I am a student in the illustrious International Baccalaureate Programme. Given, I complain about a lot of the work we have to do, and it has been rather stressful from time to time, but I am very proud to say that I am an IB student, and in less than a year, I will hopefully have earned my diploma. That being said, I become quite furious when I hear someone talk about how awful of a program it is and, in particular, about how IB students receive "special treatment."

Perhaps the phenomenon of believing IB kids receive special treatment is a scattered one, but it exists at my school. Quite honestly, whenever an AP kid tried to tell me that IB is a bad program or that I receive "special treatment," I want to punch said person in the nose and invite them to come do all the assessments I have to do.

Certain requirements differ from school to school, but they are all similar. Let me list my assessments off for you:

A 4000 word Extended Essay
Two 1500 word World Literature Papers
A 10 minute English Oral Presentation
A 12 minute English Oral Commentary
French Orals
French Presentations
A 2000 word Historical Investigation
Group 4 Project
60 hours of Biology labs
Two Math Portfolios
40 hours of Chemistry Labs
A 1600 word Theory of Knowledge paper
A Theory of Knowledge Presentation
150 CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) hours
15 Exams in May

I dare any AP kid to top that. I dare you.

Just a side note: AP is far from being a bad course. It's not a bad choice, and if it is all your school offers, go for it. The simple fact of the matter is, though, that it has nothing on IB in any way.

On to my main point. My class has been subjected to the "CapStone Project." It is, more or less, a graduation project. This is the first time my school system has ever made a Senior class do such a thing. Now, I know that other schools have done these for years, but ours has become an unorganized mess, and the only reason that Central Office has not done away with it completely is because they know that if they do so, they will, effectively, be admitting that they were wrong.

From the beginning, my school's IB Programme attempted to have IB kids exempt. "Special treatment!" they cried. If you agree, I invite you to once again read the list of assessments I must do.

A bit of information about the "CapStone:" It is in three parts, the paper, the product, and the presentation. The presentation counts as a quarter of your senior year English grade. Hold on a minute; you mean to tell me that twenty five percent of my IB English grade will be determined by a non-IB project? Excuse me while I vomit in disgust.

Not to mention that the CapStone is an asinine waste of time. It takes away precious instruction time from the English classes. Wait, there is a bit of a paradox. This project was designed to a) lower the drop out rate (if you do not see the immediate idiocy in that lack of logic, please hit yourself) and b) to teach us high schoolers research and writing skills. If a student does not know how to write, why take away instruction time to make them write a paper that they have no idea how to write? Why take away instruction time from those of us who do know how to research and write?

Now that you know my opinion on the CapStone, shall we return to the topic at hand? We were recently informed that this year's freshman class did not have to do the project if they took IB. Hold it; is that exactly what Central office said they would not do? Did they not scream "special treatment!" at the top of their tiny voices? It goes without saying that we called them out on that. Fortunately, Central Office decided to put the project on hold for the current IB Senior class.

What do I hear? Oh, it's the AP kids screaming "special treatment!" I was informed today that a certain AP student had taken the liberty to write "IB Avoiding CapStone" on a white board with an accompanying picture of polite, respectful AP kids and rude, whiney IB kids.

I once again invite you to read the list of assessments I must do. I again dare you to take those on.

AP students who are screaming "special treatment," I have one more thing to say to you. You had the choice to do IB. Nothing was stopping you. All of you had the required prerequisites (save maybe Chemistry One, but you had the option to take that, too. Nothing prevented you from taking that course. Nothing). None of you opted to take on IB. In a sense, I do not blame you. On the other hand, I feel sorry that you have missed out on such an amazing learning experience. However, you have no idea how much work we have to do, you cannot begin to imagine. Do not tell me that you can, because it is a glaring lie. I am aware that you do a lot of work, too, but you do nothing compared to what I do. Do not complain about IB not being forced to do CapStone anymore; we should not have had to in the beginning.