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Comment by iopuy | Hacker News Reader

Of AP, IB and dual enrollment AP is by far the worst option. There is a cumulative test at the end of the year where if you do not score high enough you won't receive college credit where as IB and dual enrollment focus on the content of the course throughout the semester to.award credit (and sometimes a cumulative project). Aced your AP class but perform poorly on the test, no credit for you!!! Also the tests cost hundreds of dollars extra. You might ask what does "not scoring high enough entail"? The answer is it is arbitrary. The test is scored 1-5 with 5 being highest and schools pick a range of 3-5 to award credit.

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Problem is IB comes with a whole host of other requirements that AP doesnt. My school required volunteer time, a yearly special project, and yearlong courses (instead of semester-long which made all non-IB courses harder to schedule) to enroll in IB courses. I even know 2 people who were forced out of IB as juniors after the school canceled Latin classes, because they wouldn't have time to take 3 credits of a new language. Both of those people say they were glad to switch to AP though, less stress and more flexibility. Passing the exams wasn't hard either. Also IIRC, IB absolutely did require a test score for credit, and it wasn't any easier than AP.

I also dropped out of IB, but in favor of a new program that let me take 2 online state college classes during the school day. So I got full college credit, great professors, and kept my schedule flexible. So agreed that dual enrollment is better if the option is available.

One benefit of AP is that you can take the test even if you haven't taken the class. So if you're motivated and can travel to some place where the test is being offered, you can rock out a shit ton of credits.

I wish somebody would have told me that. I think our school district paid for students AP exams if they were enrolled in the class, so I didn't even know there was an option to pay on your own.

In my brother's case the AP English teacher was horrible. So he dropped the class and paid out of pocket to take the exam. The AP teacher happened to be the proctor and she was pissed the day he showed up. Having activist parents makes a world of difference. shrug

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