IB dploma low GPA

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am currently a sophomore. I have been worrying about getting into a decent school. The maion cause of my worry is my Freshmen Year Gpa. I took ALL IB classes, and i didn't end up doing to well. The low GPA is not due to my lack of intelligence but rather due to my lack of effort. I use to get A's and B's without a sweat in middle school, but it turns out you have to start working in high school. So this is basically how my transcript will look. Took all pre-ib classes freshmen year, all except for english sophmore year, and all junior and senior year.</p>

<p>Freshmen Year GPA:2.5
Sophmore year GPA:About a 3.1 (stepped it up a little but not to full extent)
JUnior Year GPA:4.0 (Im willing to work, current im managing A's and B's i think one C, without really studying and trying. Next year I will have a fresh start and I'm gona spend most of my time studying and working.
Senior year:4.0
OVERALL not including senior year:3.2
(So Uh I am the oldest so i dont know a lot about college admission so I dont know how much senior year counts in the overall GPA cuz i Know its like the firs tsemester.)
Extracurricular for freshmen year: DECA, Spring Track
Sophomore year: DECA (Going to states this year), winter and spring track, Model UN)
Junior and senior year: same as sophmore year, maybe an extra club or 2
My friend and I are creating a 5013c organziation who will build one of the first public schools in Somalia. That will be one of our many projects. I think that will be helpful, makes me stand out
And finally, IB DIPLOMA GRADUATE.</p>

<p>My school has a different grading system, unlike most schools instead of 90-100 being an A, its a 94-100 (A), 90-94 (B+) 84-90 (B).. and so on
So that would raise my GPA i believe. My county is changing the grading scale next year so I dont know if it would be applied to Freshmen and Senior year, if not the colleges would do it themselves I believe. Also my country is about to pass this thing where you get a 1.0 extra per class for IB classes and a .5 extra for PRE-IB classes. So like in all my PRe-ib Classes freshmen and sophomore year I will go like from a C+ to a B. And junior year it would be B-A. But thats for weighted</p>

<p>I know this is a lot of info but im worried that my 2.5 will hurt me
I know this may sound crazy,but do i have any chance of getting into an IVY league schoo?
If not other schools like UVA, UCLA Idk???? VTech? like what kind of colleges should i be looking at that i have a good chance in. and can i get into the schools listed above</p>

2

<p>I forgot to mention SATS. AS a sophomore i haven't taken them yet. but im looking at a MINIMUM of a 1850. Hoping to get 2000+ My PSAT were pretty high don't remember though. Also I am African-American.</p>

3

<p>Okay listen to me, I am a senior who will graduate with the IB Diploma. DONT DO IT!!!!
If your GPA is low from IB, drop some of your IB classes. trust me it will look better to college is you took some IB/some regular and maintained a good GPA. IB is hell junior year, at least it is at my school. Senior year lightens up a bit. But seriously, with your GPA it is much better if you just drop some of the IB classes, i suggest dropping the ones you get the worst grades in, keep the ones you do well in. I know that right IB looks great to you, but IB diploma doesnt do much for you during college applications. take me advice.</p>

4

<p>Correction:</p>

<p>If you plan on appling out of the country (out of US) you must do the IB diploma!
OR
If one of the schools you are interested in grants sophmore status to IB diploma grads than you may want to consider going through the whole thing.</p>

<p>but if your like me and you applied in the US to schools that dont grant sophmore status then the IB diploma wont help much.</p>

5

<p>I guess it depends on the school. I'm a senior in Ib, just finished up all of my IAs. But I agree, DON'T JOIN THE IB, ITS NOT THE WORTH IT. Its ALOT of normal work + MORE WORK. Senior year, for me, was even more work. The first 8 weeks after I came back from winther break, I finished 15 major projects/reports/internal assessments/whatever, 3 of them group projects with REALLY bad groups. It was HELLLLLL. And after that, I had like 5 more projects due over the next 6-7 weeks. (THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION! I COUNTED!!!) By the time I'm done.. It'll be april and spring break. Guess what. I GET to study for 4 IB tests and 3 AP tests! YAY!!! DON"T DO IT. DON"T WASTE YOUR LIFE. Its high school GO ENJOY IT! You work hard in college, not in high school. By the way, before winter break, for me, it was all college apps and SATs. I regret IB so much. If you don't believe me, go to the biggest website for ib students : ibscrewed.net</p>

<p>My history is kinda like yours. 3.4 freshman year. 4.3 sopmore year. (straight As) So I figure IB, what the hell I can do it. Junior year... Bombed. straight Bs. But gpa came out as 4.00 flat. The work load junior year is like sophomore x3. senior is like sophmore x5. </p>

