One thing colleges often look for in applicants is that they’ve taken a challenging curriculum in high school. They want to know that you’re fully ready for the work required in college, and that you will be able to succeed when taking advanced courses. To that end, we encourage our students to take the most advanced courses they can in high schools. In most schools, these are AP or IB courses, both of which we’ve discussed before. In this article, however, we’re going to compare them directly, to see what these courses cover, and how they line up. Our goal is to give you a sense of which is the best fit for you, and which will best help you showcase your academic prowess to admissions officers. Let’s get started!
AP vs IB Formatting and Content
The primary difference between AP courses and IB is that the International Baccalaureate program is a set curriculum with set courses, and if you take it, you need to take all of the courses in the program. With AP courses, on the other hand, it’s far more a la carte; you can take AP Calculus or Statistics; AP Chemistry or Biology or Physics or Environmental Science, as your whims take you.
This is of course limited by what your school offers; different high schools have different AP offerings. Most will offer the core classes however, and these are the ones which most closely mirror the IB curriculum; we’ll be comparing these directly later in this article.
The IB courses are only offered in junior and senior years, while AP courses may be taken throughout high school (though some schools do limit how many AP courses students can take, and when they can take them). IB courses also do not fill your entire schedule (just most of it), so you can sometimes take an additional AP as an elective; this is common for subjects the IB doesn’t cover, like economics or government.
Finally, IB exams are required to get an IB diploma, while AP exams are technically optional. We do recommend students take these exams; after all that’s part of the reason for taking AP courses, and they can earn you college credit. They are not part of the course itself however, and are not required to complete it. For IB exams, they are.
AP and IB Evaluations
Not only are these courses different, but they are evaluated differently as well. AP courses are designed around the final exam. This is scored on a five point scale, and is curved, with your score depending not just on your own performance, but that of every other student who took the exam this year. The grades you get in AP courses are up to the teacher, but the structure of them is based on preparing you for the exam.
IB, conversely, is an integrated diploma program, and you must complete all of it. This requires courses in six core subject areas, along with three other core elements. These are:
- Theory of Knowledge. This is a required essay of 1,600 words for all students, and asks you to reflect on knowledge, and how we know that we know things. These are evaluated by your school.
- Extended Essay. This is a research project all students must complete; you choose an independent research topic of your choice, pursue it, and then write a 4,000 word essay on that topic. All of these essays are marked by independent examiners contracted by IB.
- Creativity, Activity, Service. These are additional components required by the IB program. There is no set project; instead schools may set their own guidelines. This generally involves community service or volunteering projects. These are not graded, but are required in order to graduate the program.
Finally, IB has its own exams, just like AP. You can find their assessment criteria here, but in short your final grade for the course, and ability to claim an IB Diploma, is calculated based on both the external exam and your grade in the course as assessed by your teacher. In AP courses, your grade in the class and grade on the exam are not connected (they do tend to correlate of course, but it is completely possible to do well on one and terrible on the other).
Comparing AP courses and IB Subjects
Now, we’re going to directly compare the six IB courses, and their most direct AP counterparts. These are not going to be 1:1 comparisons; in most cases there are several AP courses which align with a particular IB curriculum. We will go through each of these.
International Baccalaureate: SL courses vs HL courses
For the IB program, all courses are offered at two levels: SL and HL. These stand for Standard Level and Higher Level respectively. As you might guess from the names, HL courses are offered at a higher level of difficulty, and more often explore the theories behind what you are studying. The material covered is the same; this isn’t like the distinction between Calculus AB and BC.
While IB content is standardized, the difficulty of HL versus SL courses does vary by school. As always when choosing which course to take, we encourage you to take the most difficult ones you can without sacrificing your academic performance. Note that most colleges only accept HL grades when awarding college credit for IB work.
Language and Literature
These are the courses on your primary language. For AP, these are AP Language and AP Literature; for IB coursework these are offered in multiple languages, though most US schools only offer them in English. The I does stand for International, so it makes sense that the program also offers courses in languages other than English.
The exact books you read are different between AP and IB, but the core goals of the program are the same; to enable you to read and understand classic literature, to be able to synthesize information and arguments, and to be able to write and defend your own arguments.
If your school does offer these courses in languages other than English, note that they are not the equivalent to the AP courses in foreign languages (not even the Spanish and French literature ones). These are the courses that are most similar between AP and IB overall.
Foreign Language
This is the second IB subject, and closely parallels the AP courses in foreign languages. IB does offer significantly more languages than AP, but this is only theoretical; practically the languages you have access to are always going to depend on your school.
These courses are most similar to AP language courses; there is no close parallel to AP Spanish Literature. These courses take place over two years; while AP courses take one, as the capstone to whatever language sequence your high school offers. The curriculum of these is different, but the goals are the same; both seek to give students reasonable rates of fluency in the language at hand.
Humanities and Social Sciences
Here is where the AP and IB curriculum begin to differ greatly. For the IB program, you may choose which course you take, though which are offered depend on your high school. Some of these options have parallels to AP courses, others less so; here are the courses, and the AP course they most resemble (if any):
- History (Multiple)
- Economics (AP Microeconomics and Macroeconomics)
- Psychology (AP Psychology)
- Philosophy (No close parallel)
- Information Technology in Global Society (No close parallel)
- Geography (AP Human Geography)
This is a very flexible portion of the IB curriculum, and you have some options for where you want to focus your efforts. The closest parallel to history is AP World History; the exact subjects the IB courses cover are going to vary slightly from school to school.
