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[B]Has anyone taken the IB Middle Years Program?[/B]

I have just finished off the IB Middle Years Program,
and from next week I'll be heading off to do the IB Diploma.

I was wondering, does the experience from IB MYP help in anyway to cope in IB Diploma?

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Reply 1

Osmosis

I didn't do the IB MYP myself, but the school I did my IB Diploma at also offered the IB MYP for younger students, so I know a lot of people who went from the MYP to the Diploma Programme.

It seems having done the MYP does help, in some respects. The Personal Project which MYP students do in 10th grade is apparantly good preparation for the Extended Essay and all the independent study IB Diploma students are expected to do. I think (though I may be wrong) that you also do a lot of practical work in the MYP, which helps when starting IB science subjects, which have a heavy emphasis on lab work.

On the other hand, depending on the school, MYP students may not have much experience when it comes to examination situations, which can put them at a disadvantage compared to students coming from other systems (such as GCSEs). Some of the former MYP students I know who took Maths HL in the IB DP also felt that the level of Maths in the MYP didn't prepare them well enough for the HL course.

These are all opinions I have gleaned from friends who did the MYP, not from personal experience, so I apologise I've misunderstood anything / talked a lot of rubbish.

Reply 2

*Cybz*

I totally agree that MYP prepares you really well for sciences, and is very good in general (a lot of work though), however, I really needed more exam practice by the end of it. By the time i was in year 12 and doing the IB diploma, i had only had one set of exams in my life, and they were only 'fake' exams in year 11 and didn't count at all. In 2 hours I studied for all of the 8 exams i was taking... lol.

Anyway, what i really wanted to know is how do they give you the grade out of 63 at the end of the course. I could tell that they hadn't done it by adding up my grades....

Reply 3

talespirit

There are different levels of maths in MYP...Extended (prespares for HL and covers alot of SL, and prepares Further as well), Core-plus(prepares for SL), core(studies). So the fact that you found MYP maths didn't prepare you well enough for maths HL was probably due to the fact that you were not doing extended maths in MYP. Personally i found that the MYP prepared me well for the IB...i also sat exams since yr 7 (maybe it's my school thing to let us to mocks at the end of each year.) However, it really depends on your school, the standard of MYP is not as good as the IB and it really depends on how good your teachers were (some of my friends didn't do anything in english and suffered, i didn't do much in chem and suffered too).

If you do not understand the subjects that make up your final MYP grade, well see the following:

1. English A/B
2. World Languages A/B
3. Maths Extended/Core-Plus/Core
4. Sciences (if you had them seperately, it is probably the average or best of 3)
5. Humanities (i did History and Commerce for half a year each and they took the best grade)
6. Music/Art/Drama (i did Art)
7. Technology
8. Health and Physical Education (PE + Lifeskills)
9. Personal Project (out of 28 points, broken down to get a grade out of 7)

In a way this was harder than my IB because my school just puts you in whatever class you're at in terms of level...so i was in english A and Thai A1, and Maths Extended. It felt like doing everything at HL plus the subjects you loath (DT/IT, Bio and Physics).

Should i put this in the wiki?

Reply 4

talespirit

I made an MYP wiki!! it's on my sig...still quite empty...maybe other MYP students may want to make changes?

well done

I did the MYP program, and personally, I think my school's handling of it wasn't very good. I did two Personal Projects (one about JRR Tolkien and the other about drugs, ha), and lots of what would now be known as CAS hours. I received my certificate and grades, but it was pretty useless as I passed through school not based on MYP grades, but on school coursework. So all in all it wasn't the most positive experience, and the MYP program was a bit like an invisible presence, we forgot about it most of the time.

Reply 7

talespirit

Milkfed

Why do you have to do 2 Personal Projects (wouldn't that be 9 x 2 = 18 months?)? O_o Maybe your school didn't follow the MYP curriculum too strictly? I've known schools that do modified versions of MYP. Ooooo what did you do for your Tolkien PP (well done in doing one, you've got great taste)? I did my extended essay on tolkien :biggrin:

. For my PP I designed and made a model of a sword and my personal statement for that was some BS about the fantasy genre as a whole and the theme of Darkness and Light.

