I know a lot of international schools know the value of the diploma and the time commitment, but does MIT take that into account when they see an applicant who is going for the diploma or is it assumed to be similar to AP?
Most schools are familiar with it and value the rigor. They know that in it is harder than AP, but the reality is that most high schools are not certified to offer IB so colleges can’t really ding applicants who don’t have it.
@gardenstategal But will they look at IB diploma courses on your transcript and think something like, “oh ok so you took these IB courses with these HL subjects, we can tell it must have been much harder to obtain these grades than if you took regular courses because we know IB is academically harder”? I hope they appreciate my IB diploma 
Sorry to be Debbie Downer. They know that IB is rigorous. They also know that they have IBDP students submitting applications with 4HL/2SL with projected 7’s across the board. So no, they will not think something like you suggest.
And there are ton of US kids with IB diplomas, I could pick from 4 IB high schools in drivable distance when my kids were in HS. The IBD kids often had the IBD plus many APs. MIT will have many IB applicants. I read that over 900 school in the US offer the IBD, it isn’t novel to internationals.
IB/AP/DE all very common and average among admits. Probably all considered equal and baseline for consideration.
It’s funny because the local IB program has the reputation of being hard to get into but much easier than the standard curriculum once you get in. I was always curious about it.