Kids Dropping Out

[Grac777]

I'm mostly just curious, has anyone else noticed that there's been a large amount of students either going partial IB or dropping out entirely? I'm wondering if it is a COVID thing or just a my high school thing.

[tewtadle]

Nobody has dropped out in my school, not for the past two years, same thing goes from my old school (switched from an international school to a boarding school). One or two people have switched from the IB to the german Abitur, if that can be considered dropping out, but that was in the transition from MYP to DP, so I would not concider that dropping out.  I guess they just decided IB wasn't for them. 

[Grac777]

That's interesting, I go to school at a public high school with an IB program integrated within the general school population. We started this year with 60 full IB Diplomas Candidates and now have just over 30. I wonder if the school type has anything to do with it?

[tewtadle]

1 minute ago, Grac777 said:

That's interesting, I go to school at a public high school with an IB program integrated within the general school population. We started this year with 60 full IB Diplomas Candidates and now have just over 30. I wonder if the school type has anything to do with it?

Might have something to do with the school yeah. Mine is a private boarding school so there might be a lot of pressure from parents as well. Classes are also smaller and there is one teacher for every two students. We also didn't really ever get hit with covid because it's a boarding school so that might have had a big impact. 

[Grac777]

8 minutes ago, tewtadle said:

Might have something to do with the school yeah. Mine is a private boarding school so there might be a lot of pressure from parents as well. Classes are also smaller and there is one teacher for every two students. We also didn't really ever get hit with covid because it's a boarding school so that might have had a big impact. 

Yeah that would make sense. A lot of teachers at my school teach both normal classes an IB classes and there's only about two to four teachers for each IB subject for all four grades. We definitely got hit with COVID and the resurgence like last month too.

[Corbin]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:45 AM, Grac777 said:

I'm mostly just curious, has anyone else noticed that there's been a large amount of students either going partial IB or dropping out entirely? I'm wondering if it is a COVID thing or just a my high school thing.

I had a friend who had to sign papers to legally drop out of high school in order to fully leave the IB due to mental health things. It's very sad what it does to people sometimes not just because of COVID though I'm sure that didn't help.

[Grac777]

On 2/1/2023 at 7:29 AM, Corbin said:

I had a friend who had to sign papers to legally drop out of high school in order to fully leave the IB due to mental health things. It's very sad what it does to people sometimes not just because of COVID though I'm sure that didn't help.

Oh wow that sounds awful. Would they just not let them leave the program?

[Corbin]

Yes, at my school you sign a very binding contract when you get into IB. That was the only way that they could leave other than dropping to the course program but they wanted to leave fully.

[Grac777]

2 hours ago, Corbin said:

Yes, at my school you sign a very binding contract when you get into IB. That was the only way that they could leave other than dropping to the course program but they wanted to leave fully.

That's crazy. Our coordinator makes it pretty difficult to leave, but it's definitely possible. I'm curious about the contract though, was it legally binding? 

[Phoenix_]

It has happened A LOT the past couple years at my school. The school is only their third year of even having IB, so the program is really small to begin with. As of now, we have 13 juniors still in the program. So far only one junior has been dropped out (not out of their own will, for other reasons) and about 3 or so juniors have willingly dropped out, but I also tend to see many people drop out when they hit senior year. Almost every single one of them I've talked to claims that it is due to high stress levels and/or classes being too difficult. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Phoenix_

[Grac777]

On 2/27/2023 at 2:57 PM, Phoenix_ said:

It has happened A LOT the past couple years at my school. The school is only their third year of even having IB, so the program is really small to begin with. As of now, we have 13 juniors still in the program. So far only one junior has been dropped out (not out of their own will, for other reasons) and about 3 or so juniors have willingly dropped out, but I also tend to see many people drop out when they hit senior year. Almost every single one of them I've talked to claims that it is due to high stress levels and/or classes being too difficult. 

We've had IB at our school since the mid 90s but the program has gotten smaller every year for probably the past at least five years. I think we have less partial students then we used to also. A lot of kids drop senior year here too though for reason that are similar to what you said. Usually by the time we're through with the four years only about 25% of the freshmen who started in the program graduate with an IB diploma. But because the starting classes are getting smaller, less people stay in the program to the end.

[SimonCallahan]

Yeah a lot of the current IB classes at my school have higher rates of dropping out than before, I feel like COVID's effect on the last few years made a lot of people burnt out. I wonder how less IB candidates than normal is going to affect things this year.

[Leigh]

dude I've thought about it so much... im so stress and like dying. I've had to start taking anti depressants and anti anxiety pills because its so bad.

[AlexSails]

On 3/5/2023 at 10:05 PM, Grac777 said:

We've had IB at our school since the mid 90s but the program has gotten smaller every year for probably the past at least five years. I think we have less partial students then we used to also. A lot of kids drop senior year here too though for reason that are similar to what you said. Usually by the time we're through with the four years only about 25% of the freshmen who started in the program graduate with an IB diploma. But because the starting classes are getting smaller, less people stay in the program to the end.

For us we have 13 seniors this year, and only 5 juniors, there was 6 but you have to choose between varsity sports and IB at my school so the kid chose sports

[Corbin]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:54 AM, Grac777 said:

That's crazy. Our coordinator makes it pretty difficult to leave, but it's definitely possible. I'm curious about the contract though, was it legally binding? 

I have no idea but our coordinator is very strict and is very intent on keeping people in the program to some extent even if they only move to the course program.

[Corbin]

On 2/27/2023 at 5:57 PM, Phoenix_ said:

It has happened A LOT the past couple years at my school. The school is only their third year of even having IB, so the program is really small to begin with. As of now, we have 13 juniors still in the program. So far only one junior has been dropped out (not out of their own will, for other reasons) and about 3 or so juniors have willingly dropped out, but I also tend to see many people drop out when they hit senior year. Almost every single one of them I've talked to claims that it is due to high stress levels and/or classes being too difficult. 

For me, the motivation to keep going through with it is the fact that I'm around halfway through my two-year classes, and if I were to quit now I basically would have entirely wasted a year of education. The classes are insanely difficult and the stress is through the roof but it is possible. Whether or not you decide to give up your mental health for education is your own choice though.

[Grac777]

On 3/9/2023 at 3:31 PM, SimonCallahan said:

Yeah a lot of the current IB classes at my school have higher rates of dropping out than before, I feel like COVID's effect on the last few years made a lot of people burnt out. I wonder how less IB candidates than normal is going to affect things this year.

I imagine it’ll definitely change things. It’ll probably just result in there being less ib schools in general. Might do some weird stuff with college? Maybe make it more valuable to have an ib diploma? Who knows though.

[Grac777]

On 3/9/2023 at 5:40 PM, Leigh said:

dude I've thought about it so much... im so stress and like dying. I've had to start taking anti depressants and anti anxiety pills because it’s so bad.

It definitely can be a lot. At some point you have prioritize your mental health 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Grac777

[Grac777]

On 3/10/2023 at 7:50 PM, AlexSails said:

For us we have 13 seniors this year, and only 5 juniors, there was 6 but you have to choose between varsity sports and IB at my school so the kid chose sports

It kind of makes sense to have kids choose between ib and varsity. I’ve had some kids at my school try and do both and most usually end up dropping one or the other.