My daughter could answer this better than me but I will try! To graduate with an IB Diploma, they earn 6 certificates in academic areas (and also do an extended essay and compete commuity service, etc). To earn each certificate, they complete courses that have large papers that get graded by central IB people and then they (in non-Covid years!) take an exam. The large papers and the exam somehow add up to a score for each area (out of 7). Then all the scores need to add up to a certain amount in order to achieve the diploma (that threshold doesnât seem too high). Outside of the US that total IB score is a big deal to get into university but most US universities donât look at them. Nowadays, if you get a high individual IB score it can be used at some schools for credit like an AP score. Any one else feel free to correct me! I think it is a great program overall and excellent preparation particularly for a liberal arts education, which is what my daugther wanted. Hope this answers your question - both my kids are going through it and I still probably wonât ever understand it completely. 
I think this is one of the struggles colleges are currently having. Will kids travel or not? My kids didnât want to stay around here and are definitely willing to travel, but not all are. But it was funny when each of my daughters respectively said âeveryone here is from NY or Texasâ. I would hope the application readers actually take a look also at the applications where it asks about siblings and where they go to school currently so they can see that a family has no issue sending a kid far away. Whether the kid will go is another question, but at least it means the family is not opposed to it.
Mine never wanted to go with kids from here but I think there is still some comfort in that. But after awhile they found their tribes and are so happy. Now I just hope they donât stay there permanently!
Yes! They also have an oral portion to many of the exams and have to take a course called Theory of Knowledge which includes another extended essay. There is a required CAS portion where you have to have a mentor and document a new area of development that you take on over two years (my daughter learned to play the guitar). You have a mix of standard level and high level courses and the HL courses typically are taught over the course of two years. Some schools give credit for individual classes like AP and others (like USC) will give you a certain number of credits for completing the diploma (plus skip you out of certain requirements). Itâs a lot more holistically focused than just taking certain classes and they have to be balanced with a certain number from each group.
@smiles2122 and @nanosec Thanks for the explanations! Sounds like these kids are very well rounded and what great opportunities it could present for some of them.
Thanks for the explanation. Iâll have to check more into that. Are there public schools or more like magnet schools that kids have to apply to?
We are here in that place too with 9/9, but the only difference being that instead of my S changing his mind a lot, heâs just cruising and staying busy with school and sports. My husband and I both discussed how we would encourage him to not choose one of his earliest EA acceptances, a grind school without the glamour of a big name and great looking campus. Unfortunately, one of his AP teachers has been talking it up so heâs still interested at this point. Another one is doubtful but gave really good merit that we might use to negotiate with a similar school. It is likely we will drop these and more by the end of March I think. The Seattle trip didnât resolve anything. None of the schools are 100% what we wanted in the PNW location that he wanted. So there will be some trade offs and I donât know yet what factors will win out. Plus Covid.
I know the schools are touting the remote programs, but our experience has been that the virtual events are really not too helpful. I just went to a couple more this week. Itâs just not a good substitute for in person. And for us the admitted student stuff is coming on too quickly. We really need to see where he gets in first so I hope all of it is recorded.
That varies a lot - sometimes kids have to apply, sometimes it is the whole school and sometimes just part of the school. I think it can be either public or private school.
In our case our school offers both IB and AP and kids can take just some classes or do the whole diploma. Only about 10% of each class ends up doing the whole diploma because it is a lot of work and many students donât care about applying to the types of schools that would most value the diploma.
Really? My daughter has been submitting her EAs over the last couple of weeks. Iâll have to ask her about this.
Very easy to backtrack. Almost every school did this year. Increased cases of covid as a result of variants or for some crazy reason the vaccines not working or inability to vaccine large parts of the population. Some big hiccup perhaps. State of city guidelines. There was a lot of pressure last year for schools to reopen and some announced way too early and many followed suit. Then a few months later they had to backtrack.
My daughter had in person classes showing on her portal until the week before classes started and then one by one they all changed to remote. My other daughterâs school didnât even announce they were opening for fall and bringing students back until late June. The parents were going nuts. Students were going nuts. No one could make travel plans to bring kids back. The poor freshmen no doubt had it bad. Then when they could move in, they were allowed basically one suitcase only and everything else had to be ordered from a certain vendor. It was not an ideal move in, but in exchange the kids were kept pretty safe and kids were able to be on campus, buildings were open, and as a parent I didnât dread the getting the âIâve got covid callâ because I knew my kid wasnât going to get covid there unlike many other schools.
Anyway, hopefully things are looking up and getting better and we can keep a 4th wave at bay if everyone does their part. Fingers crossed for a somewhat normal, fall semester. I donât think anyone is expecting 100% normal, but even if itâs partially normal, itâs a start.
Just now received an email from UIUC that my D got 80K scholarship. Super surprised.
Good way to start the week-end I suppose
Even with the free tuition for families making less than 65k at UT, it is unfortunately still unaffordable for lots of kids around here. They have to take out loans for for the rest if they want to attend.
