Assuming one has the opportunity to be an IB candidate, I wonder if there is truly an advantage during the application process. The IB 2002 survey lists college aceptance rates for IB and non IB students. Is this data accurate and statistically significant or does the general IB applicant pool have higher stats than the non-IB group. The list of schools listed were generally the top schools in the country.
Perhaps specific colleges favor and encourage IB applicants. Not sure if this is the case.
<p>Yeah certain schools are more aware of IB. From my IB school in Oregon, people get in very easily to the UCs with a Full IB Diploma (something like 70% admit rate for UC Berkeley from our school's Full IB pool). But if you do IB in general you tend to become stronger academically. At our school, everyone who got into Ivies were also Full IB students. Everyone else that was not Full IB that applied were rejected. </p>
<p>If you have the opportunity to be an IB candidate you better take it. Not only will it help you, but if you don't pursue a Full Diploma then the top colleges will wonder why you aren't academically driven and will assume you can't handle challenges or whatever. It's about taking the most rigorous options available.</p>
<p>Maybe it's just the case for my school, but since IB is offered, very few (I don't think any, actually) have gotten into top schools without the IB Diploma. The best my school had done for a while was sending few kids to the UCs, one to Georgetown, and one to maybe Harvard or Stanford once in a blue moon. This year we had like 10 people who went for the Full Diploma and turned out to be great applicants. 5 of them were accepted to Ivies including myself:</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale Penn Columbia Brown</li>
<li>Yale Penn Dartmouth</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>
<p>Admittedly a few Full IB Students were rejected from the Ivies (but had obvious weaknesses elsewhere such as low SAT2s or something) but still landed in some of the best schools like UChicago or Georgetown. Case in point, if you do IB you are vastly increasing your chances at getting into a top school.</p>
<p>i completely agree. At my school, I dont think a single non-IB student has been accepted to a school better than University of Florida (most IB students in my school end up there anyway because its a full scholarship minus room/board).</p>
<p>My huge high school offers the IB diploma and almost all AP courses. People who take around 5-6 AP courses each year (senior, junior) usually do as well as people in the IB program.</p>
<p>I think AP is probably more efficient and can prep kids for admission more easily than IB.</p>
<p>However, IB forces you to be good at many things (wide in scope) if you want to pass IB with flying colors. I think it is excellent prep for college itself.</p>
<p>AP to me seems too "memorize and regurgitate" to me, but then again, IB seems very "checklist"esque -- fulfill the criteria and you do fine.</p>
<p>I don't like how IB limits the number of tests you can take, nor how they limit which tests give you credit (the HLs, which you can only take a limited number of). AP tests would of course cost most. IB is a very expensive risk.</p>
<p>IT'S NOT THE IB DIPLOMA PROGRAM that gives you the advantage. IT'S HOW YOU DO IN IT!!!!!!!</p>
<p>yea sure, there have been successes among the IB diploma kids from my high school, most recently with a student who got into harvard, princeton, stanford, and several others. </p>
<p>yet there are 3 IB kids who are going to community college... and not necessarily for reasons dealing with money. </p>
<p>it's just like the AP program. not advantageous if you're not going to do good in it. </p>
<p>"Perhaps specific colleges favor and encourage IB applicants."</p>
<p>among the most selective colleges, yes. it is a common policy that "if you have IB at your school, you are recommended to take it." that does not necessarily exclude all the AP students, but given two statistically equivalent students, the IB has the advantage over the AP. the UC application also has a special box for you to check if you're in IB diploma. but after you drop from the top 50 or so, it varies... some schools give full scholarships for IB students, others have never heard of IB before!</p>
<p>You can always take AP Tests on the side...</p>
<p>I'm taking 5 AP tests next year in addition to all my IB stuff since our HL material overlaps enough, and my SL classes won't get me credit unless I take the AP test with a smidgen of self-study.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Very few colleges give credit at all for SL subjects. So my SL Psychology score really was pointless. All I needed was a grade above a 3. However, I also took the AP Psychology exam, where some schools might give something. The same goes for Chemistry (HL), Spanish (SL--wish they offered HL at my school), Math (SL -> Calc BC), Comp Sci AB (elective), and Economics (state requirement).</p>
<p>Shahein: "AP tests on the side" = a crapload of money. I dunno about you but I sure couldn't afford that. I had to pay for 4 out of 6 IB tests. Let me tell you... that will eat up a lot of cash real quick. I presume your parents paid for your tests? Coupled with SATs, school fees, etc... it's hard to afford both IB and AP, simply put. I think it is easier for AP kids to do well because they don't have IB to "take advantage of" and they just have to study for a few tests, take them, and that's it. With IB you HAVE to take the class, take the tests, do the essays and oral presentations, do the internal assessments, do TOK/EE/CAS, etc. It's much more intensive. </p>
<p>AP is like a quick gunshot to the leg... easy to do, gets the job done.
