<p>Is IB really sooo good? Is it true, that IB graduates have almost 50% acceptance rate at top Ivy-Berkeley-Stanford? Where is the catch?</p>
<p>IB is not magic or anything. In some high schools, its courses may be the most rigorous college prep course options. However, not all high school students will find the rigidity of the full IB diploma curriculum to their liking. IB programs do differ in which subjects they offer HL (higher level) versus just SL (standard level).</p>
<p>Whether it is a desirable option depends on what the other course and curricula options are in relation to the student’s abilities and interests.</p>
<p>There have been previous threads discussing IB programs.</p>
<p>Really, I think it’s the other way around. The kids who choose to do IB are already the high-achievers. No, it’s not magic and it’s not for everyone. I’m not sure about acceptance rates but 50% Ivy would be high around here. We have one high school offering IB and about 5 Ivy kids out of the 60-70 that received IB diplomas. Many others are also at good schools, but not HYPS. But, better overall than the other local high schools, yes.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus , Thanks!</p>
<p>Could you please point the previous threads discussing IB programs?</p>
<p>Almost 50%? That seems unrealistically high.</p>
<p>actingmt , do you think that getting IB diploma improves chances of college admission? </p>
<p>If you would compare IB diploma vs AP classes vs college credits, directly from college … which ones are better for ADMISSION? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Neither. Makes no difference. They are different styles of learning but in the end it’s about scores and stats not AP or IB. The main difference in IB is a whole lot of essays. Long essays. Good luck.</p>
<p>It depends on which specific IB, AP, and college courses.</p>
<p>The only clear categorical winner in terms of “rigorous course work taken while in high school” as it looks for college admissions would be college courses more advanced than college frosh level taken while in high school.</p>
<p>College courses taken while in high school do have an advantage of showing the high school student the different expectations in college (less hand holding, more expectation of student self-motivation, etc.), even if the content for a given course may be similar to an AP or IB HL course.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus,</p>
<p>Thanks! So the winner is “college courses taken during HS”. To have this option, a student must have a flexible HS administration. </p>
<p>Taking classes that are “more advanced than college frosh level” - that’s hard.</p>
<p>Take the most rigor you can get at your school. IB, AP, or College. You don’t get penalized for not doing the unavailable. That’s what they told us anyway, and it worked out just fine. My S did take classes at a CC while in HS. But, I don’t remember the logistics. He was pretty much on his own with that. It was free.</p>
<p>Taking college courses while in high school does tend to have logistic issues like commuting and scheduling that can make doing so inconvenient for many students. Cost may also be a factor if there is not a good low cost college nearby. So doing so is not necessarily that desirable an option until the student has advanced beyond what his/her high school offers academically.</p>
<p>For me as a parent IB is useful only to the degree of demonstrating sustained interest in a subject. My student will be taking History HL 1 next fall in 11th grade then HL2 in 12th. If she did not like history she would not be there, and since she has APEuroHistory and APWorldHistory (not sure of acronyms) it’s given that (a) she likes history and (b) she’s comfortable with the rather tough intellectually part of the classes. </p>
<p>Likewise she’s taking IB Bio HL1/HL2 which is glorified AP Bio & Anatomy. Again the usefulness of the IB here to me is to demonstrate that she won’t freak out when she hits College level Biology with the $200 textbook and the pretty amoebas on the cover. </p>
<p>I expect that the AdComs will smile a bit more favorably upon her IB diploma but that’s about it, I don’t care much for transfer credit and she won’t be able to IB/AP college major classes like physics / chem / bio regardless of scores. </p>
<p>As for college classes during HS, she’s taking one right now (dual listed AP Comp Sci with our local community college) but the HS has come down strongly against taking college classes for HS credit unless THEY offer them. So if my kid wants to take an off the wall college class and even if the logistics work out our HS is not happy with it.</p>
<p>The IB diploma is not awarded until July after senior year. The colleges don’t know whether it will be awarded, so how can they consider it during the admissions process?</p>
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This is completely false. My kid goes to an all-IB high school. About +90% of seniors actually attain the IB diploma (which one “ranking” puts them in the top 10 of all high schools in the country – who knows). I can guarantee you that they go to a wide variety of colleges with only a smattering to the super selective ones.</p>
<p>The reason to take an IB curriculum is that one is interested and intrigued and values the idea of a global curriculum. It’s rigorous, but not that rigorous, not more than AP, just different. In our school, the faculty is made up largely of enthusiastic teachers who believe in the mission of the IB curriculum, and many are former Peace Corps volunteers, fun, dedicated, with a view of students, and all of us, as global citizens. Call me naive and idealistic-- but I’m glad my kids did IB not because of the tests, the college credit, etc, but because they LIKED it. Diploma is nice but not necessary imo. It’s about the experience, not the credits. So, it’s good if gives you a good experience. It’s not good if that doesn’t float your boat.</p>
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<p>Exactly. Do it because you want to, not to get you into “top Ivy-Berkeley-Stanford.” There is no silver bullet.</p>
<p>The catch, Caa, is that the 50 percent number is pure BS. Also, in terms of admissions, top Ivy --to use your terms-- and Stanford are entirely different from Berkeley.</p>
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<p>They can’t. But they do know whether you are still an IB diploma candidate at the time when you apply. (If you have failed to meet one of the multitude of IB requirements by that point, you are no longer a diploma candidate, and this would probably count against you unless you did it deliberately and explain why.) </p>
<p>If you took any SL tests in 11th grade, colleges will ask for those scores, but I don’t think they’re particularly important unless they’re ghastly (indicating that you may not be able to complete the diploma). </p>
<p>Also, there exist things called predicted scores. IB teachers have to guess in advance about what you’re going to get on your IB tests. But to the best of my knowledge, American colleges don’t ask for these scores. Foreign universities do. </p>
<p>My daughter has an IB diploma. She attended (and has graduated from) a university that is universally respected except on College Confidential, where it is considered somewhere between second- and third-rate. (Cornell, if you must know.) The university never asked for her IB scores or even for proof that she had earned the diploma. And my daughter did not voluntarily submit that information because there was no point in doing so. (She wasn’t entitled to any credit on the basis of her IB scores that she hadn’t already gotten on the basis of AP scores.) Also, my daughter never knew what her predicted scores were, and I don’t think anyone else in her IB class did, either.</p>
<p>My kids went to the same IB program as Marian’s, and neither of them ever knew their predicted IB scores, either.</p>
<p>I teach in an IB school and it seems to me that the best advantage of taking the IB program is that it prepares you for the rigors of college work. It does not guarantee acceptance anywhere. In fact, many of our IB diploma students receive mediocre grades and are not accepted into top tier schools, but these students’ acceptances are appropriate for them. The IB program teaches students to think globally and in inter-disciplinary ways. The ideal IB learner is a motivated student who can do the large amount of work required. It has nothing to do with being a super star, though that often is the case. As someone said, above, colleges won’t know if the student received the IB diploma until way after he or she has been accepted and has decided where to go. It can be used for placement or credit, as is the case with the AP. In and of itself it is not a criterion for acceptance. The acceptance, though, is probably influenced by being an IB student in the first place.</p>