<p>A lot of my friends say that IB is a scam but i have no idea what is your take on IB full diploma helping kids get into colleges?</p>
<p>It is a very rigorous academic program, which colleges do look for. Whether it has any edge over an equivalent number of AP courses, I really couldn’t say. I can say, though, that if you’re looking for college credit, AP is the way to go.</p>
<p>It is also much harder to do well in IB than in AP, so I am unsure how anyone could consider it a “scam.”</p>
<p>I am not worried about getting college credit i just want to know how much it will help me get into college. I mean do most colleges even know what it is?</p>
<p>I believe so, though it might depend on what schools you’re applying to and what student population they normally draw from. I’m at Dartmouth and didn’t have a problem; I know many IB grads here.</p>
<p>really what is some advice you can give for me to make myself more appealing to the ivies? would you give me some of your stats?</p>
<p>As many more high schools offer AP courses than the IB Diploma, a rigorous AP curriculum and the Diploma will be looked upon similarly.</p>
<p>My scores were 2280 (800CR, 760M, 720W) and my grades around a 3.6 average. I had an art portfolio that was quite good and an essay that’s apparently being published in a book of successful college essays. I was news editor of my school paper and had a couple hundred hours of community service. My diploma was bilingual, French and English. </p>
<p>That said, I graduated from high school in '07, so I’m not sure how much you can extrapolate from this.</p>
<p>wow that is ridiculous did you have many different people read your essay or what?</p>
<p>Diploma is basically worthless. Just take the classes.</p>
<p>@nuclear penguins do you have ib diploma? what is your reasoning behind this statement?</p>
<p>Receiving your IB diploma won’t actually help you get accepted into colleges. The IB scores aren’t sent out until July after senior year. But, taking such rigorous courses can obviously be extremely helpful as far as being admitted. Also, it is possible to get college credit with your IB scores, but depending on the school you go to, it can be pretty difficult to do.</p>
<p>I agree with JFagliarone. I’m a Junior in the IB Diploma program at my school and looking at the college acceptances last year at my school, you have a better chance at the Ivies if you’re taking IB. Well, unless you’re taking at least 6 AP’s a year.</p>
<p>That said, the diploma doesn’t matter unless you utterly fail the test (1’s, 2’s, and 3’s only). A couple of kids at my school didn’t take the final exam seriously. and then they were rejected from their universities around June because of their IB scores.</p>
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<p>The Diploma is an entire program and is best treated as such. The rigor comes from taking 3-4 HL classes in addition to SL, from CAS, from IA’s, and from the EE. It’s like a poem–you don’t get any of the experience by only doing part of it.</p>
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<p>I assume you’re an international student?</p>
<p>yes and no. If you can manage IB diploma and maintain a high GPA and class rank, yes. It will be to your advantage. If you are getting straight Bs or a few Cs, will not help you</p>
<p>First, never again believe anything your friends say about the college application process. </p>
<p>Here’s the value of IB when you are applying for college: When your transcript is sent to colleges, it will indicate that you’re taking the “most rigorous” curriculum offered at the school. Good performance in a rigorous curriculum is what colleges want to see.</p>
<p>Also – and I know you don’t care about this right now, but you will later on – IB is excellent preparation for college work.</p>
<p>It helps in terms of course rigor, if you can manage to pull off good grades from it.</p>
<p>haha IB a scam…</p>
<p>i was just worried by the fact that the IB graduation class a year ahead of me had poor admissions. The valedictorian took a few IBs and she was waitlisted at harvard, denied at Cornell and got into Dartmouth due to parent alumni pull. Then a full diploma candidate, president of French National Honor society, SAT over 2000, ACT=33, 4.0 gpa was rejected from brown, cornell and Harvard. Was it just because this year was the hardest year ever to get into college?</p>
<p>“Then a full diploma candidate, president of French National Honor society, SAT over 2000, ACT=33, 4.0 gpa”</p>
<p>I don’t see why that would surprise you. It sounds very possible; plenty of people with stats like that or better get rejected all the time. You should check out the results threads of those schools and see the profiles of people accepted, waitlisted and rejected.</p>
<p>This was a hard year to get into top schools, and I can assure you, doing IB wasn’t the cause of those rejections; if anything IB helps in terms of course rigor (unless your gpa decreases significantly from it or sth.)</p>
<p>what were the stats of your valedictorian?</p>
<p>^I second that. Those results don’t surprise me at all.</p>
<p>I think the IB program can’t really hurt you in any way.
You are being held to international standards, and, depending on your interests, you can go pretty far in the program. Plus, it really focuses you, since you get to take the IB Exams in subjects that you choose.
In the IB program at my school, I am surrounded by people who all have the same drive. And you can’t help but get competetive in that environment, which totally helps your college app. AP classes might have the same rigor, but I think that the idea of being in the IB makes you want to be more desirable to colleges.
And you can’t really judge people by saying that “Oh they got rejected and they were in the IB program”. There are plenty of kids who take multiple AP courses and get rejected as well from high-end colleges.</p>