<p>I emailed the admissions office at Brown to ask some questions about their policy on IB. They said all my HL courses would be converted into CREDIT, meaning if I do well enough on my exams, I could maybe shave a semester or up to a year off of my undergrad (and saving a lot of money). But when I talked to an older student from my school who did IB and is at Brown, he said they only gave him PLACEMENT, not credit, for his HL courses, meaning he got to skip some prerequisites and 101 courses and jumped straight into some intermediate level courses. He said Brown didn’t give him any credit, hence he still needs 8 full semesters to finish.</p>
<p>Can someone with a similar background help me out?</p>
<p>IB does give you credit. However, Brown requires you take a total of 30 classes while you are a student. So, you would need to take 5 classes/semester to graduate in 3 years. Not impossible, but DEFINITELY not recommended. Chances of graduating earlier than 4 years are slim. I don’t know anyone in particular who’s graduating early. I’m going to be sad when I graduate.</p>
<p>Also, IB is not like AP where Brown immediately puts it in. I believe you can only get credit for 2 IB classes (someone correct me if I’m wrong). I know english gives you no credit at all. There credit policy is based around the open curriculum. It’s hard to give credit when there’s not always an intro class to the subject (like lit arts, history, english, comp lit, etc).</p>
<p>I didn’t take the IB in high school, but the A Levels. The situation is roughly analogous. </p>
<p>Brown does give CREDIT for IB scores. However, they are not granted automatically in the way AP placement might be. You need to fill up some paperwork with the Dean of the College to get the official IB course equivalents on your transcript. Only then will advanced standing follow.</p>
<p>The reason why this is not automatic is that some (in fact most) IB students still want to stay for the full 4 years, so they are happy to take just the placement and not the credit. Getting more than 2 Brown credits from high school work forces you to accept advanced standing.</p>
<p>Just to correct the misconception, credits obtained from IB scores do count towards the 30 needed to graduate. Credits obtained from AP scores do not.</p>
<p>Long story: For graduation purposes, Brown distinguishes between course credits and enrollment credits. The 5 Brown credits you obtain through IB counts towards the 30 course credits needed to graduate (note that this is not true for Brown credits obtained through AP scores). In addition, by virtue of having activated 5 Brown credits through IB, you will have to accept one semester of advanced standing, which gives you one semester’s worth of enrollment credits, thus shaving a semester off.</p>
<p>Just as a reference, activating 3 to 6 Brown credits forces you to accept one semester of advanced standing, and activating 7 to 10 Brown credits forces you to accept two semesters of advanced standing. You can activate up to 2 Brown course from pre-college work without having to accept advanced standing.</p>