<p>To top it off, IB is Lower then AP and is just as liable to LOWER your GPA then raise it. A number of my IB classes are also AP classes. Literally same class as AP, just you get to do more work. For example, I am literally sitting in Biology AP right now and it counts as IB. Guess what, I Don't get Honor credit from the University of California system because IB is NonHonor while AP is +1. So not fair.... Thats if you are in the United States, england might be different. But, in the united states, colleges don't seem to really understand what IB is and some of the them misunderstand the difficulty level of ib classes. It rates alot of IB classes taht are harder then AP classes as non honors or might rate a easy class as AP. but the former is more likely.</p>

<p>i can go on and on</p>

<p>Unless you are super over achiever. There is one girl in IB who is Ranked 1 in school, varsity swim, ASB President (And has been class (09) president or something like that for the last 3 years.) (Which means shes super popular), and in a whole mess of other clubs and stuff. At that point where there is nothing else you can possibly do besides going to Congo and saving a camp of refugees or something, IB makes sense</p>

6

<p>um, if these guys were in IB Diploma Programmes, they would know that you can't drop IB classes.
Seriously, IB isn't that bad if you can manage your time and work. I can't say my grades are through the roof, but if you went to IB to get in to a better college, you deserve what you get.</p>

7

<p>Yes, I'm aware that you can't drop IB classes, but you can't drop AP classes either.</p>

<p>And Yes, I can manage my time and work. I usually finish all of my work by 1:00 am (3:00 am at most thats when I have 2 or 3 projects due same day) at night compared to most IB students that work till 5:00 and 6:00 am the night before a project is due. </p>

<p>But even if you do manage your time and work. That ALOT OF WORK. </p>

<p>Also, IB doesn't really raise your chances of getting into college. (In California at least) Don't know about Europe and stuff. versus just taking the same classes and getting AP credit.</p>

<p>My advice is work hard and still aim for a good college, but don't over do it by joining IB. Yes, IB will motivate you to finish much more work and you hang out with motivated people like your self and usually get better grades because you hang out with some smarter kids. However, if you join IB, you won't have time to enjoy your life. The point of life is to work hard and play hard. If you join IB its only work hard and no play. with little pay off.</p>

8

<p>"And Yes, I can manage my time and work. I usually finish all of my work by 1:00 am (3:00 am at most thats when I have 2 or 3 projects due same day) at night compared to most IB students that work till 5:00 and 6:00 am the night before a project is due."</p>

<p>You messin with me, right? You call that good time management?</p>

<p>I'm taking 5 IBs, TOK, and an honours course, and I haven't stayed up till 1 AM all year. The people who pull the hours you do only do so because it's their own doing. If you have to spend that much time on work, you're not doing it right.</p>

<p>If by no play, you mean that you don't get to go to parties or the movies or w/e every weekend, then yes, you won't have enough time for yourself. But IB by no means eliminates all recreation or social activities.</p>

9

<p>Okay, I know this isn’t your question, but a lot of people talk about how much work IB is.
In all honesty, it’s really not THAT much more work.
Seriously.
I go to bed at about 11:00 every night, which isn’t late at all, and I stay up the latest of anyone I know in IB.
If you actually focus on your work when you get home from school, it’s very easy to manage your school work and still go to bed early – most people I know go to bed at 9:00 every night.
And a large amount of people in the IB Academy are on a Varsity sport (even multiple Varsity sports!) so it’s not like you can’t have time for fun.
Also, every single class of mine is IB, so it’s not like I just have a class or two that’s IB, either.</p>

<p>But about your actual question…
I’m not an expert about college admittance or anything, but I do know that having an IB diploma does pay off.
For instance, my sister and her friend both applied to UVA and William & Mary.
Now, UVA is more well-known since it’s relatively large, but UVA and W&M have nearly identical average SAT scores (W&M has slightly higher on critical reading, while UVA has slightly higher on math).
My sister’s friend took all advanced/honors class and ended up with a GPA over 4.0 – but without an IB diploma.
My sister, on the other hand, took all IB classes, got an IB diploma, and ended up with a GPA over 4.0, as well, only it was lower than her friend.
They both got into UVA, but my sister’s friend was not accepted. They had essentially identical applications – both middle class, white, female, all the same clubs, etc – except for the IB diploma.
Now, I don’t know if that’s why her friend wasn’t accepted and my sister was, but… just thought I’d mention it!</p>

10

<p>There is a reason why I'm saying "in California" "where I live" and so on. Where you live and what school you go to affects what your classes are like. But in my school, IB is that much work. Even different teachers at the SAME school affects the workload you get.</p>

<p>Ultimately: Let me ask, does it help you get into college if IB lowers your GPA? The same exact classes, without IB = higher (by like .05 this year) gpa then WITH IB simply because colleges don't give honors credit for some IB classes that are in the same exact class room as AP classes. Even though you have less work without IB. Last year, at my school, there were a total of 4 classes that i'm aware of (2 english, psychology, biology) that were AP classes but we didn't get honors credit for.</p>

