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You do not need to be an IB Diploma Candidate to take IB Courses! 

Any student can take IB Courses provided they have met the prerequisites. They work like any other BHS course. Please note, however, in order to be eligible to take certain IB exams, students sometimes need to take two years of a subject.

IB organizes courses by subject groups. BHS offers 20 different IB courses across six subject groups. These courses are listed further down on this page.

Students who complete exams in all six subject groups may be eligible for the IB Diploma. A detailed description of the requirements for the IB Diploma are on the IB Diploma page of this website.

HL means "Higher Level"; SL means "Standard Level". The differences are: 

• Time: HL exams require 240 hours of coursework (2 years); SL exams require 150 hours (1 or 2 years).

• Content: HL typically requires more content knowledge and/or further skill development than SL (depending on the subject).

• Students in an HL class but opt for the SL exam except in English II (HL), French V (HL) and Spanish V (HL)

• HL exams can only be taken at the end of 12th grade. SL exams can be taken in 11th or 12th grade.

• IMPORTANT: HL is not necessarily harder than SL. All IB courses, regardless of whether they are HL or SL, are considered the most challenging courses available to students at BHS.

All students in IB classes have the opportunity to take an IB exam. Some exams require 2 years of coursework to be exam-eligible while others only require 1.

For example, to take an IB Biology exam, students must take IB Biology I and IB Biology II, and test at the end of year II. But some IB courses, such as IB World Religions, test at the end of one year. The list of one-year SL courses includes:

• IB Business Management (SL) -- Intro to Business is a prerequisite

• IB World Religions (SL) -- no prerequisite

• IB Environmental Systems and Societies (SL) -- Biology and Chemistry are prerequisites

• IB Design Technology (SL) -- any engineering technology elective counts as a prerequisite

All IB classes are considered Honors-level classes, and receive the same GPA grade weighting as honors and AP classes. In fact, IB is the honors option for most classes available to 11th and 12th-graders! The same is true for BHS AP classes.

Both IB and AP (Advanced Placement) are programs designed to encourage students to challenge themselves academically, but they have different approaches: 

• AP is designed to replicate a typical college-level content learning experience. Think of it as a college class being taught in a high school.

• IB courses are designed to explore subjects in-depth, and focus on critical thinking and communication skills. Think of it as a high school class that prepares students for college.

But there are a lot of commonalities between AP and IB. These include:

• Both are considered honors-level classes.

• Both encourage students to work hard and to develop college-ready skills.

• Both allow students the opportunity to take Exams that can earn them college credit.

We think AP and IB are both valuable additions to a BHS student's learning experience. There is an AP class for everyone and an IB class for everyone, and we encourage our students to explore both AP and IB opportunities at BHS because you don't have to choose one or the other, you can take both AP and IB classes at BHS!