My kid is doing a full IB diploma. She was wondering how her application should be different to her sister’s who just got a regular HS degree.
Her first question is about strategy? Is there something she should emphasize in her application that will help her get into the best UC she can? Do the readers and UC application app know about IB degrees?
Her second question is about logistics. For example, she noted that despite having a 4.0 unweighted GPA and doing 4 HL + 2SL + 4 AP classes her UC weighted GPA is 4.25 because the IB program requires her to do more 4 more classes so she has done 28 classes not the regular 24. Should she note this somewhere or will they know that IB students have lower UC capped GPAs.
She will not be penalized for taking additional classes. There are three UC GPAs: unweighted, weighted capped, and weighted uncapped. The UCs see all three of these GPAs, and you can expect that the more selective UCs will place more emphasis on the weighted uncapped.
Note that many CA high schools have seven or eight class periods in the day, so it’s not just IB students that take a lot of classes. And ambitious students also frequently add community college or other classes outside of the regular school day. So a higher number of classes is perfectly normal and the UCs see it all the time.
I do not have any tips regarding the IB program or Diploma for UC admissions, but this article may shed some light on how the UC’s evaluate Freshman applicants.
The UCs admonish applicants to not assume that they know what you did. It doesn’t hurt for her to write about it in the extra comments section. I would suggest that whatever she writes has a positive tone and that she doesn’t compare herself to others.
Edit to add links to campus videos explaining what types of things can be put in the academic history additional comments section. I tried to link to the specific section of the video where they talk about additional comments.
While the readers are familiar with IB programs, they might not be familiar with the nuances at her school. They are reading through applications quickly and I don’t think adding context and clarifying her IB education will be held against her.
Berkeley:
UC San Diego: They ask students to explain their high school’s course policies. Again, don’t assume that they know everything about your school. They are reading a lot of applications and it doesn’t hurt to put the information you want them to know in front of them when they are reading your application.
Here is a good one from UCSB. They ask for students to share why they decided to take advanced coursework. Note, the audience for this video is HS Counselors, not applicants.
Btw, UCs are very stingy with IB credit/placement so taking the related APs for SL courses would make sense.
Explaining her EE topic (why she chose it, what she learned from the process, her sources/experiments/..) somewhere could be good for her since readers won’t know just from her list of classes.
