IB Exams

Yes. All IB courses require something called an Internal Assessment (IA). All IAs are assigned by teachers as part of their regular coursework, they are graded by teachers, and are required for course credit. Students' IAs are sent to IB and are included in their overall IB Exam scores. 

Therefore, in order to receive an IB Exam score, all students must complete an IA. And in order for students to complete an IA, they must be enrolled in an IB class.

If you are in a BHS IB exam-terminus class you are not required to take the official IB exam. 

While all students in IB exam-terminus classes are encouraged to take the official IB exam, they are not required to do so. Any student in a BHS IB exam-terminus class who does NOT take the official IB Exam will be required to take an in-class equivalent exam for a BHS grade. This is the same policy as AP classes. The reason for this policy is that all students earning equal credit on their BHS transcripts must complete equivalent work.

Any student is permitted to register for an AP Exam, regardless of whether they are enrolled in a class in that subject. Therefore, a student in an IB course can take an AP Exam in that subject. However, IB course work is not designed to specifically address AP material, and teachers in IB classes are not expected to provide class time to prepare for AP exams in addition to the IB exams. More importantly, the syllabi in IB courses are not approved by AP, which is a requirement of AP. The only exceptions to this are courses labelled AP/IB in PowerSchool.

Students in an IB Exam-terminus course who opt to not take the official IB Exam must take the in-class equivalent exam regardless of whether or not they take an AP exam in that subject.

Conflicts between AP and IB Exams happen every year, and both the College Board (AP) and the IB have processes that accommodate and resolve such conflicts. There are two primary modes of addressing exam conflicts:

1. AP offers LATE exams: these occur in the weeks after AP exams end. Typically a student who has an IB and AP exam at the same time will take their IB exam as scheduled and register for the LATE AP Exam. This is the first option we utilize.

2. Move IB Exams: sometimes IB exams conflict with regularly-scheduled and LATE AP Exams. In these cases, IB allows us to move the IB Exam to a time earlier or later in the day. Because this requires approval from IB, this is the second option we utilize.

On rare occasions, we find students triple or quadruple-booked. Utilizing both strategies above we can typically resolve all exam conflicts.