IB Program in Private school or AP Program in Public School (Dallas: credit, home)

[future4]

Hi,
I'm contemplating whether to send my child to a private school with a IB program or get him enrolled in a Plano west ISD where he can take AP programs and eventually take home tutoring to study for National Merit Scholarship. Your advise will be highly appreciated

[txgolfer130]

Private IB. AP programs are good, and if your kid is the top 1% of ALL kids their age nationally will be just fine. But if not...private IB. They will be.

[Pama]

Plano also offers IB at their IB Academy located on the premises of PEHS.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by future4

Hi,
I'm contemplating whether to send my child to a private school with a IB program or get him enrolled in a Plano west ISD where he can take AP programs and eventually take home tutoring to study for National Merit Scholarship. Your advise will be highly appreciated

1. I'm not aware of IB programs at the best private schools around here.
2. A National Merit Scholarship is worth right at $2,500. There are corporate NMS awards and a few schools auto-admit and or offer significant scholarships for NM winners. OU springs to mind.


National Merit Scholarship Corporation - NMSP

[future4]

Do you know of any good private tutoring program that will prepare your child for National Merit Scholarship

[PISDstudent]

Originally Posted by future4

Do you know of any good private tutoring program that will prepare your child for National Merit Scholarship

The most commonly used is Karen Dillards.

That being said, I wouldn't focus on National Merit as an end goal- and this is coming from a merit finalist. It's great, but nothing extraordinary.

Plano West AP, from personal experience, is a very, very strong program (but very competitive). If you're not sending the kid to Cistercian/St. Marks/Hockaday or a comparable school, Plano West AP (or IB at Plano East) will give you a better education and be free to boot.

[gymrat]

Agree with the others. Don't put so much focus solely on your child getting NMF.
What age is this child? School program they are enrolled in? Grades?

Where do you plan for your child attend college?
If it is not a school that auto admits and hands out full ride scholarships for NMF, then don't bother with any of the
tutoring just to try to achieve NMF. It will not be a great ROI if your child does not get such nor intends to attend a school
that gives out those scholarships. The schools I know that still do as of this year are Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama. Mostly state schools and not your top tier private colleges and more state schools are dropping from doing such. You can spend thousands of dollars for Karen Dillard tutoring for the PSAT all to get a $2000 scholarship.

Instead concentrate on having a strong GPA, strong curriculum, strong ACT/SAT scores and a great overall balance of life. This is more likely to get great offers for college. If the kid happens to be a strong contender to achieve NMF then that is just a little icing on the whole package. Otherwise, as the Duke University admit advisor stated when asked by a member of a info session audience about NMF, "that is nice but we do not offer any scholarships for achieving that honor."

However, the child has to have the drive to want to succed and put in the work. IB is not easy, this coming from a parent of a high school senior that has taken the IB path.

[Lakewooder]

Here are a list of schools offering IB:

TIBS - Texas IB Schools

Not sure why you would want a private IB over a public IB - the public IB may offer more courses as the few privates offering IB are rather small.

I believe you can do both AP and IB at some schools (although that may not get you an IB Diploma, worth 24 college credit hours). Garland awards a certificate for this (not sure of requirements).

My alma mater in the Lakewood area of Dallas, Woodrow Wilson High, is one of 22 schools in the nation which also offers IBCC (in addition to the Diploma Programme): IBCC Schools in North America where you do AP with two IB classes.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by gymrat

Agree with the others. Don't put so much focus solely on your child getting NMF.
What age is this child? School program they are enrolled in? Grades?

Where do you plan for your child attend college?
If it is not a school that auto admits and hands out full ride scholarships for NMF, then don't bother with any of the
tutoring just to try to achieve NMF. It will not be a great ROI if your child does not get such nor intends to attend a school
that gives out those scholarships. The schools I know that still do as of this year are Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama. Mostly state schools and not your top tier private colleges and more state schools are dropping from doing such. You can spend thousands of dollars for Karen Dillard tutoring for the PSAT all to get a $2000 scholarship.

Instead concentrate on having a strong GPA, strong curriculum, strong ACT/SAT scores and a great overall balance of life. This is more likely to get great offers for college. If the kid happens to be a strong contender to achieve NMF then that is just a little icing on the whole package. Otherwise, as the Duke University admit advisor stated when asked by a member of a info session audience about NMF, "that is nice but we do not offer any scholarships for achieving that honor."

However, the child has to have the drive to want to succed and put in the work. IB is not easy, this coming from a parent of a high school senior that has taken the IB path.

Aside from the really odd National Merit fixation on this board - I've long wondered why the PSAT/NMSF metric is becoming less and less important to many universities. I got a great answer from a UT admissions type a few weeks ago. Over time they've noted higher numbers of "false positives" and "false negatives" related to PSAT scores over SAT scores. His logic was more or less this, the math portion of the PSAT is quite easy - in a relative sense - therefore it is too easy to prepare for. Secondly a number of kids don't take algebra of any kind until their jr. year therefore many tend to flop the math portion of the PSAT but do better on the real SAT after exposure to some algebra. UT believes the SAT yields significantly fewer false positive and false negative results.

[PISDstudent]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Aside from the really odd National Merit fixation on this board - I've long wondered why the PSAT/NMSF metric is becoming less and less important to many universities. I got a great answer from a UT admissions type a few weeks ago. Over time they've noted higher numbers of "false positives" and "false negatives" related to PSAT scores over SAT scores. His logic was more or less this, the math portion of the PSAT is quite easy - in a relative sense - therefore it is too easy to prepare for. Secondly a number of kids don't take algebra of any kind until their jr. year therefore many tend to flop the math portion of the PSAT but do better on the real SAT after exposure to some algebra. UT believes the SAT yields significantly fewer false positive and false negative results.

I think I agree with this - just when I think about who did well on the PSAT versus the SAT out of people I know, the SAT seems to be a stronger indicator of intelligence.