Is IB worth it?

cowgirlatheart
Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:46:23 +0000

I think you should stay with full IB as well.

I’m also in grade 11, and in full IB. Even though sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode with stress - I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s so much better being challenged than being bored! Not to mention that the people in the IB classes at my school are on a different level than everyone else - they are mostly interesting, smart, funny, passionate people.

As for the university situation, I’m also from Canada, so I can relate. I don’t have much interest in going down south - as it’s too expensive and I’m not one for the current political situation. It is very true that universities here are paying much more attention to IB students - at UBC, U of Alberta, and U of Calgary (these are the ones I know for sure), they will favor IB students over non-IBers. The thing is, they love the diploma. Most school’s won’t consider you as much if you have partial IB - they want to see that you went through with the diploma. Also, as diploma students tend to be smarter than the general populations, they tend to have better ec’s and marks than most people anyways - an automatic advantage. In Canada, if you look at Maclean’s University Guide, most unis have an admissions average cutoff around 75-80%. Also, the average admissions grades are SO incredibly misleading, because people think that they can’t go to Queens without a 95 (which is untrue because if the average is 89, there are people BELOW it).

Japstudent - you’re right - Waterloo is one of the best universities for engineering in Canada. You might also want to look at UBC - most of the science-oriented IB grads from my school go there.

As for courses… I’m taking English A1HL, French A2SL, European History HL in French, Chem HL (<– that one is required by my school grrr), Math Methods SL, and Bio SL. I’m writing the exams for Math and Bio SL this year (and they are only 2 months away!). My favorite class has to be English or History, and Chem is the hardest (and therefore worst because it induces the most stress!). We only take TOK in grade 12, and I am really looking forward to it!

Good luck in IB (both of you!) :)

ps. snow-wings, just a question - you mentioned you were considering U of C… are you from Calgary? I’ve met a few IBers from Calgary on the net - and most of them are from my school. Just wondering. PM me.