<p>Now if you notice, the person is applying to UCLA, which is a university of california which is exactly one of the schools that don't give honors credit for some IB classes that it would normally give credit for if you took the same class without being in IB.</p>

<p>Also, your sister and her friend's case could be due to ib or it could be personal statement. How would you know that it wasn't because your sister's friend's personal statement was better? </p>

<p>"I go to bed at about 11:00 every night, which isn’t late at all, and I stay up the latest of anyone I know in IB.
If you actually focus on your work when you get home from school, it’s very easy to manage your school work and still go to bed early – most people I know go to bed at 9:00 every night."
Umm, I said at most 1:00 am. I sleep at 10:30 pm. When I have alot of homework/projects/ whatever, the latest I usually get to is 1:00 and sometimes 3:00 if its REALLY crazy. Out of the 16 IB seniors left at my school, (we started with 200 something), I'm one of the earliest sleepers if not the earliest.
And my response to you is, if most IB students at your school sleep at 9:00, then your school is not normal. Most AP students at my school already average somewhere around 11:00.</p>

<p>I don't know, maybe your IB school gets less work then mine. But I'll go more in detail of what my IB classes are like.</p>

<p>My English 2hl is a holy f hard class (busy work wise) partly because its also an AP class so I have to do all of the AP work + IB work. Its at least 1 hour a night averaged out. Not including IB work. (I got the bad teacher, the other English teacher at my school gives a lot less hw). </p>

<p>My Physics AP teacher does not teach at ALL. In class he teaches conceptual 6th grade physics. When you push something, you exert a force on it. When you go home, you have to read the book and figure it out your self in order to do the homework. </p>

<p>Biology 2nd year is same thing, its in the AP Biology class room. My AP Bio teacher's motto is "I teach you how to learn on your own." or something. So he refuses to teach in class, he wants to teach us to go home and read the book by ourselves and do the hw and everything. In class is all lab. I'm dieing to yell at him, Your a fen teacher, your getting paid to teach us, so teach us. What makes things worse is, I'M NOT GETTING HONORS CREDIT because colleges think IB Bio is much easier then AP Bio. When in truth IB Bio is AP Bio + 5 more labs you have to plan and conduct on your own time with NO guidance.</p>

<p>Then try juggling it with Chinese 4AP/Chinese Sl when you are a non-native speaker. I have to study 3-4 hours just to get a 70% on my Chinese test. When I can normally get 80-90 without any studying for other classes (but math and physics)</p>

<p>don't feel like explaining the rest...</p>

11

<p>Um, your school sounds like an anomaly to me. My school starts out with 100 freshman (because, I don't know how most schools do it, but we're housed in a regular high school, only we take completely separate classes, so you take all IB classes - unless you chose to take a study hall. you might get stuck with some normies there) and ends with an average of 90 seniors. So for your school to go from 200+ to 16...
But then again, the school district I'm in itself is ranked very high in the rankings for national public schools or whatever, so maybe we just have an odd proportion of gifted students...?
And I know that some schools don't give college credits for IB (and that some don't even give it for AP either) but you still get extra points added to your GPA. And you get more for IB than AP, so that's still beneficial -- and how my sister's class had three valedictorians with a GPA of 4.96</p>

<p>And, yeah, I do think it's pretty insane that they manage to go to bed at 9:00, but do you REALLY get home from school at say, 3:00 or 3:30 and work non-stop, completely focused, only breaking for a snack or dinner, until 1:00 AM? Or even 11:00?
Because THAT doesn't sound normal to me.</p>

<p>But then again, my teachers actually TEACH in class and respect us enough to not give us "busy work" so maybe you just got stuck with kind of crappy teachers...</p>

<p>And just out of curiosity - does your school use the 10 point grading scale?
Like, A = 100 - 90, B = 90 - 80, etc.</p>

12

<p>The reason I don't think you have a "normal" IB experience is because you said your school is an IB Academy (I have never heard of an IB Academy before). Also, you say you have a separate college and housing? I have a normal public high school that accepts students locally. I don't think you have a normal school if you have housing. </p>

<p>However, because you have a better school, it probably means your teachers are much better. One thing IB taught me was, don't trust teachers and authorities. Half the time, they don't really know anything besides what they are teaching. And they don't even know that very well. Are most of your teachers PhD's or something? My teachers are mostly just lower-end college grads. Some didn't go to college. I had 1 teacher with a phD but she retired. </p>

