i was trying my best to sound polite with my last post too!!

and humans are lazy by nature. its not like i do my hw 5 minutes before class.

i'm also well aware of the level of difficulty of IB. this may sound sick and twisted but i don't really want a spectacular social life. Having too good a social life has messed me up on occasions before. A couple of good friends is enough for me. No more boyfriends.

anyways. I dont strive to achieve perfection, exellence will do ( as said by my racist/sexist math teacher)
and for that matter, even the definition of exellence is rather arbitrary but whatever, not going into that discussion.

i'm looking forward for the challenge.

Ok, if you say so. It works differently for us. What is CAS, by the way?

It's great if you think you can do it, seriously, it requires more self-motivation than anything. I agree with Robbi on this well.

I was by no means implying that typos equal an inability to fluently speak English. However, you yourself said you just got out of ESOL, which means you've just learned English, yes? All I'm trying to say is that many extremely literate, smart native English speakers have a difficult time with IB, even from a language arts perspective alone. In all seriousness, grammar and spelling count for a lot, along with actual content of course, and in IB, no one will take how long you've spoken English into consideration.

CAS stands for Creativity, Action, Service.

ESL, as in Enlgish as Second Language..i'm not familiar with what ESOL stands for

anyways, the only reason i had to go through ESL testings is because i studied in china for 5 years. Through my first testing in grade 7, i got 5/5 on speaking, 5/5 on reading and 4.5 on writing. but they insisted on saying i was in level 4...seriously, how mean! ( level 5 basically means you don't need ESL at all, you take all the regular courses as any other student would.)..they eventually put me in level 5 by grade 8, seeing as how i had 98 in English.

The most ironic thing was, in grade 9, i took Spanish and got the highest mark in my class, even though i was an ESL student. I felt so evil inside.

aannnnyyhooo....enough with me rambling on.

have a happy holiday guys! ( and girls of course)

Okay people, I'm in my senior year in it and almost done as I've already stated so hear this :)

The IB program is indeed difficult, but it is totally possible. There is definitely room for a social life. Trust me, I do all the work that is necessary and still have time for myself and friends on friday nights.

There is also room to be lazy (i.e. procrastination). Although it's highly frowned upon, obviously, everyone does it. You just have to make sure you get it done on time. You also have to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand and the more you're putting off is more work for you to do.

Nicki, CAS is community service. An IB student is required to do 200 hours over the course of junior and senior years.

Here's my schedule:

French 6 Honors (Every day, except Wednesday at 6:40 am. The IB program does French only up to level 5, but they created an Honors class for a few people like me who wanted to go further.)
Photo 2
IB Contemporary World
IB Biology
IB TOK (Junior year, I had to take this in the evening every Wednesday as a night class)
IB Psychology (That's my sixth subject that IB requires)
IB Math Studies
IB English

Yep, and I have time to hang out with friends and such. All you need to be able to do is manage your time :)

^^^
yeah, the IB director at RHS told me about how time management skills are very important.

which ones do you take in HS and which in SL?

Oh, I was aware of the service hours required, just wasn't familiar with the acronym as we don't use it here.

And littlelulu, ESL and ESOL are the same thing, but ESOL syands for English Speakers of Other Languages, I think. Same general idea.

Yep :) Some of the acronyms that are used are:

EE--Extended Essay
IA--Internal Assessment
CAS--Creative, Action, Service



The ones I'm taking HL are:
Psychology
History
English


The ones I'm taking SL are:
French (I already took that last year)
Math
Biology

I transferred to an IB school my sophomore year, and this is what my high school schedule looks like:

Sophomore Year
Sociology (semester course)
Psychology (semester course)
Pre-IB English 10
Pre-IB French 3
AP US Government
IB Chemistry I SL
IB Math Methods I SL

Junior Year (this year)
IB English I HL
IB French I HL
IB History of the Americas HL
AP Calculus BC
IB Physics I SL
IB World Religions SL
Theory of Knowledge

My schedule next year will be:
IB English II HL
IB French II HL
IB Mathematics II HL
IB 20th Century Topics HL
IB Chemistry II SL
IB Economics SL
IB Philosophy SL

Basically, most IB courses are two-year courses, and you have the choice between Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (HL). More prestigious colleges offer credit for HL only, but keep in mind that HL courses are two-year courses. So instead of taking AP Language and AP Literature exams, you would just take the IB English Higher Level exam, and you would get the same amount of credit.

The IB diploma programme limits students to four HL courses, but keep in mind that these are 2-year courses. However, don't think that SL courses aren't challenging--they're still a lot of work, much more work than any "honors" course. Most of them are of AP-caliber, but often, colleges do not recognize this. A lot of my friends are taking AP courses after their IB SL courses (IB Psychology, IB Economics, etc.) so that they can get college credit.