These courses, both AP and IB, focus on research, analysis, and synthesizing information. The skills you will be learning from them are going to be quite similar, though the classes themselves are going to be quite different. Some high schools may require you to take a US history class in addition to the IB courses; AP US History almost always counts for this requirement (we’ve never seen otherwise, but some high schools do odd things).
The Sciences
This covers physics, biology, chemistry, and computer science. These align fairly closely with the AP courses of the same names. There are differences in the order in which certain subjects are taught within the course, but the overall subject matter is quite similar.
A major difference is the additional AP physics courses; Physics C and Electricity and Magnetism do not have exact parallels. You will of course cover some electricity and magnetism topics in the IB course, but less than you would in the E&M course; this is rather like the amount you would cover in AP Physics 1; enough to have a grounding in the topic, but not so thorough a focus.
The computer science course covers some elements from both AP Computer Science A and CS Principles. It is not directly analogous to either, but all of these courses use Java as their primary programming language. You will learn similar skills, and all of these courses do give a firm introduction to CS and programming.
Mathematics
AP offers Pre-calculus and calculus courses in math, along with statistics. The IB program offers a single math course, which covers elements of pre-calculus and calculus, along with some other subjects as well. Both prepare students for college level math, and provide a grounding in calculus. IB does differentiate this course in Standard Level and Higher Level.
AP Calculus BC is slightly more advanced, and covers slightly more ground, simply because it is more focused on calculus; the IB course gives more coverage on other math topics, including geometry and trigonometry. The IB course does give you enough of a background in calculus to succeed in college, and counts as calculus at some colleges when testing out of placement courses.
Note that you are required to take two years of math with IB. The first year is analysis and approaches, and the second is applications and interpretation. Both of these are offered at SL and HL. The SL and HL courses cover the same topics, but at different paces and different levels of intensity.
There is no IB equivalent to AP Statistics, but we advise all of our students to take calculus for the most part, because colleges prefer to see calculus on a transcript to statistics (even for students going into a statistics heavy field, such as finance).
The Arts
The sixth and final component of the IB curriculum covers the arts. Specifically, they include dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and film. Here there are fewer parallels in AP courses; there are a number of visual art AP courses, but their only music course is Music Theory (which is a good option for students interested in music, but does not have a performance component).
Now, the exact IB art courses offered are going to depend on the high school; but they do have the infrastructure as an organization to offer courses AP doesn’t. There are no parallels in dance, theatre, or film in AP coursework. Arts courses matter slightly less for college admissions (unless of course you are planning on majoring in that field), but the breadth of options IB offers here is quite nice.
AP and IB Exams
In many ways, AP and IB exams are quite similar; both are traditionally given in May, and both can be used to gain college credit. You can find the IB scheduling page here, and the AP scheduling page here. For both, separate exams are given in the morning and afternoon, and all test takers take the exam as close to simultaneously as they can manage, to prevent attempts at cheating.
Scores for IB exams are released in July; scores for AP exams are released then as well. It takes time to accurately score these tests. This means that only scores from exams taken in junior year or before are considered during college admissions. Your grades in these courses, in both cases, are more important than your test scores; the scores are only used to determine college credit (which is still a useful thing).
You are unable to take IB courses prior to junior year. Technically, you can take AP courses beginning freshman year, but different high schools have different policies on this. In either case, you will end up taking the most exams in your senior year, and these will therefore not impact your college applications directly.
Are AP or IB Courses Right for You?
Neither AP nor IB courses are inherently better in and of themselves, and neither is preferred by college admissions. All admissions cares about is that you have challenged yourself academically, and succeeded when doing so. Instead, you should focus on evaluating which courses best serve your needs.
IB coursework is less flexible than APs; you must take all six courses, and you will have exams and scores from them. These will come out too late to impact college admissions, but can still earn you college credit. It is also more of a commitment; six courses per year for two years; while there may be some flexibility in the exact courses you take (based on your own school’s offerings), you still have to take all of them.
If your school offers both, and lets you take AP courses in sophomore year, then we recommend taking one to try it out. Not everyone enjoys their structure, or the exam at the end. If you find you thrive in them, then they are a good choice; if not, and your school also offers an IB curriculum, then you may benefit from switching to that instead.
Of course, you generally must make these decisions much earlier, when you are deciding which high school to attend. In these cases, we often find ourselves in favor of schools which offer an IB curriculum; since many of them offer AP courses as well, it ends up just being more options for you as a student, which we are always in favor of.
Final Thoughts
There is a great diversity in the courses offered in high schools across the US. That said, most students do have access to either AP or IB classes, and must in many cases choose between them. We hope that this article has given you a good understanding of how these courses correlate, and what each offers to you, so that you can make a well-considered decision on which will suit you best.
Of course, every high school is unique, and every student as well, which leads to many questions and concerns we could not cover here. If you have further concerns over which courses are the best option for you, or want to speak with an expert about your high school options, then schedule a free consultation with us today. We have a long experience helping students manage the transition to high school, and are always happy to hear from you.
