The title is pretty much what I need to know, and do you need to take full-IB or certaim courses?
Depends entirely on the school- different schools have different entry requirements.
Do you know who would be a good candidate for the IB program? There is one available through the Phoenix union highschool district. North highschool. Although I heard, it wasn’t worth the stress. Also, that very few passed the exam. I will be a freshman in 2018 and don’t know what to do either.
Depending on the entry requirements based on the local region or country you are living in, I’d say pretty much you have to be given an exam on some basic subjects before entering the program.
Graduate of 2018 and I pretty much entered into the IB program simply because my School has had it as a integrated international system for a long time.
I graduated this year (2016) and I can attest to the program’s rigor. A good candidate for the IB program who is either very hardworking, or has enough intelligence to make up for it (and I mean super genius here- only the cream of the crop could ever get away with not studying). But the vibe and energy of every IB program is different. And also, I would not go into an IB program with atrocious pass rates (50 or below) because it reflects poorly on the program, not on the students.
IB entry requirement differ according to the host school. For my school all they really looked for was good grades and intellectual curiosity in the interview we had. As a result, most of my class came from my middle school which was for gifted students since it produced students that fit the profile my IB school was looking for. Honestly my school isn’t very strict though because the program is only there to boost up state test scores and they’re desperate to let in anyone who can pass their SOLs. However the IB school in our neighbor city is much more strict when it comes to admissions and honestly half of the people in my program wouldn’t be accepted into theirs. I would suggest going to your IB school you’re looking at and talking to the students. Get to know them and how they study as well as what type of grades they maintained in middle school. Good luck