through online offerings due to COVID, and is trying to finish high school a year early.

Good luck, our dilemma got resolved for what may be purely localized issues.

Our system's IB program was also run at a specific school (of course the one in the "fancier" town south of the city which ALSO had the magnet programs), my kids opted not to go that route and stayed at the local (and oft-maligned) "city" HS. They turned out fine. (Well, outside of the younger putting college on hold after a year, but they still got in everywhere they applied save for Cornell. Actual school experience had more to do with mental well-being.).

I don't think either of them would have enjoyed the writing focus, and I'm not sure it would have made sense anyway (for one engineer and at the time one pre-vet). A friend of my son's (and his sister) both chose the IB program; I can't say what effect it had.*


* The friend ended up at UMD, not sure about the sister. Very weirdly, he was accepted into the engineering school, enrolled, and promptly switched to something else. My son was NOT accepted to the engineering school, but was the Honors program. Given his AP/SAT scores and desired major this made absolutely NO sense to us. Was one factor in choosing Purdue instead.

This AP thing is weird to me. My daughter will start HS last year and there seem to be a bunch of AP classes. When I was in school, the AP classes were for Jr/Sr year and not this early. Seems odd to take an AP class this early, but then again she will enter HS with math credits from middle school (we have an accelerated math program). I hope I can figure this out. A friend of ours in FL entered college with like 2+ years of credits.

A few years ago, when my son was at the point where we could think about these things, I looked into the nearby IB school. It's an intriguing idea, kind of a "next generation" approach to education.

Like any of this, it requires an understanding of what motivates your children. I never figured that part out. My guess is that a traditional AP approach still works with solid schools (most that offer enough AP courses to matter are solid) and motivated kids.

Unmotivated kids won't get much out of their education regardless.

There's no easy answer here. What's important is for your son to keep looking out there and discovering what makes him want to learn, whatever that is. No program can do that for him.

Opportunity is only half the battle. He's old enough to want to find his own way, make mistakes, learn from mistakes. You don't learn without making mistakes. But not so old that he doesn't need you to make some of those choices for him.

There are few better opportunities out there than Purdue engineering, by the way. It might not have the international acclaim, but it's definitely a place that gives a good math/science kid the chance to do anything. I'd take that over an Ivy right now, no question about it.

The average UGA freshman has 7 AP/IB courses. The average Ga Tech freshman has 12. You can't get that number by waiting until the back half of high school. (not reasonably)

Much like "a bachelors degree is the new h.s. diploma", AP/IB courses are often considered an indication of academic rigor compared to the more lowly regarded regular (non AP/IB) courses.

Also, the earlier you begin in h.s., the earlier you start getting the GPA bump that is usually applied to those courses. Again, just using UGA here cause the stats are easy for me to find: "Middle-50% of All Admitted First-Year Students: 4.00-4.30" That's right, over half the admitted freshman had GPA _over_ 4.00 (obviously, they're using the weighted GPA)

What about Dual Enrollment?

Looked into that, as well. There are two issues that make that difficult. The first is peer groups - will not being in many classes together affect the dynamic? Does this make ties with sports team members, clubs, activities, even lunch a lot more difficult? And the second is the time it takes to move between campuses. How is transportation arranged? Life's busy enough and that can be a lot of lost time in the middle of the day.

Dual enrollment isn't at another location. At least it wasn't when I was in school. It's just a HS class, at the HS that 'counts' as a college credit.

That definitely varies by location/geography. The more common use of the phrase in Georgia, for example, does refer to courses taken off-site (i.e. away from the HS). Typically either full-time or half-time, there are actually SEVEN different programs here that fall under the dual-enrollment heading, ranging from full-on residential programs on two college campuses to "articulated credit" which is the only variant that's taught on HS property (and is the least available).

For my son's case, he was both a) ridiculously motivated and b) very specifically targeting Aerospace Eng, so I don't know that IB would have made sense, no. And you're right -- for that field, it turned out that the best programs included a lot of big state schools. I think his list ended up being Purdue, Michigan, Texas A&M, GaTech, Maryland. (He ruled out MIT because of marching band.) He got waitlisted by GT and turned down at Michigan (probably didn't help that we made no overtures to actually visit).

Purdue has been perfect for him, outside of the general attitude of "Aid? HA - you should just feel lucky to be here! Eventually he did get a couple of scholarships from band and for GPA/performance. I should probably update the kids away from home thread -- currently he has a lab job there which is paying for his grad work, while his lab head tries to convince him to stay for a doctorate.

No idea what albion's or Quik's kids are pursuing.

The oldest (14) is still a high school freshman, so he's not sure. The tension I see is that his interests are STEM based, but it seems like his real talents are more humanities focused.

I want him to do what he wants. But I do wonder how much of him "wanting" to do STEM is just because every schoolkid in America has been told to want to do STEM for the last 15 years.