But IB is like a heavy chaingun, hard to use but if you master it, you cause a lot of damage. It's harder to get a 7 in IB than a 5 in AP, so doing well in IB is something to be proud of.</p>
<p>kfc4u: Sure, nobody was arguing with you over that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
IT'S NOT THE IB DIPLOMA PROGRAM that gives you the advantage. IT'S HOW YOU DO IN IT!!!!!!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is very true. Among my IB class, we had people going to Duke (2), MIT, Yale, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins (2). However, many, many IB'ers ended up at state schools (not UNC either) or community colleges. If you do well, IB is a big boost, but just being in IB does nothing. I've heard that Yale, Duke, and U Chicago are fond of IB students. </p>
<p>By the way, many colleges (Duke, for example) give placement (but not credit) for some SL exams.</p>
<p>Our school pays for the IB exams... Which is a massive blessing. We have an extremely small IB program but a large AP program... It does not pay for AP exams.</p>
<p>I and my parents paid for my AP exams.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Just for the record, I didn't question whether you said IB was harder. I questioned your assertion that IB somehow limits its students. The IB curriculum frequently overlaps with AP. If you feel your testing options are limited, take some extra ones.</p>
<p>My school doesn't pay for the tests. The students do. IB limits the students in terms of money as they are required to take a certain number of tests. Let's say I was born in a location where I had to attend an IB high school but I only had enough money to pay for the IB essentials/6 tests. Only the HL tests can get me credit and you can't take all HLs. Now, if I had lived elsewhere that didn't have IB I could have spent that money on APs that could have helped me out more. Saying that IB doesn't limit its students is false because it sure hindered me in the AP realm. My school did not offer AP courses either. There isn't always an "AP overlap". My transcript is full of IB classes and you won't see "AP"-anything listed. Testing options ARE limited.</p>
<p>That is introducing an extra set of variables and conditions which serve to establish a case based on conjecture. AP exams do not require you to have taken the class, so "My school did not offer AP courses either" is moot. The courses overlap in what they cover, not whether your transcript says "APIB Chemistry" or "APIB English".</p>
<p>For the ifs, you just as easily hypothetically lived in an area that pays for IB exams. </p>
<p>IB is not an evil organization that desires to prevent its students from taking other national exams by sucking their money, only to be thwarted when a school pays for the exams. </p>
<p>Could the issue be a lack of familiarity with IB exams at US colleges? Indeed, my IB Psych SL more than adequately prepared me for AP Psych, but taken alone as solely IB, it isn't worth anything when it comes down to college credit. </p>
<p>Of course, the original poster asked whether being an IB Diploma candidate aided in the admissions process. Perhaps it is an advantage because the colleges know you will be taking the requisite 6 exams and are doing coursework to prepare for those exams.</p>
<p>"The courses overlap in what they cover, not whether your transcript says "APIB Chemistry" or "APIB English"."</p>
<p>Of course. But I can't say "Hey I'm a math genius, give me credit as if I took the AP even though I took SL Math. " </p>
<p>"For the ifs, you just as easily hypothetically lived in an area that pays for IB exams. "</p>
<p>If I lived in an area that paid for the exams I wouldn't be discussing the issue at all... the main problem is the money. It's hard to afford both IB and AP. If my school paid for my IB stuff I'd be taking AP tests on the side like there was no tomorrow.</p>
<p>"Could the issue be a lack of familiarity with IB exams at US colleges?"
Most likely.</p>
<p>I do not understand where you are coming from I guess. I think it's clear that IB hinders those who have to pay for their tests as not all IB schools pay for them. Would you say that it's more expensive to take both IB and AP? Of course. But what if one can only afford IB? If that is the case, then you are held back in the realm of earning college credit to test out of courses, etc.</p>