Also, if you do the diploma programme, colleges will give you full marks on course selection during the admissions process, so you don't have to worry about that anymore. Just focus on getting good grades and getting involved in extracurricular activities.

As far as the acronym thingies go...

I haven't chosen a topic for my extended essay yet, but I'm probably going to do something on globalization and cultural geography. I need to narrow that down about 100 times.. hehh.

Internal assessments are cool in some courses and horrible in others. For example, math portfolios. 10-page essay about a mathematical solution? Not fun. Not even for the people who like math. But for my World Religions IA, I'm writing an essay about women's rights in Islamic Saudi Arabia, which is very interesting to me. I get to interview religious leaders and everything. Same with TOK. TOK topics are always philosophical, so they're fun to think and write about.

As far as CAS goes, most of the people within the IB program would've fulfilled their hours anyway. Writing up reports for CAS can get sort of annoying, especially when you volunteered for a gift-wrapping fundraiser or something. Very difficult to write a whole page about your experience! But for more meaningful activities, such as campaigning, you get to reflect on your extracurriculars, which is useful for college applications, since there is often a section on applications that asks you to talk about your most meaningful extracurricular activity.

Personally, I think that extracurricular activities are crucial. You NEED something to delve into during high school. And it's absolutely necessary for college apps, too. Since perfect GPAs, course schedules, and test scores are guaranteed for most applicants to prestigious colleges, you definitely need something to make yourself stand out. And being well-rounded just doesn't cut it. The President of National Honor Society was rejected by Princeton this year. Why? Because he was good at everything and didn't excel at anything.

I love the IB program because it focuses on developing your skills--particularly public speaking and analysis. It gives you a lot of opportunity to explore your own intellectual curiosities, through IAs, the EE, and CAS. I'll admit that the IB program is a bit better for humanities/social science-oriented people than math/science-oriented people, but it's really a great program, no matter what your concentration is.

i really enjoyed reading that! ( n i'm not being sarcastic)

The thing about the President of the National Honor Society being rejected by Princeton was really suprising. Wouldn't they considor him to excel in Leadership?

Anyways. I'm still a bit Confused about how they tally the Dimploma points. I know there are 6 courses with a max of 7 point for each, plus 3 possible extra points for the essay so the max is 45 ( which is NEARLY impossible to acheive), if the SL classes are only for a year, then wouldn't you have more than 6 courses? so how'd you tally the points?

I believe it's your five core courses (either HL or SL) and then an elective of your choice. I'm not 100% sure, though...

yeah...but say for your science, you took physics in one year, and chemistry in another, bothin SL, which one would you count?

I guess IB works differently at my school At these IB schools refer to, are they specifically IB schools, or are they just schools tht also happen to have the IB program? That seems a lot more complicated, because you seem to have a lot more class options than we do (an example being that in sophomore year, the only IB class you can take is econ/political systems for pre-IB, and that is basically just moving a class you'd have senior year to earlier in order to take the two year History of the Americas class if you choose to continue).

well in the British Columbia province of Canada, there is 1 school selected from each school district to have the IB programme. I don't know of any schools with only the IB programme itself.

umm..the IB dimploma programme is a 2 year program for students in grade 11 and 12 ( a.k.a junior and senior year). but there is a program for middle years aswell, and another one for something along the lines of grade 6~8?

The programms offered at each school a slightly different too. For instance, RHS doesn't offer IB Computer Science ( sadly) or IB Business Management .
As for pre-IB courses, RHS has 5, i think.

Here, I don't know about the rest of the state, but right now my school is the only one in the county with IB program, and the middle schools in the cluster just got theirversion of it as well, starying last year. However, it wasn't exactly selected, and more schools will be getting it soon. Thus, those aspects are the same- real IB in 11th and 12th, pre-IB in 9-10, and middle school IB, but I have no idea what that entails. However, we don't seem to have nearly as many IB class options, and therefore the way that Mindy has it written out isn't much like it is here; we don't have groups and things.

are you sure thats the dimploma option and not the certificate option?
i thought IB was the same all around the world.

Positive. I'm in certificate. The requirements are the same, the arrangements are different.

Haha. At first I was like, whoa. richmond high? that means you live in the same neighbourhood as me! Then I looked at your profile and you're from B.C. That's when I remembered that there's some place called Richmond over there. Lol. Since I have came across people who lives in Richmond B.C. But I live in Ontario, so it's all good :]

I have no clue how it's like to be in IB. I was only with them for grade 10 English, but I'm in grade 12 now. I would love to help since I know people from IB, but the thing is, my year is the first year of having IB in the school. Good luck though. My friends are all freaking out because it's the first year of having IB in York Region and even the school isn't sure about Uni applications and scholarships.