Brilliant … But Bouncy

ADHD and AP Don’t Go Together.

I live outside of Washington, D.C. While the public schools in D.C. are some of the worst – if not the worst – in the country, those of us in the suburbs suffer from an opposite fate: everyone wants to be the best.

Jay Mathews writes an education column for The Washington Post and today’s column sparked those little electrodes in my brain – again – about the whole IB-AP controversy. Jay says:

“For most students applying to selective colleges from most high schools, taking three to five AP, IB or AICE courses are fine….  But in some very high-performing high schools in the Washington region, many students still will take more AP, IB and AICE courses than they need.”

What caught my interest is that he says ‘AP, IB or AICE’ – implying that they are all used rather interchangeably in higher education.

I have been agonizing about how to get all the right courses for Dylan’s IBCP program and how to squeeze in some AP classes, too. I have read that some colleges don’t recognize ‘IB’ – but will recognize AP, because IB is still fairly new. I didn’t want Dylan to be turned away from the college of his choice because they don’t know enough about the IB program – so I was planning to squeeze in some AP courses.

But quite honestly, Dylan’s brain isn’t best suited for AP classes. They are memorization classes – learn-a-lot, test-a-lot classes. The IB classes (and tests) are more analytical, with more open-ended essay questions on the tests. ADHD and AP don’t go together.

So while he would do fine in an AP setting – because of his intelligence and his persistence – I think he would enjoy an IB class, and suffer through an AP class just to get to college.

At the same time, the IBCP program is brand new – at least in my county. We have no idea whether it will be embraced or detested by higher education. There are no statistics, since the first IBCP class won’t graduate until the year before Dylan does.

I am proud to say I’ve never even heard of ‘AICE’ – thank God. Apparently, our high school doesn’t offer that.

So my gut is telling me not to bother with AP classes for Dylan, now that I’ve read this article. He will have 3 IB classes – two of which are two-year classes – so that’s 5 IB credits. That should be sufficient for any college.

My head, however, is still stuck on stupid: What if…? what if…? what if…?

Luckily, we only have to register for ninth grade this month. In 9th grade, only one AP class is offered, U.S. History, which Dylan is not taking.

So we have a year – and a high school transition – to survive first.