Advanced Placement courses weren’t created so they could be used as one factor in admissions decisions, though they’ve certainly adopted that role today. The intent has always been to give qualified students a taste of college level work, and to allow those kids to potentially earn college credit. If you’d like to maximize your AP rewards in the form of college credit and fewer courses required to get your degree once you get to college, make sure you’re picking schools that will reward you.
MIT does not give any credit for the AP biology or chemistry exams. Cornell gives no credit for AP World History. Swarthmore gives no credit for AP econ or psychology. Each college makes its own policies about which tests are considered for potential credit, and the necessary scores students have to earn. A quick way to find your chosen schools’ policies is to use this search tool on the College Board website.
I haven’t found a similar tool for IB classes, but a simple Google search of “(college name) and ib credit” should bring you what you want to know.
Katja says
You can look up individual US colleges to determine what credit, if any, they give for the IB diploma here: http://www.ibo.org/country/US/