IB Diploma Graduates & College Preparedness

Student Lounge College Life
1

<hr>

<p>I am interesting in gathering some information from IB Diploma/IB Certificate students who have already completed their college studies or have finished the first two years. I am trying to compile a list of answers to several questions so that I can provide the answers to parents who are looking at IB at our high school. I want a variety of IB Programs from around the US and World so it doesn't look like our IB graduates are singing "Be True to Your School". Here are the questions:</p>

<p>1) Did IB help in college prep? What helped? Writing skills? Study skills?</p>

<p>2) Did you receive college credit or advancement for your IB work? Did it help you to be advanced? </p>

<p>3)Did you graduate from college? What school? Or if still in college what was your GPA after 4 semesters? </p>

<p>4)If you graduated from college, are you in a career related to your college degree?</p>

<p>5) In high school, did you take any AP exams in addition to IB exams? If so, what did you score and did you take without additional preparation? Did your school offer joint IB/AP courses?</p>

<p>6)Did you get a Diploma or only IB certificate(s)? If certificates, how many? Where? What State or Country?</p>

2

<p>1) I guess it did because people come out of highschool never needing ot study and I am used to having to study. I didn't learn how to study. I just learned that I had to study. I'm still learning HOW to study. Writing skills, yes. IB english teachers broke me down on that writing.</p>

<p>2) You need to score well in your HLs. SL doesn't matter. If you take something SL, make sure you take the AP version. Also, take AP psychology because its incredibly easy.</p>

<p>3) I still haven't graduated from college. My GPA isn't any better than anyone elses. Its an average GPA.</p>

<p>4) I am expecting to me in my field that I got a degree in, but not for long. Or if my fantasy plays out, I'll graduate without even touching work related to my degrees.</p>

<p>5) Yes. You need to take AP exams otherwise you will not get all the credit you deserve. You don't need that much additional prep.</p>

<p>6) I got certs because I didn't want to write the essay and sciences KILL me, to this day. I couldn't handle it in hs and I can't handle it in college. History, too. History killed me. I try to avoid history classes in college. I took one course where we go to Mexico and before we left, we had to write some essay from some history articles. Naturally, I didn't do that. LOL. I think I can still make an A though. I forgot how many certs I have. like 4 or 5. I dunno.</p>

3

<ol>
<li><p>Writing is the strength of the IB program, IMO</p></li>
<li><p>No (but I only did like .5-1 hour prep for each exam)</p></li>
<li><p>Yes. William and Mary. With a GPA that I'm comfortable with. I could've spent more time studying and got a higher GPA, but I graduated with something sufficient for me.</p></li>
<li><p>Not yet... doing volunteer work.</p></li>
<li><p>I took 2 AP exams, no prep. Scored a 3 (Eng Lit) and 4 (Gov). No prep. Would've done better on the English with 30 minutes of prep. I didn't know how to write the essays, b/c IB is 2 hours for a shorter passage, and AP was a longer passage[s] with 40 minutes each. I didn't know what to focus on, I was like "ahh, too much to write about!" Gov on the other hand, I was 2 years out of gov class (soph year class, test as a senior).</p></li>
<li><p>Diploma. Virginia.</p></li>
</ol>

4

<p>I received my IB Diploma in Florida. I did pretty well overall - three 5s, one 6, two 7s, and 2 bonus points (how the hell do i still remember that?!?) and am currently a sophomore at the University of Florida majoring in political science and spanish.</p>

<p>1) Did IB help in college prep? </p>

<p>yes. As a political science major, i have to write a lot. when i was first assigned to write a 30 pg research paper, i didn't freak out because i was already used to writing long papers quickly.</p>

<p>2) Did you receive college credit or advancement for your IB work? Did it help you to be advanced? </p>

<p>yes! IB + AP ==> 30 credits, so i basically started as a sophomore. </p>

<p>3)Did you graduate from college? What school? Or if still in college what was your GPA after 4 semesters? </p>

<p>Currently a sophomore at UF with a 3.98 GPA</p>

<p>5) In high school, did you take any AP exams in addition to IB exams? If so, what did you score and did you take without additional preparation? Did your school offer joint IB/AP courses?</p>

<p>yeah I took AP Euro (5) and AP Gov (4) in 10th grade (pre-IB), AP Calculus AB (2) junior year, and also took the AP Spanish (5) AP Bio exams (4) without taking the classes or any additional prep besides my IB equivalents.</p>

<p>6)Did you get a Diploma or only IB certificate(s)? If certificates, how many? Where? What State or Country?</p>

<p>Diploma Florida</p>

5

<p>I am only a first year, but I'll answer anyway.</p>

<p>1) Did IB help in college prep? What helped? Writing skills? Study skills?</p>

<p>Yeah, it did help. My last year of high school was so stressful (5 IB exams) that I was prepared for the stress of finals. I knew I had already survived a stressful period that was even more extreme than finals so it didn't psych me out so much. IB also helped develop my writing skills and analytical skills. As for study skills, it helped to an extent, when it came to preparing for big tests and developing motivation.</p>

<p>2) Did you receive college credit or advancement for your IB work? Did it help you to be advanced? </p>

<p>I could have received college credit, but I chose not to accept it (I would have been forced to accept a C in the course since my score wasn't high enough to get full credit). The actual IB tests helped prepare me mentally, but did not help me in terms of credits. I kind of regret taking so many tests.</p>

<p>3)Did you graduate from college? What school? Or if still in college what was your GPA after 4 semesters? </p>

<p>I'm going on to my second semester at Wellesley College.</p>

<p>4)If you graduated from college, are you in a career related to your college degree?</p>

<p>n/a</p>

<p>5) In high school, did you take any AP exams in addition to IB exams? If so, what did you score and did you take without additional preparation? Did your school offer joint IB/AP courses?</p>

<p>My school only offered AP Stats, although I think some students took the AP math test after doing IB math.</p>

<p>6)Did you get a Diploma or only IB certificate(s)? If certificates, how many? Where? What State or Country?</p>

<p>I received the IB Certificate of Merit from Washington.</p>

6

<p>I wasn't a Diploma or even a Certificate student. I failed to get a high enough score on any of the tests for college credit. (Got 4's on all of them). My problem on the IB tests were that I don't know how to write in cursive very well in English, so I printed them, so I had to cut down my essay length to finish in time. They should really let you type your essays in this day and age!</p>

<p>But I was completely prepared for college. Writing papers? Easy. Taking notes? Know how to do that. Knowing what's important and what to study...down. Some of the style of tests were the exact same as some of my high school classes. (Example ID Tests for History).</p>