There are also quotes from admissions officers at Harvard, Brown, etc that say they value the IB curriculum over a generic AP/Honors course load.
So does a full IB Diploma actually help admissions?
Background: I am currently taking the full IB programme at my school; our school is the first and only school in my county to start IB, and one of the very few in my underrepresented Southern state.
What schools like about the IBD is that it is comprehensive in breadth, it is rigorous, it requires writing and critical thinking, and it’s scored by someone who doesn’t know you. All those things can help prepare you for college and help substantiate your readiness.
It’s hard to say whether there is a whole lot of extra benefit. Few colleges would discriminate against a student who didn’t have the opportunity to do the IBD because AP was all their school offered.
It’s great that you’ll have this opportunity. It can be a lot of work, but you will leave high school with a great foundation for everything ahead.
My S19 completed the IBD program. He had good success in the admissions process and received good merit offers - there’s no way to prove that the IBD helped, but it felt as though it did and it certainly didn’t hurt. My son specifically chose an IB school for high school because he felt the IB’s emphasis on research and writing was a better fit for him than AP-type exams. I don’t think we fully understand what he was getting into, but now, half way into his first year of college, he is finding that he is very well-prepared for college-level work. As you know, the IBD program is rigorous and can be somewhat inflexible, but if you are comfortable with the approach, it’s a good choice. On the other hand, I wouldn’t choose the IBD simply for the purpose of improving one’s admission chances.
There is a selection effect – only students who are able and willing to handle the increased workload will complete the IB DP, compared to a typical US high school college-prep curriculum. I.e. better college admission results may be the result of the type of student who completes the IB DP.
Of course, if the IB DP is the most demanding schedule selection compared to other choices in your high school, then choosing it will be favorable to your admission chances at the most selective colleges that look for the most demanding schedule selection (and doing well in it, of course). But if you have other options that are similarly academically demanding, then the IB DP may not have any particular advantage over them.
It depends, if you do dozen or more AP and score 5s, it can be as or more rigorous as doing an IB diploma with HL courses.
IB has structure and requirements, in AP system you can just take one or two AP courses, in which case it’s not equal to full IB diploma.
Moral of the story, colleges only want to see rigor which you can show under both systems. Go with the program which suits you and is more beneficial at your school.
Don’t put too much stock in an admissions counseling firm republishing data from 2011 from the IB organization saying how great IB is, based on self-selecting survey responses.
It’s a good program. But I don’t believe an 80% Georgia Tech, 70% CMU admissions rate.
It depends on the rigor of the IB diploma at your school. Just like taking 10 AP classes doesn’t automatically show rigor. If they offer HL in Math and most of the sciences, then it’s probably a boost.
GT admissions was very different in 2011, so I could see something around 80% back then. Now GT’s admissions is more holistic and there are a lot more IB programs.
The rigor of the full IB diploma is not just the classes and having had one kid go through it and one kid taking a ton of AP classes, I’ll still say the IBD is heads and shoulders more rigorous. The extended essay and CAS requirements on top of a full IB course load is intense. The writing required, even for science and math classes is orders of magnitude more than AP courses. I have no clue how colleges view it, but they should absolutely value it as a sign of a student who has extremely robust time management skills - especially when you layer in extra curriculars.