The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

100 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT though both cover university-level material. “The IB program is a won- derful challenge and you come out of it having learned and accomplished so much,” says Yale student Stuart Symington. “But if the AP alternative exists, I would take it if credit is what matters most. It all depends on the college/university you would want to go to, but AP is more widely accept- ed.” However, Symington feels that “a good educational foundation — and the full four-year experience — are more important than the credit you receive in college.” “At Richard Montgomery High School (Maryland),” reports Gina Ruebensaal, who attended Williams College and later Harvard’s Kennedy School, “they encouraged us to take the AP exams in the same subjects as our IB exams. Although I had tech- nically taken the IB classes instead of the AP, I was prepared for both exams, and had both IB and AP credits when I graduated. In the end, I only used two IB/AP credits in college: my school accepted both, but only as a mechanism for skipping introductory courses, not as substitu- tion credits.” Offerings Vary Ask a dozen Foreign Service 12th- graders around the world what their IB programs are like, and you’ll get a dozen different answers. That’s because the makeup of IB Diploma Programs varies greatly from school to school — and there are currently 1,466 schools in 123 countries offer- ing the IB diploma. As with any cur- riculum, the classes are more likely to be good if the teachers, adminis- trators and students are motivated. However, there are more external controls on the IB program, exerted by the IBO in Geneva and in region- al offices, and this ostensibly keeps the quality of IB programs world- wide at a high standard. “Every IB World School is subject to an extensive authorization process (typically lasting two years) and then a review every five years,” states Jenan (Continued from page 97)