The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

Student comparison of IB and AP

For years, the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) programme dominates college level high school courses in the United States. Its academic competitor, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is not well known nationally, but is recognised internationally worldwide.

Schools in the US have experimented with the IB programme, and many have been successful. Some schools would turn into a complete IB school, whereas some would consider themselves as an IB school, but would offer just as many AP courses as there are IB.

In the eyes of college admissions officers, which would you prefer, the AP student or the IB student?

All colleges and university in the US will accept credit for AP classes (if and only if one passes with a score of 4 or 5 depending on the college). IB, on the otherhand, is not given the same entity, primarily because colleges are used to the AP system. But more and more colleges are beginning to recognise the IB diploma programme. There are several key features that separate AP apart from IB.

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For starters, identifying your future goals is a good starting point.

Depending on your passion, one system may suit you better than the other. If you are interested in international affairs and wish to make a difference in improving humanity in the world, the IB system will definitely teach you about the various issues for whatever course and relate it to humanitarian topics. For example, as part of the IB Geography curriculum, you will learn about the social issues among impoverished nations and regions. The aim of the IB is to develop you into a holistic student. One area of knowledge that is interrelated among some IB courses is the topic of global warming. You would learn about that in IB Chemistry, IB Physics, IB Environmental Systems and IB Geography.

In terms of the rigour of the curriculum, for the purpose of comparing the two, let’s use IB Physics as the subject. IB focuses on covering and introducing a wide range of different topics in the realm of physics, from mechanics to electric currents to nuclear physics. AP focuses on analytical physics that is more calculus and math based.

So in my opinion, IB is a lot easier than AP. IB’s objective is to just introduce a variety of different concepts, such that if one were to continue learning physics in college, they would have a good head start in different physics branches.

Both curriculum are rigorous. Taking multiple AP or multiple IB courses will push you to your limits. But taking multiple IB courses is typically more manageable, since the material is generally easier to grasp because the curriculum is fairly superficial (with respect to one entire topic taught in college).

Also, many core IB classes are two year courses, so the materials will be refreshed after the junior year. IB Math Standard Level, for example, teaches everything from a Pre-calculus honours course and only rudimentary concepts of calculus like derivatives and integration. The only additional extension that the IB path differs from the AP route is that IB adds a topic in vectors, matrices, statistics and probabilities.

 

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    CitizenApr 26, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Other egregious errors aside within the body of this text, I believe the title of the article should be “Student Comparison of IB and AP”.

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Student comparison of IB and AP