Is an IB Diploma worth it?

Should my teenager go for an IB Diploma? Is an IB Diploma worth it?

The IB Diploma (IBDP, International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme) has grown popular in recent years as a high-quality course of study for high school students hoping to gain admittance to a well-ranked university. Many parents have asked us, should my son or daughter work toward an IB Diploma?

The IB Diploma is not necessarily harder than a traditional college-prep program at the honors level. The main difference lies in tougher requirements for (a) community service, (b) essay writing, and (c) a focus on critical thinking.  If your teenager is bright and driven, and typically gets put into honors-level classes, the IB Diploma coursework should not be extraordinarily challenging for him or her.

The question is, then, is the diploma worth the effort?  

To answer this question, we have to look at the point of the IBDP.  This diploma program began in Europe, where both private and public universities receive large numbers of international students.  European universities had a problem: wanting to accept these foreign students, while wanting these foreign students to have a core knowledge and skills set.  The answer was to create a diploma program that would teach and assess this core knowledge and skills set (again, not entirely unlike the standard college-prep coursework that is commonplace in the United States).  An IB Diploma tells a university that the student meets the school's entry requirements, plain and simple.

In other words, the IB Diploma is terrific for any American (or other student) planning to attend college abroad.   For example, Marcus, earning an IB Diploma in Michigan, can feel confident that he has a good chance of getting accepted at Oxford, Cambridge, University College Dublin, etc.

The problem?

While American colleges acknowledge and respect an IB Diploma, they do not expect their students to hold such a diploma.  Not even ivy league schools like Harvard and Princeton expect their applicants to have an IBDP certificate. And, as stated earlier, the standard college-prep high school coursework is very similar to the coursework required for an IB Diploma.

Our advice...

If your teenager plans to attend college in another country, an IB Diploma is highly desirable.  But if he or she is planning to go to a university in the United States, the standard college-prep coursework (essentially, four years of everything, focusing on the "toughest" classes your teen can get into) will work just as well.

Show me the money!

Some U.S. schools offer IB Diploma coursework, but charge for the service.  You can save yourself the cost by simply working with your teenager (and school counselor, if you like) to craft a high school program that meets the IB Diploma standards.  Have your child take four years of advanced Math, preferably at the honors level.  Have your child do community service work.  This knowledge and experience are what American universities are looking for, rather than a single certificate.

Check out the IBDP official website: International Baccalaureate Organization