Schools around the world offer the International Baccalaureate (IB), a rigorous two-year program specifically designed to train the scholars of the future. Many US high schools offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses too, for students who are looking for a challenge and interested in getting a leg up in their college preparation. If you have both available to you at your school, which should you choose?
Completing the IB program was one of the greatest challenges of my life, but it was more than worth the struggle, sweat, and tears. I spent a fair amount of time debating with my peers who took AP courses whether the AP or IB program is superior, and I’ve boiled it down to the following four key points that I think best exemplify why the IB program does a superior job preparing students for the world.
Being challenged by course difficulty
In terms of difficulty, AP and IB classes aren’t that different. The main difference is AP has you choose which topics (e.g., math, language, history) you want to take, whereas the IB Program covers all of your core classes. You still have a decent amount of choice, including the difficulty of your IB math classes, your electives, and which science specialties you’ll take. But you don’t get the luxury of taking advanced English and regular Spanish and History. In IB, everything you take is advanced. You might even be able to take what’s known as higher level (HL) classes as opposed to standard level (SL) to really challenge yourself.
There are also components of the IB program you won’t find in AP at all. For one, the International Baccalaureate includes a mandatory two-semester philosophy class (infamous among IB students) known as Theory of Knowledge. Students must also complete a public service project to receive their diploma, known as the Creativity, Action, and Service (CAS) project, as well as an Extended Essay about a topic of their choice.
While AP students worry primarily about final exams, IB students have exams, multiple papers, internal assessments, CAS, and their Extended Essays—this is in addition to all the other high school chaos! In terms of high school difficulty, the IB isn’t for the faint of heart. But, at least for me, nothing in my education has been quite as difficult, but it taught me what I’m truly capable of. Thanks, IB!
Related: IB Crash Course: 4 Big Questions About the Pre-College Program, Answered
Receiving college credit during admission
One of the primary reasons high school students take advanced classes is to receive college credit when they apply, which can potentially save you time and money in the long run. What I wish I had known in high school was exactly how high school classes translated to college credit. Turns out, it actually depends on a large number of factors. Specifically, two main factors decide the college credit you’ll receive for your AP or IB coursework:
- How well did you do on the standardized exams at the end of your classes?
- What program are you enrolling in at your college or university?
For example, a friend and I attended the same college; he majored in Business, while I majored in Astrophysics. Even though I did a little better than him on the IB tests, he got 48 college credits and I got 29. I got nearly a year’s worth of college credit, and I’m certainly grateful for all the time and money I saved, but ultimately my scores (and stress) didn’t matter as much as I thought they did. What really matters is where you go to college and what you want to study. The bottom line: don’t take advanced classes if all you want are college credits, because there’s no real way to determine how many you’ll get. Instead, try to do your very best and trust that your hard work will be worth it. After all, the credit you get toward college is only part of how being an IB student can enhance your life.
Related: How to Choose Between Pre–College Credit Courses
Finding community in your courses
One motif of suffering is that you grow closer to the people who suffer with you. In an International Baccalaureate program, you’ll take many classes with the same people. And due to the rigor of the program, you’ll build a strong sense of community and camaraderie with your fellow IB students. Not to mention there are tons of inside jokes and memes about IB—which you get to share with students from around the world!
After you graduate from high school, you are also an IB graduate, which means you retain the benefits of being part of this community throughout your life. This includes social events, meetings, and talking about how painful high school was with fellow overachievers. And that eases the pain, if only a bit.
Developing important life skills
If you don’t have one already, applying for a job in high school is basically the worst. You have zero prior experience to get a job in the first place! What is a poor teen to do? Being an IB student can help. As an IB student, you’re slightly more qualified than many of your high school peers, because the program places so many more demands on you. After my first job interview in a government office, I was told specifically that one of the primary reasons I was chosen for the position over dozens of other applicants was because my nearly blank résumé had the letters “IB” on it. As a college graduate, I understand how difficult it is to comprehend life beyond college while still in high school, but this is only the beginning of your journey. And I can’t express enough how valuable my IB diploma toward preparing me with the time-management skills I needed for all the sleepless nights, exams, and papers in college.
Related: Our Best Advice on Building Important Skills as a Student
At its core, IB really is a program that teaches you to have a global mindset. The best quote I’ve come across about the program was one I heard during my junior year at an IB assembly: “You can either work hard now or work hard later,” referring to how our hard work in high school would make college drastically easier (which it did). But I think this gets to the core of the human experience. The harder you work when you’re young, the easier the rest of your life will be. Those four years of stress are a small price to pay for the years of success you’ll have in the future. I wish the best of luck to you, young IB scholar!
Start searching for colleges and universities that will accept your IB course credits even before you begin the program by using our College Search tool today!
