Advanced Placement vs. International Baccalaureate

by Steven

With two outstanding college-level programs of classes to take, Arlington students are often forced to choose between College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program and the IB program of international studies.

Here are a few key differences:

• The AP program allows far more class choices and is far lessconstricting than the IB. For example, the IB rigidly requires candidates to complete at least one class in each of six areas during the last two years of high school, where the AP program allows students to pick and choose which courses they do and do not want to take.
  
  
• The IB program includes internal and external testing throughout the school year, including oral exams and essays, in addition to the final end-of-the-year test. This means additional work for students, but it also means that they receive additional feedback and it decreases stress for final exams.
  
  
• In terms of college credit, AP is still the safest choice. Most colleges recognize and reward AP exam scores of 4 and 5 (out of a total of five points) while most colleges only give credit for IB higher level classes, which are typically a year longer than their AP equivalents.
  
  
• The IB program is more holistic than AP, including a requirement that students write a 4,000 words extended essay in their senior year. This essay is beneficial in that it provides students with experience in writing research papers for college, but that benefit is usually lost due to the thoughtless timing of the essay as students are required to piece together the essay at around the same time they are struggling to complete college applications.
  
  
• Additionally, IB, unlike the AP program, requires students to complete (and arduously document) 150 hours of Creativity, Action, and Service hours (CAS). While it seems alovely idea to harness the energy of high achieving students to something in addition to academic work, in reality the average IB and AP student will complete far more than 150 hours of sports and clubs during their time in high school, meaning that the only real effect of CAS is to create hours of work to complete the often-bureaucratic documentation.
  
  
• Finally, teachers in both programs are often comparable, and usually teachers will teach both an AP and an IB class. In terms of students, the IB program seems to have a slightly higher proportion of high-achieving students. This is mostly because teachers and administrators tend to push advanced classes of younger students to complete the IB program, not always for the right reasons – the IB program usually involves students taking more tests, which carries state incentives and the promise of a higher ranking for the high school.

Overall, it seems that perhaps a mixture of IB and AP classes would best serve the typical advanced student in terms of college credit and class selection. Those considering the full IB diploma should carefully consider what they want from advanced courses before they undergo a program that involves significantly more pointless work than the AP while providing less recognition for that work from colleges.

For information on these programs, visit:
http://www.ibo.org/
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/about.html

Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, VA offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Visit their site for further information.