Is the IB certificate/certificate of merit recognized by the IB community and college

Applying to College
1

<p>Currently I am pursuing what would be the "IB certificate of merit", which at my school is awarded on completion of "4 or more IB classes including assessments". In my case currently I am a sophmore in Japanese 200 (pre IB), pre IB Biology/chemistry (half a semester of each, one class), pre IB World History, and pre IB English. I plan to continue these 4 as a junior/senior when they become "real" IB classes, as well as pre IB child psychology, and the "real" IB class IB Family Psychology.</p>

<p>Recently I have been considering doing the pre IB math course over the summer, in order to do the IB math course at my school so I could pursue the IB diploma.
With this I asked some people if the IB diploma was overrated in comparison to the IB certificate. </p>

<p>Essentially I was told no in short, by 3 people, one person went so far as to say and I quote.</p>

<p>"relatively speaking, certificate = worthless consolation prize"
"the IB community doesn't recognize the certificate, it's just an inglemoor thing. So when you apply for college, if you're not a diploma candidate, they don't care."
"the "certificate of merit" is only at our school, but the IBO will send you a little piece of paper that says "hey you took a class with us!"".</p>

<p>Obviously I could see the IB certificate and the IB Diploma not being looked on at the same level, but to say the IB certificate is completely useless and not looked at by colleges? What is the situation here exactly, I'm inclined to believe colleges WOULD care about the IB certificate (assuming they were US colleges at least).</p>

<p>My school offers these 3 IB-program related awards</p>

<p>IB diploma-4 "core" IB classes (math, science, English, SS), 4 years of a foreign language, fine-art credit (I don't know if it has to be IB or not) of one year, occupational education credit for one year (again, I don't know if it has to be IB or not). TOK class, 150 CAS hours, and the extended essay. As well as taking all IB exams.</p>

<p>IB "Certificate of Merit" (what I am going for): Completion of 4 or more IB courses, and taking the IB exams.</p>

<p>IB certificate: Completion of 1-3 IB courses, and taking the exams.</p>

2

<p>my bad for the 3 awards, the IB certificate is just completion of 1-3 IB courses (and the certificate saying you completed whichever courses you did), you do NOT need to take the exams for the IB certificate.</p>

3

<p>Hi,
Thank you for chancing me. I did some research prior to signing up for the full IB program.</p>

<p>[Scholarships</a> for IB Diploma Programme students](<a href=“http://www.ibo.org/diploma/recognition/scholarships/]Scholarships”>http://www.ibo.org/diploma/recognition/scholarships/)</p>

<p>This link shows some schools that recognize and award scholarships for IB students. Several even offer automatic admission if you are an IB student, such as Oregon State University, OR. Also, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas offers additional scholarships based on your IB Test results.</p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://smu.edu/admission/counselor/fallnewsletter/IB_scholars_program.htm]IB_Scholars[/url”>http://smu.edu/admission/counselor/fallnewsletter/IB_scholars_program.htm]IB_Scholars[/url</a>]</p>

<p>Good Luck!
I think the best advice I was given when trying to make a decision regarding going full IB was that it really would prepare me for college academics! :)</p>

4

<p>My understanding is that to get the IB Certificate for a course from the IBO - you HAVE to take the exam.</p>

<p>Also, the IB Diploma requires 6 classes - math, science, english, humanities, foreign language and a 6th that can be chosen from art, technology or an additional language/science/humanities class.</p>

<p>I have never heard of the IB Certificate of Merit. Either it’s very new or just done at your school. In any case, the “difference” (based on kids I know who have done both) is that with the IB Certificates, you generally only earn college credit for courses taken at the Higher Level. Whereas, upon completion of the full IB Diploma with xxx total score, some schools will give credit even for the Standard Level classes. All of the credit, of course, is based on the scores that individual schools require.</p>

5

<p>The only two awards you’ll probably ever get from the International Baccalaureate Organization are the IB Diploma and individual course certificates(you must take the class’s/subject’s exams, the class, and all related external and internal assessments for that subject). The certificates for individual subjects might be given when the Diploma candidate fails to complete other requirements for the Diploma such as the CAS hours/Extended Essay/TOK, etc. Some students opt to only take certain classes and are thus only aiming for the subject certificates, so you might want to make sure you’re on the track to at least receive those individual subject certificates if you aren’t taking the necessary diploma program.</p>

<p>I think Australia’s national IB organization gives something of the same name, but they give “Certificates of Merit” for scores of 40 on the Diploma Programme(a score almost impossible to make) and 7(perfect) scores on individual subjects. I don’t think that your school’s particular certificates would be on a similar scale and they won’t be recognized by schools familiar with the program. There is, however, a lot of ignorance concerning IB at the moment, so perhaps you can get lucky.</p>

6

<p>Hi,i am a IB certificate candidate, too. I want to ask you did you do the Internal Assessment (IA) when you were in IB certificate?</p>

7

My son is going to study this week IB certificate cuz the school adviser told me its better for my son to go for IB certificate instead of Diploma. I am afraid if he study IB certificate it will be difficult to be accepted by Univ. So do think I should push him to take IP diploma instead?

Please note that my son is not hard working student but I will do my best to make him do more efforts

Please advice

Maan