IB parents- Child tested for pre-IB-- Is it worth it?

TL;DR: I'm looking for input from educators and hopefully parents whose kids have done IB-- was it worth it?

An in-school assembly convinced my straight-A-honors overachiever to apply for pre-IB next year (he will be a freshman). After conflicted feelings (have heard it's a waste of time) we talked about it with him and let him test since it's what he wanted. Decisions will roll out in two weeks and we have a little time to mull it over before committing.

The info we hear about IB that makes us hesitant, is that keeping kids in AP is better.

But-- our IB program offers AP (for example, the only history listed one year says it is AP, so there wouldn't be any other option), as well as earning college credits via a local college in another couple of required classes. According to accounts online, it sounds like people do one or the other... IB, or AP. So I guess this would make "this" IB unique, that he can still get AP and college credits done?

Also...

My son is a swimmer and we don't want him to give that up; swimmimg has helped him with bouts of depression and it was a surprise to us all that he would choose to stick with it, join a club team, and be pretty good at it (he was a late starter, compared to most kids in the sport) which has been great for his self esteem. So, we aren't in support of him giving swim up when it helps him mentally so much. He swims for a club year round and wants to also try out for the high school team next year (the season is short, so we said Ok to that already).

We hear IB leaves no room to do extra things like a sport without a kid going crazy.

FWIW- In no way do we push our kids for sports scholarships as though academics are less important, because to us the learning comes first. Therefore, considering a sports scholarship in place of any academics is a non-consideration; if he were to ever get an offer, then fine, but we aren't in any way the type of parents that think he shouldn't do something academic in order to swim. I mention this because a friend said IB would get in the way of time he could put toward trying to get a swim scholarship and to us that priority is backwards-- personal opinion... so, no need to go down that road.

Submitted January 19, 2020 at 01:23PM by familyvanfor6people https://ift.tt/3azFtvQ