Two curricula, two ideologies, two organizations.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) program and the Advanced Placement (AP) program are two very difficult high school courses, and their influence has been seen in classrooms throughout America. IB is a staple at Del Mar, but are there cons to not being an AP school?
The AP program was implemented into classrooms in the 1950s as a way to give high school students access to college level classes in high school and to potentially give them college credit based on their exam score, a simple, fair pathway to improve education across the country.
Conversely, the IB Program was established in Geneva in 1968, after World War II and while IB also aims to educate and better high school students, it accomplishes that in its own distinct way.
The IB organization states that the IB mission is to, “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”
The IB Organization also states that, “These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”
To Ariel Dukellis—the IB director at Del Mar High School, and a former IB teacher—one of the IB programs greatest strengths is that holistic focus on the students themselves, “It is strong in academics, but is also strong in learning how to learn, and learning how to be a human being.”
Jennifer Halas, Assistant Principal for Westmont High School, said she is familiar with the IB program, but not as familiar with it as she is with the AP program.
“[In AP], Students are earning potential college credits, while learning college coursework and preparing students for college.” Halas said, when asked about the end goal of the AP program.
Whereas the IB program has an encompassing, emotionally driven approach to their teaching, AP is seemingly more straightforward with their goal. Students take hard classes to ready themselves for their future, and earn credit for college.
“Being exposed to College level coursework and potentially earning college credit saving time and money during college [is a major benefit of the AP Program].” Halas said. Depending on your AP Exam score, students can earn college credit for that AP class, effectively letting them “skip” certain classes in college, and maybe even graduate early.
While Dukellis is obviously in favor of the IB program, she does realize that every program has its cons, even IB.
“I think there is somewhat a concern that we have two separate schools, that the diploma students get to do this and this and get these supports, and everybody else doesn’t,” says Dukellis.
IB History of the Americas teacher and IB CAS (Creativity, Activity, and Service, a main component of the IB Diploma), Danielle Schwartz voices her agreement with Dukellis’s statement about the school’s perceived separation, and backs it up with her personal experience as an IB student as well.
“Having a true program where students who sign up for a lot of classes are taking them together. It can create division within the school, which is something that I noticed when I attended an IB school, and did the IB Diploma Program, there was like a whole section of the school that I had never met,” says Schwartz.
While this is a very well-founded downside to the program at Del Mar, many efforts have been made to nullify this feeling, and both Schwartz and Dukellis cannot stress enough that Del Mar is an “IB for all school”.
The IB Program has been shown to have effects on the student body as a whole, but does it also have effects on individual students?
Dukellis says that, “Yeah the [IB Program] is definitely rigorous. It’s definitely pushing students hard. The real difference with taking the whole Diploma is like the time management of it all.”
Schwartz, adding on to highlight the IB Diploma’s rigor, says, “It really is college level and the additions for students doing the IB Diploma Program and the Extended Essay, and CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service program) on top of taking six or seven college level courses is a lot of work.”
Both AP and IB are rigorous courses, but what does the data say about each program’s success with its students’ post-high school achievements? The two programs have done extensive research and conducted many studies into whether success and participation in their respective programs translates into college success.
For the AP Program, there is clear data showing the correlation between high achievement within the program and high GPA during college.
And although it is measuring other metrics, the IB program also has evidence showing that students in the Diploma Program are very high achievers in college. As shown in the graph below, Diploma students were more likely to enroll in a post-secondary institution (a college) straight out of high school, and were also more likely than the average student to attend a four year college.
Another contributing factor to the debate on whether AP or IB is the “better program” is the level of recognition and ease of communication each program has. And because the AP Program was developed and first implemented in the U.S., it is bound to be more well known.
“[…] perhaps since there is a wide variety of courses for students to select from and a lot of colleges recognize the coursework at their own colleges, schools have historically offered this [AP Program],” says Halas.
Although, IB may not get the recognition it deserves from everyday populace—CAWS, the California Association of World Schools, the consortium of IB schools to which Del Mar belongs—shows that while it may not feel like it, IB is all around. “California has grown to become the third largest IB region in the world, where close to 80% of our IB schools are Title 1 and often serve large populations of English learners,” CAWS states.
As stated by Schwartz and Dukellis, the IB program benefits the students in two main ways.
The first of which is the IB Programs “portfolio aspect”; “In IB, there is the exam, but there’s also your IA’s (Internal Assessments) or your IO’s (Individual Oral Assessments), or all those other pieces you’re working on in between. And so I feel that it’s better for students and better for access that students are able to actually be assessed on work across the full year, or the full two years,” says Dukellis.
The second main benefit to the students is the IB Programs overlap between classes, “There are connections made both intentionally and unintentionally and so that’s more realistic, and more holistic learning,” says Schwartz.
The pair of Programs both strive to foster learning and education for all, and despite their different methods for achieving this goal,“Every student learns differently so this is hard to answer. Some students might prefer different assessments along the way and some might prefer one final test,” says Halas.
In summation, both Programs have their respective merits and drawbacks. And while there is lots of comparison between AP and IB, it is truly up to the students themselves to decide which program fits better for them and fits better for the way they learn.
