Doing full IB AND excelling in it is definitely an edge in college admissions. By excelling I mean getting a 41/45 or higher. You need a score above 40 to even begin to be competitive in top Ivies and SLACS.

Doing the full IB and doing just okay in it is not going to help in college admissions any more than taking 6 AP classes your junior year and getting 3's on the AP exams would be. If your grades are mediocre, then they are mediocre. It doesn't matter if it's IB or AP.

I have a friend whose kid went the full IB route. It absolutely did not help in admissions. Acceptances at 2 state schools and rejections from every other school applied to. The kid could likely have done whatever diploma is advanced, but not IB and gotten the same results.

My kids are at an IB Diploma school and when my daughter was applying to colleges a few years ago we were definitely told that doing the full IB Diploma was looked upon favorably for admission. It needed to be the full IB Diploma, though. The IB certificate candidates are not looked at in the same manner. Colleges not only understand the rigor of the program, but also know that students have been in a well-rounded curriculum of subjects (and TOK and done the EE).

The IB Diploma is graded 1-7, with a 7 being essentially equivalent to an A+ and a 6 equivalent to an A. You have to remember that not all schools in the US actually use letter grading systems and colleges/universities know this and are prepared to deal with it. There are some high schools that don't even give grades and still get students into ivies and top tier schools so I wouldn't worry about the number vs. letter grading systems.

You're right that getting all 7's is very difficult in the IB Diploma and, in my experience, colleges/universities do understand this.

Watch the videos below with the Asst Admissions Director at Stanford University talk about how they view the IB:

https://vimeo.com/163260155

https://vimeo.com/163260154

https://vimeo.com/163260153

(You might need to copy and paste the link into your browser. I'm not sure I added the link properly...)

Good luck!

It also depends on the IB courses offered at your kid's school. Not every school offers every course.

Physics C is more advanced than Physics SL.

To answer your question OP, it depends on the colleges to which you are applying. For European and Canadian colleges, it is an advantage. Some Canadian colleges require non IB US students to take a kind of pre-college year before they join the main curriculum. Having the IB dispenses with that requirement.

My kids go to an IB school. They take IB classes but are not on the diploma track by choice. They get letter grades in everything. The numerical grading is for IB assessments, which do not count toward the letter grade. It's IB testing season right now and this is the most relaxed my senior has been all year, knowing that the actual score honestly doesn't have any bearing on his future. If he gets college credit, great. Even so, it might be better for him to retake the class anyway if it's related to his major or minor.

IB assessment scores do not show up on transcripts that go to colleges. I believe the transcript indicates if the student is a IB diploma candidate, and admissions people know to look for a certain number of HL and SL courses plus Theory of Knowledge. Even so, many kids start off on the diploma track and don't pursue it after junior year, so I don't think it has a ton of bearing on decisions. In the end, it's course rigor and GPA that mean the most.

And plenty of our high achieving IB diploma and IB course happily kids head to JMU, UMW, and GMU!

Anonymous wrote:I know too many IB diploma candidates from Marshall who ended up at JMU or VCU to think it matters very much compared to grades and SAT/ACT scores.

And what exactly is wrong with JMU and VCU?? Just because you do IB I don't think that makes you too good for those Schools.

I know too many IB diploma candidates from Marshall who ended up at JMU or VCU to think it matters very much compared to grades and SAT/ACT scores.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. IB students - at least at DC's school - do not get letter grades. They only get grades based on a 1-7 system. My question was really on the 11th/12th grade transcript that gets sent to colleges and not the actual IB results which are used to get college credit. My point was that even the strongest students will likely not have 7's in all their subjects but will have a combination of 6's and 7's. Maybe even a 5 thrown in for one of the Sciences. I'm hoping that admissions counselors take the lack of grade inflation in IB into account and don't compare them to other top students who may have straight As in all subjects.

12.32 - My gut is that a 7 is like an A+ also. It is really hard to get straight 7's.

Just curious - is this a private school or one of the local public school systems?

Doing the IB program is never going to disadvantage your student in admissions at super-elite colleges. Whether a student took the most difficult coursework available to them is an important factor at these schools (it is an actual box on the application review form at the HYPS that I am familiar with the admissions process of) and it is much more likely that a student will be eliminated from consideration because they didn't do an IB program when one was available.

It may be, however, at the next tier down where schools are more worried about their "stats" for USNWS purposes and thus have less wiggle room. My guess would be that it actually evens out overall, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it could hurt you.

TL;DR: It depends a bit just how competitive a student your DD is and where she is aiming. ~Top 50: Go IB. 50+: Do what's right for you.

OP here. IB students - at least at DC's school - do not get letter grades. They only get grades based on a 1-7 system. My question was really on the 11th/12th grade transcript that gets sent to colleges and not the actual IB results which are used to get college credit. My point was that even the strongest students will likely not have 7's in all their subjects but will have a combination of 6's and 7's. Maybe even a 5 thrown in for one of the Sciences. I'm hoping that admissions counselors take the lack of grade inflation in IB into account and don't compare them to other top students who may have straight As in all subjects.

12.32 - My gut is that a 7 is like an A+ also. It is really hard to get straight 7's.

Anonymous wrote:Would love feedback on whether you have a DC who did the full IB diploma or know someone who got the diploma and you think it had a positive effect on their admissions.

While it is not easy to get all A's in High School we definitely know some very bright (but by no means genius) kids who are getting A's in all their classes. For the IB diploma, a 7 is the highest grade (and I guess a functional equivalent of an A) but one would have to be a true genius to get 7's for all of their IB diploma classes. Most of the excellent students end up with a combination of 7's and 6's. This would be the equivalent of A's and B's in High School which I know does not get you in a top school today. So do admission's officers take the difficult grading of the IB system into account? BTW - DC's counselor, of course, says admissions takes this into account but would love some outside and hopefully unbiased feedback also.

I think a 7 in an IB class is more like an A+ and a 6 is more like a regular A.

IB exam scores are like AP scores. Not really considered for college admission purpose but can be used to get college credits.

I believe that IB students would still get regular letter grades on their report cards, just like you get regular letter grades for AP classes.

Would love feedback on whether you have a DC who did the full IB diploma or know someone who got the diploma and you think it had a positive effect on their admissions.

While it is not easy to get all A's in High School we definitely know some very bright (but by no means genius) kids who are getting A's in all their classes. For the IB diploma, a 7 is the highest grade (and I guess a functional equivalent of an A) but one would have to be a true genius to get 7's for all of their IB diploma classes. Most of the excellent students end up with a combination of 7's and 6's. This would be the equivalent of A's and B's in High School which I know does not get you in a top school today. So do admission's officers take the difficult grading of the IB system into account? BTW - DC's counselor, of course, says admissions takes this into account but would love some outside and hopefully unbiased feedback also.