Reply 8

La Môme

Well, we did one in Year 9, and as I didn't get a very good mark for my Tolkien one, I redid it a year later, changing my topic.

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work for one PP! It was just a general biography about his life, I vaguely remember taking the project extremely seriously and then getting pissed off when I got my mark. Oh, halcyon days. I was a huge LOTR fan when the movies came out, a massive nerd, so even a few years later I jumped at the opportunity to write about the author. :biggrin:

Reply 9

talespirit

I actually went to tolkien's grave to ask for permission to unprofessionally exploit his work :P I'll be putting my EE up when my IB results come out.

Reply 10

Ayla Phoenix

Well, although it's a good program in theory, our school didn't seem to implement it very well. The majority of students found it to be a joke frankly, and considering that the MYP certificate isn't quite recognised nor understood in Australia, the purpose of attaining a good result seemed marginal to sitting our school certificate exams (year 10 exams in NSW, Aus.)

It's more of a prep course than anything else. A good introduction.

Reply 11

talespirit

Yes...MYP still has alot to improve on. Tests are not standardized, markings are only marginally standardized, people don't understand what it's worth and schools handle it differently. I wonder how it can be so much different for the IB....but then again the IB can be messy at times as well.

Reply 12

phunky_smurf

i took myp and i can tell you that it did not compare me as much as i was told it would for the IB. Apart from the grades being similar (1-7), there isn't much else that the two programs share.

The sad truth is that the IB is a really really challenging program, while the MYP was merely reflection and evaluation, lol.

Reply 13

andy_cole2

myp is pointless from what i've seen, although my friend started IB subjects early with it, so finished them early, but still pretty pointless not being given a grade...

Reply 14

Lizsco3

I did MYP. I wouldnt say it was useless, but IB was a big step up from it. The workload, for one, is larger (in my experience).

Reply 15

talespirit

Maybe it's just my school that handled the MYP pretty seriously then...i felt that the last year of MYP was harder than the beginning of IB1....I'm in my second year now and some of what i've learned in maths extended MYP are even harder than maths SL. Most of the SL syllabus is a repeat to it's a piece of cake. History was more or less the same, more cuz i got the same teacher. Commentary writing got easier in IB cuz i now have a better teacher. Thai A2 is a joke because i've always been doing A1. Science is a whole different story though...IB is just...HARD. PP (after finishing the product) was more a burden to me than EE was (EE was fun). I dunno, i think if your school handled MYP well it can really help you with IB.

Reply 16

phunky_smurf

WHOA I TOTALLY MEANT PREPARE gosh wrote that toooooo quickly...

Reply 17

md_ld

I find that MYP is a great help to the IB program, being a graduate from the middle years program. my school had three systems for tenth graders, ie. MYP, IGCSE, and boards. i did all three, and i found that it was very helpful for the IB. since MYP didn't have many tests or exams for the IB, the IGCSE had them. so the exam part practice is pretty much covered. am currently doing my IB dip, and i think that without MYP, it would've been a hell more harder. the MYP english i did helped loads for the A1 am doing now. it might be because i had an awesome teacher, but the point is that MYP english prepares you for the in depth independent analysis which IB english demands. so that part of MYP was nice. another thing which helped me loads was the personal project, which is in my opinion, a stepping stone for the extended essay. (am starting mine..and i don't really like my topic. but am doing it for the sake of making my teacher happy. *sniff* :s-smilie:

) the science lab reports are also a great help, and it gives you a template to follow when you get to IB. anyway, overall, i think that MYP is a stepping stone which is extremely useful for the diploma. =) but that's only from experience and my opinion. people might think differently. =)

PS. the maths part is totally stupid though. *cough* am taking maths HL now, and damn! it's hard! other than that, MYP has helped me grow. =)