Is it worth it?

[paul34]

Hey guys,

I was really just wondering if the IB Diploma program really prepares you well for university and in which ways? For people who go to prestigious unis or vigorous ones, how many points did you obtain on your diploma and hows different is uni from IB. i know that i wont be taking as many courses per semester, but i am really just worried about the reading and the workload. i currently take HL Chem, Bio, Eco and the rest at sl - will that prepare me well? Whilst perusing the university website and finding the course outline, it entails finishing a book every 4 classes, and sometimes a book a class. just to give you an idea of the book, homer's illiad and the odyssey will be finished in the first month worth of classes. So should i be worried about the workload in all as this is just one class.

Thank you in advance.

[Emmi]

Any university prep course will prepare you for actual university things, but I don't feel that the IB specifically gave me any advantages over people who took other programs such as AP. I don't go to a "super smart" preppy place Harvard or anything like that, but I got 37 points on my diploma and attend a pretty decent public uni in the US (top 20).

Uni is different from the IB in so many ways. The major one being it is much tougher. I didn't find the IB all that difficult mainly because I stayed on top of my work and didn't procrastinate to the point where I had 4 projects all due in one week and I hadn't started. IB's difficultly mainly lies in the fact that you have lots of assignments all due around the same point and you have to balance that, and nothing (apart from a very few subjects) is actually difficult content-wise. Uni courses are difficult content-wise. One way that they're similar is that your IB grade is only based off a few components like an IA and exam, which is often how most uni courses award grades. Most classes do not give you points for homeworks and quizzes, most of your grade is based off of exams and papers.

Your workload will vary depending on what you are studying. I don't know if your HLs will prepare you. I'd look more at your study habits and working habits more than anything. If you have decent work ethic and can study effectively, you should be okay. If you wait until the last minute to study for exams and cram and put all your work off, you will do poorly in uni until you turn that around. Some classes have a high workload, others don't. So what if one class makes you read a book every few classes? It's uni, not 8th grade where you get a month to read and then maybe take a quiz and then work on it for another month. If you have to take the class, you take it and deal with the work it entails. It's usually not too bad.

Did I feel prepared for uni? Yeah kind of. My school's IB program was more suited for people who wanted to do humanities and business in uni, and not so much things like engineering and science. So I supplemented my diploma by taking other classes. Uni kicked my butt first year, but then I fixed it and now I'm doing way better. But I don't have this "Oh I did the IB so I'm better than you because I wrote an EE." No one cares, you're all there to learn. And after the first year, nothing you did in IB will matter because your courses have gone beyond the level of IB anyways.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Emmi

[Guest Marioti]

One of the things I feel IB is good for in uni is that you can use some of yourIB courses to get uni credits and so you don't have to take a certain course in uni because you took an IB class.

(But this depends on what university and what subject)

[by.andrew]

In my area, ~1000 people take a test in order to get accepted to IB, which has 120 slots at my school. For starters, the IB curriculum is much more rigorous than the regular Canadian curriculum. Math SL, for instance, teaches integration and matrices which isn't covered in the Canadian calculus curriculum. In fact, even the majority of IB SL courses go beyond the regular curriculum, so kids from our school seem to have the obvious edge when it comes to preparation for universities. But if you're planning to take 3~5 AP courses anyway, then taking IB should make a very marginal difference. And depending on where you come from, the circumstances will be different. I think the advantages of taking IB is very apparent as a student in Canada, but it may be different for others, etc.