Show IB Some Respect

High school students taking rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) courses hoping to get college credit may be disappointed when they arrive on campus. Many universities refuse to recognize IB exam scores, while some of these same schools accept Advanced Placement (AP) scores.

IB courses focus on writing and analyzing more than AP classes and rarely use multiple choice questions on exams, while AP exams rely on the multiple choice format for about half the questions. Some argue that this means AP courses are less rigorous than IB, and that any school accepting AP credits should also accept IB.

Colleges urge students to take advanced courses--shouldn't they honor both IB and AP credits?

Comments

[Gabriela Marguery-Costoya]

Universities in Europe accept IB classes so I don't see why universities in the US do not accept them. I taught those classes in another country and, believe me, they are more rigorous than any freshman class here in the US.

[Susan Cooper-Twamley]

While I am not as familiar with the high school end of the IB program yet, my daughter attends a private IB elementary school. As a public school teacher, I am always incredibly impressed with the work she brings home and the amount of thought that goes into the IB units they work on throughout the year. There is little rote memorization, and students make many decisions about what they will study critically. I feel she and her classmates are well ahead of other students in the area, both public and private, and think it is a real shame that support for the program does not extend to higher education.

[KJ]

IB exam scores, at the higher and standard level, should be honored in the same manner that AP exams scores currently accrue credit for students. These students have attempted an incredibly rigorous pre-college education and deserve to be recognized for their effort.

[Alton L. Biggs]

I have taught AP Biology in a high school that also offers IB Biology. The main difference between the universities in the U. S. that accept both or only AP courses (I can't speak for universities outside the United States.) is that Advanced Placement courses are usually accepted with actual grade points awarded and IB courses are accepted, but students still have to take the credit hours. So, AP saves students (or their parents) money for tuition, books, etc. where IB does not. That's a powerful incentive.

[Bradf Ford]

I have 20 years experince with the IB and AP programs.The IB is a more focused and academically intensive program than AP. I find that when a US college does not recognize IB it is the result of an admissions department that has neither kept itself uninformed or is lazy, or both. If they analyzed the program as well as the statistical info available to them regarding IB, they would accept, and actively recruit, these students.

[SK]

Within some University systems, IB students do receive college course credit, just like AP students do. In order to pass IB exams, which are more rigorous, they are required to achieve points for courses that are structured between higher level and standard level.
Having had a daughter pass both AP courses and passing the IB exams for diploma, IB requires greater levels of synthesis and evaluation. In education, we hope that our students will be able to integrate learning from one course to another. The very essense of IB is a student's ability to apply their learning in all contexts, not just on achieving a 4 or a 5 on an AP exam. They can not pass IB if they approach each class as a discrete subject.
Passing a multiple choice exam is a good snap shot picture of what they have learned in a moment of time. Being articulate, well-read and able to express that knowledge is far more challenging. It is what unversities expect, but because of some public policies IB students are punished in those instances for doing the very thing that those Universities expect.

[Frank Taylor]

Having been an IB and AP coordinator, my respect for the students who opted for the IB diploma was demonstrably greater -- IB is a program(me)and a very trying and comprehensive one. AP and individual IB classes and exams allow the savant in our students to excel in a narrow range of areas. An IB diploma demands strength covering a wide range of areas - this is especially evident in the Theory of Knowledge(TOK)classes. Colleges and universities that fail to appreciate the quality demanded from an IB diploma and examinations are, indeed, settling for second or third best.

[Dr. Raymond Buniak]

I am an IB-AP-Honors coordinator and instructional developer in an inner city school. As such, I know the workings of each species intimately and have advanced past this IB vs. AP rhetoric. Essentially it boils down to this:

AP is a great national model. It should be the standard of education for the US.

IB is a great international model. It was created to serve the peculiar needs of students in international schools.

Good success with AP can move a student into the 90th percentile of US high school graduates. Students achieving AP Scholar and higher status can move into the 95th percentile of US high school graduates. Students able to achieve the College Board's "AP international diploma scheme" can move into the 99th percentile of US high school graduates.

Students that achieve an IB diploma can achieve a status of the 90th percentile of high school graduates in the world. Students that score 35 or more points as an IB composite score have achieved the 99th percentile of high school graduates in the world. The difference has to do with the ancillary skills that a student must have in order to achieve the diploma status.

Why don't more US colleges award IB credit? Numerous reasons--like funding full time teaching staff/professors that teach only basic level classes. But one VP of a university told me bluntly that the IB as an organization does not do enough to promote knowledge of this form of education.

[Bobby]

are u serious? i took IB cause i thought it would provide myself with a larger variety of schools to choose from, and that it might be an advantage if i want to go n study in the states.. but guess i was wrong :P.. :(