Jim is right that it is an interesting age. Old enough that he needs to start making choices and sometimes making the wrong ones and learning from that. But young enough that if Mrs. A and I see him about to run off a cliff Wile E. Coyote style, we want to be able to step in and prevent the worst of the damage.

It seems like yesterday I was going through this with my kids, but I guess it's been closer to 10 years than yesterday. I do have some thoughts I can provide because my twins went 1 way but my oldest son's long time girlfriend actually went the opposite direction so I have some feedback from both sides.

For background purposes let me state that both of my twins took the AP route, especially my son who took so many AP courses and scored so well on the end of year test that he's graduating college a year early because of it. My daughter also took a few AP courses, but then she quickly shifted to dual enrollment classes, where she took classes at a local college for credit towards graduation and college and she will also graduate with her BS early.

My oldest son's girlfriend went the IB path, mostly because she was targeting Bryn Mawr college and to get in, the rigor needed to be significant. IB provided that resume, however, when she got to college, she wasn't given any credit for the classes she took. Meaning she started her college career with 0 credit hours.

From our experience, if you need rigor because you are interested in applying to Ivey League level colleges, then IB is probably your best route, but be careful here - we also know people that took IB classes had over a 4.0 and didn't get accepted to Duke, because they weren't interested in the IB path. If you're just looking for classes that require a little more effort, then AP might be the way to go with the added benefit of college credit down the line, which can quite frankly save a bunch of money (also would highly recommend dual enrollment when it becomes an option).

If you're curious about in class rigor, that's harder for me to explain because Bear really never had to study. I do know other students complained about the AP courses, but Bear aced every single one, and as a rule he wasn't staying up all night doing extra work or cramming for a test. However, I don't expect Bear's experience is typical. He's just really smart in Math and Science. I do know from conversations with IB students that there appears to be much more what my son would call busy work on that side. More papers and reading and writing, where AP is basically just a more in-depth look at the same material from the standard version of the class.

Dual enrollment benefits you more if you plan on going to an instate school. If you are going out of state or private, they are less likely to accept it for credit.

As others have said, it has become very important to get IB/AP classes early. The number of classes that you pass at a high enough rate (at least a 3 for some schools, 4 or higher for others when it comes to AP) is heavily weighted in admissions. Especially now when some schools have stopped asking for SAT/ACT scores, and many that still take test scores have lessened their importance. Most upper tier schools don't give you college credit for AP/IB, but it will usually put you in a higher level class in those subject.
From what I gather from admissions experts, it is important to show through higher level courde work and concentration in the student interests, with the extra circulars showing a well rounded student.

My daughter is a HS senior and looking at schools. What we have heard a few times is that it's important to maximize opportunities at your school. They recognize not every school has the same opportunities, but they want to see students take advantage of what they have available. My daughter's HS has no IB classes, only a few dual enrollment options, but lots of AP, so she has really loaded up on AP from sophomore year forward.

Dies she have a favorite, JPhillips?

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She's trying early decision with Tufts. Her fallback might be to transfer to GA Tech after a year. Apparently, her grandfather having graduated from there makes a transfer very likely.

She's all math and science and is looking to start out in chemical engineering.

Nice. Tufts would be a good get.

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She's got an alumni interview tomorrow, so think good thoughts.

She's competitive, so hopefully, she makes the cut. Then we have to figure out how to pay for it, but there is a difference between loans for a poor school and loans for Tufts, especially with an engineering degree.

Update: My daughter got notice of her acceptance into Tufts last night. She's thrilled.

Now to start selling all our possessions to help pay for it.

Congrats. My sister went to Tufts. Nice campus, wedged in there in the midst of Boston sprawl. Of course, that was back in the days when tuition/board were affordable for the middle class.

I remember a speech from the president of the U-Rochester (I went there freshman/sophomore years before switching majors and transferring to Michigan). He said he had seen presentations, and the cost of a private education had almost exactly mirrored the cost of a baseline new station wagon over recent decades. Still shocking. That was really the first moment I realized how much my parents were willing to give up to give my sister and I a good start. I knew what my dad made because professor salaries were published in the local paper every year.

Station wagons have been replaced by SUVs, and those seem start at about $30-35k now. I wouldn't be surprised (and haven't looked it up) if a private university comes in at twice that now. No idea how middle class families handle that without a lot of debt.

Our contribution as of now is about 30K. We can't do that without her taking some loans, but she should be fine as an engineering grad from Tufts. It is crazy how much it costs, but the reality is that nobody pays sticker price, so the topline number isn't very meaningful. I think Tufts says it's 80K or so a year.

Congrats!!!

That's the way st my son's school. The top-line is about the same, but we have only been out $8-10k a year. His last year is going to be higher because of his income (nice paid internship last summer plus some pick up jobs around campus).

The 30k at least covers room and board and books.