<p>Hi I live in germany and am taking the IB diploma. I already posted a thread about this in the "admissions" forum, but I didn't really get any answers, so I thought this would be a good place to ask.</p>
<p>How do US colleges treat IB students for admission? I know that the IB can gain you a lot of credit once your in, however for admission it seems to be a different story. Ive toured a lot of colleges with my parents and sister (who is now at University of Michigan) and we heard over and over that most international admissions people dont really understand the IB, and treat them as classes instead of a whole diploma. So some guy here can take one class and get credit for it.
The most difficult problem is with the GPA. Most universities dont understand that the IB Diploma courses are AP/Honors courses and that a grade of 5 is an A, which is a 4.0. It was very unfortunate for my sister b/c Michigan knocked her grade down to a 3.6 from a 4.0 b/c she was "foreign" and the uni didn't see the IB as harder than a normal HS diploma (which is total bs -.-).
So do you guys know of any universities that accept the IB as an honors program so to say? Is anyone in a similar situation here? </p>
<p>Hi, I am from Germany, too, and I have completed the IB together with the German Abitur. I think that the IB is pretty prestigious in the states. I cannot really comment on those colleges you are talking of, but I dare say that most admission officers compare the IB with AP.</p>
<p>Well, I have finished the IB this year and got admitted to Lafayette College, Cornell University, International University Bremen and waitlisted at Grinnell College. My predicted IB score was 42 (and actual 43). What you said about IB might be true as internationals studying in national schools with similar stats as mine got admitted to Middlebury and Colgate. However, American admissions is not all about academics, its also about extracurriculars and SATs, which are quite hard to obtain for the majority of internationals. And I am afraid that the rigor of IB program actually makes it even harder to prepare adequately for the SATs or have some outstanding extracuricular activities. So I think that American admission process is quite hard for IB students and sometimes they are disadvantaged, but as my experience has shown, for an IB student, it is not impossible to get into.</p>
<p>thx for the replies. I just hope that the admission officers will calculate your GPA fairly, b/c good grades are a lot harder to obtain taking the IB than they are doing a normal HS diploma in the US.</p>
<p>yeah thats true. Except the director didn't allow the counselor to refer to the IB program as an honor's program. Lol, but thats the first step in getting universities to grade the IB as honors classes. o.-</p>
<p>Most decent universities in the US know about IB. They acknowledege it as a tough courseload, and they wil obviously prefer say a 94 in an IB course than a 100 in a regular course, at least thats what a lot of college reps. have told us.</p>
<p>I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and do the International Baccalaureate program. I am in its first year, I do English A1 HL, Geography HL, French B HL, Mathematics Methods, Portuguese A1 SL and Physics SL.</p>
<p>I live in Australia, and for a while it was very likely that i was going to do the IB, i did so much research on it (the pages of information i looked at the other day was amazing). I know here, though it may not be relevant, the IB is thought of as what you do if you want to go to Universities ourside the country, thus, harder and more "broad" so you can fit many Universities requirments.
I hope it works out OK for you(GPA etc), but i just thought my (irelevant) informaiton might help :)</p>
<p>@njcanen: lol so cool that your school offers geography. If that was offered at my school, I would've taken it HL</p>
<p>Geography is BY FAR the best subject ever...for example, we have learnt snice the start of the IB about Coastal Processes (very cool, especially since I live here) and all that happens, Settlements (explains why every city is the way it is and grows and is created like it is), Globalisation (awesome and in-depth) and Lithospheric Hazards and Processes (everything from plate tectonics, earthquakes, floods and how humans deal with it!)</p>
<p>I mean it is awesome...I am so disappointed there is no SAT Subject Test on it...I am looking towards doing a double major in Political Sci and Geo and teach Geo in the USA where Geo sucks and at the same time be doing my career related with politics</p>
<p>I took Geography through 10th grade, and my school offers the IB course, but when I was selecting courses I thought that History would be more useful (for college admissions and in general), even though I've always found Geography more interesting. Now History SL is making my life hell and I'm really regretting my decision. :(</p>
<p>Also, does anyone else's school actively discourage students from taking on extra work? My high school is extremely reluctant to let anyone go beyond the bare minimum (three each HLs and SLs) and doesn't usually allow it, or refuses to discuss it. I would've loved to take Biology as a fourth HL instead of as a SL, but the administration made it seem as if no one had ever managed to do such a thing, which I thanks to CC now know not to be true. I found out later that they ended up allowing one student out of 50 in my grade to take four HLs and two SLs. I realize that not everyone can handle the work, but my academic record showed no such indication, and it just doesn't make sense to me that they for no apparent would deny a demonstratedly capable student the opportunity to challenge herself academically.</p>