Columbia's stance on the IB program

nimby58
Mon, 14 May 2007 12:15:01 +0000

I also asked a Columbia adcom this question at a program about a week ago. The response was an immediate “We love IB”–although I did not ask the “relative to AP?” question because I thought I already knew the answer. Every top school lists “rigor of secondary school program” as the most important criteria for admission. AP and IB both equate to rigor. This is especially true with full IB diplomma candidates. Chicago, especially, gushes about this. The adcom from Chicago said that they can recognize full IB diplomma candidates because they write the best admission essays. Both schools expressed the view that it was meaningful when a student had access to and selected a program in which they had to, not only take a proscribed core curriculum, but had to complete the extras that are required as part of IB. I think that they saw it as a real intellectual commitment, and when you are looking for students with intellectual drive, the ability to think independently and critically and such, the IB approach stands you in good stead. By the way, this also came up at a small meeting with a Penn rep and the same thing was said. She actually called IB the “gold standard for rigor.”

Now–before the AP folk get defensive, let me just say that a full complement of AP classes is extremely rigorous and will not disadvantage you in any way. It’s just nice to hear adcoms expressing an understanding of an appreciation for what IB brings to the table. They want to see students challenge themselves, they want to see that you are ready for the rigors of a difficult school with talented students–I think that what I heard is that hearing that someone is a FULL IB diplomma candidate is shorthand for adequate, rigorous preparation.