How is middle and high school in the US ?

[desi_1997]

I am looking for any feedback about IB from parents whose kids are enrolled in IB for middle or high schools. The high school I am considering for my kid offers IB but I am not sure if it would be a good idea.

[RRS]

Both AP and IB are offered in many high schools, so ask the guidance counselor(GC) whether that's the case. What is the child looking for ? If learning beyond current level is the main motivation, IB's curriculum is better because it makes you think than study hard like AP but if boosting or maintaining high GPA is the main motivation, AP is better because it's possible to score perfect grade in AP(by working hard) for high honors students but same is not true for IB. Plus if your kid is interested in getting to Ivy league schools(ILS), AP is better because most ILS base their decision on GPA(in addition to perfect or near perfect SAT, extra curricular activities etc) even though publicly they say they do not differentiate between AP or IB.

Both offer college credits for pre-requisites which may come handy if the undergrad's school tuition is based on credits versus total courses per semester. But let me add that, nowadays many schools allow students to pay tuition per semester which allows them to take as many courses they can manage so money saving is moot but it may save some time and/or let student take something else instead of pre-requisites they could have accumulated by taking AP/IB.
Most school's GC is the best person to clarify all such doubts before you decide on school.

HTH

[layman]

What is IB?

[RRS]

What is IB?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Baccalaureate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement

[Old-Spice2]

Current status of high school and students in US from a teacher's perspective:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog

We also noticed this behaviour among few Desi kids in high school.