Hey guys. I am presently a sophomore in an Ib school and I would like to ask you Ib students who will be taking the IB May session, if you could go back 1 year ago , what would you change or not and why ? What summer camps , online courses , research, help or resources would you have visited
It all depends. My son is finishing his IB diploma this year with all A’s and had a ton of ECs on top of this. Not everybody can do this, and the workload does depend on teachers to some extent. You need to be very organized and start your IAs and EE well in advance. And five HLs are really unnecessary. For top colleges I feel meaningful ECs may be as important or more than course rigor, but T10 really expect the students to be able to do it all. You’ll have to try and see if it works for you.
My three kids dropped IBD at some point during in HS. They continued to take IB classes and opted to take college classes. They didn’t feel it was “worth” it and wanted to do different activities. Lots of their friends did complete the program with successs.
They were applying to UCs and the lack of IBD did not hurt their acceptances.
My daughter is in 12th grade, IBD candidate. She has always been very organized with great time management skills. But 5 honors/AP classes as a 10th grader was significantly less than the workload of IB so she had to step it up further. In 11th grade she had 4 HL/1SL/1 AP classes/1 regular class; 12th grade - 4 HL/2 SL/1 AP class. Her school makes it challenging in that the students typically take AP and IB tests for IB classes (for ex, HL English year 1 - take the AP Lang exam, SL Bio- take AP Bio exam, HL Math yr 1 - take BC Calc exam, etc). It’s alot. If your school doesn’t have you do both exams, and/or you have less than 7 classes/semester, obviously it’s more manageable. There is a ‘type’ of kid that seems to succeed in IB…self- motivated. And all of the IB kids do more than just academics. It forces a discipline in managing workload that will absolutely benefit you in life, though I can honestly say, my other kids would not be a good fit for full IB because they are not there yet developmentally to manage IB work and meet expectations independently, so I am not pushing for them to participate. On` the plus side, my daughter was admitted ED to the college of her dreams and I truly believe, in a sea of far more qualified applicants than there are admissions slots, IB helped her stand out, coming from a highly populated area that has a ton of kids apply to the top 20 schools. good luck!
My eldest says that if he had to do it all over again, he would’ve done AP or running start. He and his friends had little time for anything else because of IB demands and ECs. He himself was a three sport athlete with a 3.9+UW GPA. His friends were active in student government, community work, music, etc. There were many nights of little sleep. None of them were accepted into any ivies, although one got into Johns Hopkins ED. None of his peers are graduating from college early despite the college credits from IB, primarily because once you’re in a major, at least at the state colleges they are attending, they are required to take the same courses again (even when getting a 6 in HL exams. In one case, they used the same exact textbook!). By contrast, his non IB peers seemed more well-balanced with school and home life and were even able to work part-time. He strongly discouraged his brothers from doing full IB, but they didn’t listen. I had reservations esp for my second S, who will likely be auditioning to music schools next year and missing a lot of school days. Not sure how to manage that without him going crazy except to do as much as possible, like the EE and prescreen videos, this summer. He has a 3.9+UW GPA as well. Third S, who is only a sophomore and also active in the music program, has only taken honors classes until IB starts, but he has gotten more sleep (perhaps why his UW GPA is 3.74.) As other posters have stated, IB is probably more easily doable for those who aren’t so loaded down with ECs. Besides, IB inherently comes with volunteer hours thanks to the required CAS hours. Having said all this, eldest S has found college (CS major with a 3.8+ GPA and concurrent RA and TA jobs) a lot easier than high school and is getting a lot more sleep 
So perhaps IB gave him something other than for what he had originally hoped.
its certainly challengin’, crazy, more probable to lose those high grades and marks… more commitments to this single thing… but that depends on where u wanna study… what u wanna do…and the skills to be developed…
Keep in mind that at some colleges you can get a year or more worth of credits with the IB Diploma, thus possibly saving you a year of tuition.
Check out these colleges:
https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2018/05/05/getting-ib-credit-at-university/
I am just finishing out my junior year as a full IB student, however I will not be continuing into senior year due to a medical program I got into that will replace most of my IB courses. All I can tell you is that if you’re not a driven student, full IB is definitely not for you. At my school average homework on a good night is 3.5 hours or more, during really heavy weeks it can be up to 6, I’d get home about 3-3:30 and not finish until 9-9:30. IB is extremely demanding, and while teachers assign a lot of work with the expectation that you complete it in its entirety, there’s also an unspoken expectation that you’re putting in extra work and prep, not just the bare minimum. Honestly the hardest part is time management because if you do any extracurricular activities (I have a job after school) you have to realize that you get up at 6:30 or so, go to school, go do your extracurricular, then come home about 6/6:30 and then you have your homework ahead of you. And with the course load it’s easy to not be done until 9:30 or later, and on top of that you’ll want to relax for a bit, and then the time is gone. As a general rule, kids at my school that are IB students are going from about 6:30 until 1:30 or later. I will say however that IB has taught me a lot of responsibility and organization in addition to self discipline. IB is extremely time consuming and many kids (myself included) have break downs throughout the year, thinking that they just can’t keep going, but it will pass, and when you get the diploma it’ll be worth it. I wish you the best of luck!
My son just graduated with the IB diploma (knock on wood, exam grades don’t come out for another few weeks). It was indeed a demanding program, and if you are the kind of student that strives to get straight A-type grades, it’s a program that can make you crazy - the reference to breakdowns in @drummajor101’s post above is not hyperbole. My son is not that kind of student, however, and he managed to live a reasonably balanced life and get good, although not great, grades. He was accepted to a number of T30 colleges with large merit, and having gone through the IB program, he is well-prepared. He did not start out with good organizational and time-management skills, but he did develop them out of sheer necessity. It was initially his own decision to go to an IB school, as he thought he would prefer/be a better fit with a program that focused on research, analysis and writing rather than a test-focused AP program. I think that was the right call for him, and he now takes great pride in having completed the IB. People, both parents and students, just need to understand what they are getting into, make sure they are choosing to do the IB for the right reasons and then be realistic.