Being from the NE, I do think the NE competitive (or intense?) culture is a thing. There was a naturally intensity to every aspect of life growing up in the NE that comes through in interactions with others, a communication style that (now that I have been away a few decades) seems more direct, sarcastic, maybe a bit âharshâ compared to peers/friends at my selective midwest college from other parts of the country who did not seem to exhibit that communication style to the same degree as the NE-ers. I think there are colleges everywhere where student are competitive vs. collaborative, though I have generally assumed that schools where the large majority of students are from the NE students exhibit more intensity/directness in interactions. My D sounds like yours and sought a school known for a collaborative vs competitive environment. She thought some of our state schools (UCSD and UCLA) gave off a âtoo competitiveâ vibe for the STEM field she was interested in, based on feedback from a few older students we know (classmates not wanting to study with others, secretiveness about research job opportunities, clique-ness within majors in sharing resources for projects, basically students seeming worried they would be competing against classmates for med school seats). When D sat in on a class at the college she currently attends as a HS senior, she was thrilled with the classroom collaboration among students (including her in breakout discussions without being asked by Prof), and a bonus was that several commented that working together/studying together outside the classroom was their norm at Duke. This might be due to the fact that the class sizes are generally small also. She has commented more than once how much she appreciates the âwe are all in this togetherâ environment and general willingness of students to collaborate and help each other learn.
I see your PNW vibe and raise you the SoCal vibe:). That casual vibe is alive and well here in school and industry. Iâm shocked at the volume of parents with plenty of financial means to send their kids to college who seem almost indifferent to their kidsâ paths after high school (maybe take a year of travel, maybe junior college, etc. whatever they want to do is fine). Iâm from the NE and pretty much every one I knew of similarly middle class means busted hard to do college and a career in a straight shot. But my husband is from here and several of HS friends took interesting, meandering pathsâŠthey did get it together, eventually, some not until their mid- 30âs⊠but they all turned out to be self sufficient adults and though many of them have relatively modest financial means, they sure seem content and are doing things they find fulfilling. Itâs really something I have been pondering philosophically for awhile, because Iâd say the norm of my upbringing is more that everyone is still doing the grind, counting the days until retirementâŠ
This is accurate. One thing I noticed is that some colleges will give credit for 5âs on the IB exams, while others only give for 6âsâŠand those 6âs are tough to get! Dâs high school co-taught many IB classes as APâsâŠso for HL English, the students also covered curriculum (and took the AP tests) for AP Lang and AP Lit, for HL Math, also covered BC Calc, for SL Bio, covered AP Bio, etc. This helped kids get college credits if the college they attended gave credit for AP but not IB exams though it made for a tough schedule.
So fascinating! I have mellowed over the years, but my kids do tell me I am too direct and I interrupt when people speak some times;)
Same here:)!
Hi everybody, just checking in after a looong time. My D (accepted ED1 to William & Mary) just found out tonight she was selected to be a Monroe Scholar! This doesnât involve merit money but itâs kind of like the honors college of William & Mary (10-15% of the freshman class). We are kind of stunnedâŠdid not expect this at all, as itâs not something you apply for. Monroe Scholar selection involves stats, but not exclusivelyâŠI guess itâs a holistic thing. There are a couple of dorms the scholars tend to live in (old dorms, but appealing ones), special speakers/seminars/advising, priority course selection and funded research opportunities during summers. The decision was in her portal âŠI only asked her check it because I read here on CC that some W&M RD applicants were getting early notices about the program and I wondered whether any ED students were also notified, but I didnât imagine D had much of a chance. She said she was terrified when she went to the portal because the new headline was âED DecisionââŠshe thought she was being rescinded, LOL 
Iâve been lurking here for these past months since early December. My plan had been to stay on as always, ( because I love this community) and congratulate every single bit of good news / offer encouragement for the disappointments, as everyone had been so supportive of me. I found though, after the ED decision, I was just exhausted (much more than I had realized) and behind in all holiday and January birthday preparations. I just couldnât bring myself to get onto CC for a couple of weeks. At that point, the acceptances had grown by leaps and bounds! Every day I planned to back up and congratulate each and every one that had occurred, but the list grew longer and longer (and I became more and more overwhelmed by the prospect). So now Iâm here to say, rather sheepishly, that Iâve read pretty much everything (though I donât get on CC every day) and Iâm so proud of the class of 2021! Knowing how tired I was after my familyâs sprint,â Iâm in awe of the endurance of the marathon happening here, and Iâm back in the stands to cheer you on to the finish line 
UC Irvine is updating some portals tonight.
How about the size of that endowment though?! 
Too bad they arenât a no loans school like Rice.
Fantastic news for your D!!! I love reading about such happy news!!! Wishing her all the best at W&M. 
I know! I was astonished to hear how big their endowment was. Rivals the Ivies! Unfortunately, theyâre also kind of stingy on merit unless youâre a forty acres scholar. Although most stingy for OOS but fortunately their residency office is very helpful in working with students to attain residency.