<p>We started with 200+ in Pre-IB for sophmore year. 30 entered IB for junior. 16 are left for senior. 420 students total in class (freshman year we had like 460 so i assumed 40 or so dropped out of high school). We have one of the biggest IB classes ever at my school. Usually its like 9. Next year, there will be 9 IB seniors (if they stay). It's pretty sad.</p>

<p>However, my SAT's said my school SAT score is exact same as the average American SAT scores for all subjects.</p>

<p>Yes we use a A,B,C grading scale. Where do you live? Most of the schools around here seem to be pretty similar. I've been around the high schools in my area and chatted with students from schools in neighboring cities. Especially since I took SAT classes where there are students from more then 20 different high schools. One or two student actually drrove 45mins + from San Diego to LA distance to go to the SAT class.</p>

<p>But yes, I can obviously tell that IB is not "normal" at my school. Its very messy and clumsy and was kinda forced to fit California standards, AP Standards, and IB standards. Like Our Math Studies Class is considered to be "Pre-Calculus" (but watered down and with Stats).</p>

<p>Thats why I keep saying California, California</p>

<p>However, he is interested in UCLA which I think draws people locally (From California) and not people from other states nearly as much unless they like football or something. Therefore, I'm guessing that he lives in California. Also, he replied to a thread of mine about my chances of getting into other UC schools. I'd say I'm 85% sure he is Californian.</p>

<p>For the work thing. I get home around 4:00 since ride problems and so on (my home is a one hour and 15min walk from school) and my parents can't afford to pick me up. They'll lose like 30 mins of work and 30mins of work is alot of money compared to me finishing some more hw = no money. I chat and screw around till 6:00 (usually). Then I start my homework. Dinner is like 30 mins around 7 (my parents work really late). Then I do about 50mins of work per 10mins of chatting. However, if I'm working really late its either because (some1 aims me asking if i did this and that assignment and I was totally unaware since my teachers said it in the middle of a very long boring lecture) or because theres alot of work. but If I have alot of work, i start earlier. Know what I mean? If theirs alot of work due on one day, then I'll take the day before off or work more efficiently.</p>

<p>My teachers are so bad.. I'm considering ditching the rest of the year. Just going to school once a week to turn in all of my homework pretty much. MY classes are TOTALLY useless. TOK was fun because we actually get to get into really good discussions. But know, my TOK class is online and the period is now just a study hall. The only other teacher thats any good is Chinese AP.</p>

13

<p>Opps, I skimmed your message so I miss understood so disregard my first paragraph. But yea, I'm in a normal public high school and I have never heard of an IB Academy.</p>

14

<p>New post, not from your beloved AznDoofus, but his brother.</p>

<p>IB is hardly worth the effort.</p>

<p>This is the track record for IB graduates from my year.</p>

<p>I believe there were 7 graduates; I don't remember as this was five of six years ago.</p>

<p>One went to UCI. He was actually my roommate. He dropped out after Freshman year due to being on AP ( Academic Probation; if you have a GPA lower than 2.0, you may continue admittance at a UC if you sign a contract promising to improve your GPA within a year, otherwise you get the real boot ).</p>

<p>One went to UCD. Last I heard of him, he published a wildly UNSUCCESSFUL book.</p>

<p>Two went to community colleges ( one went to Mt. Sac and later transfered to UCSB I believe; I don't know about the other ).</p>

<p>Two went to CSUs. I don't know what happened to them. I think one of these went to Cal State Long Beach.</p>

<p>I don't know about the rest. I think one actually got into a very good school on the east coast.</p>

<p>For my year, no IB students, with the exception of the one that got into the very good school on the east coast ( lol long ), broke the class's top 25 out of 420+. I am in no way kidding. I knew three of those students personally.</p>

<p>Look, IB is what you put into it and what you get out of it. That's the bottom line. People like to make it sound like its the best thing a student can do, but its not. The workload is crushing and have you heard of senoiritis? Sure you have. See, there's a funny correlation between how hard students work in high school and how hard they end up working in uni. Students that work their asses off in high school end up with a case of senoiritis so bad it extends into the next two or three years and end up goofing off in uni which is another case against IB.</p>

<p>IB is not a Godsend. It is simply an extension of yourself. Its not a glass shoe and even if it was, it probably wouldn't fit and princes have gone extinct since Bush.</p>

15

<p>Ok. One sure way of know you are NOT an IB diploma student is if you have never pulled an all nighter.Seriously we have ALL stayed up to 3am at least once. And i hate to break it to you, but diploma students ARE procrastinators, its in our blood. Look, its possible to get 4.0 with IB Diploma, a few kids at school do. but, this guy obviously has conveyed that he is struggling with grades. llook at his gpa, they are not 4.0s. So in that case, he shouldnt do all IB. its not worth it. it will kill his unwieghted gpa. and im from CA too, so IB really doesnt help with colleges over here.</p>