Very worried about college

RayManta
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 14:20:46 +0000

First, a disclaimer. I don’t pretend to know what admissions committees think and how they make their choices. My only (recent) experience is in investigating possible options for my older daughter, who, like you, is a junior IB student.

Also, I’ve posted much of the information and opinion that follows in other “chance me” threads, so the dedicated posters here should please forgive me if this sounds repetitive.

OK. What I find interesting is that in your second paragraph above, you bury what I think is the important piece of info: That you are an IB student. Those who are not familiar with the program don’t know what that entails and all the hard work that goes into it. But I do.

And, colleges know, too. Don’t discount it. The IB program is universally considered the gold standard for rigor and many, many schools have a clear preference for students that earn the IB diploma. Roughly ten years ago a self-reported study was performed by IBO that reveals some really amazing data about the admission rates for IB students vs all applicants for about 150 different colleges and universities. It’s pretty much disappeared from the web, but I stumbled on it here: https://www.rjuhsd.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=13340&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=16706&PageID=7234. Click the link, and it is the middle document on the following page. [EDIT: That link seems to be down, but hopefully it is just temporary and hasnt been removed]

The caveat, of course, (besides being self-reported data), is that as far as I can tell this study was performed ten years ago (you can tell by the overall admission rates among the Ivies, which is lower today) and there’s no guarantee that some of these schools still give a preference, or that the preference is the same as it was.

Still, it is eye-opening. Schools LOVE IB students. Completing the program shows that you are hard-working, achievement-oriented, and (I think most importantly) you are very unlikely to drop out before graduating. You’re ready for college. Again, the data is ten years old, but some really good schools were accepting over 50% of the IB applicants! And in many cases, the acceptance rate among IB applicants was 20-30% higher than the overall pool of applicants! This is phenomenal.

Of course, we don’t know what the credentials were of those IB students, so there are a bunch of assumptions we have to make. But just read through the list. Take a deep breath. You’ll get into a good school–top 70, maybe top-50 for sure, depending on the rest of your application package, of course. It’s an incredible resource, if only to give IB students the confidence that all their hard work will be recognized and won’t have been for nothing. I only wish they did it again!

Remember, too, that your GPA is just one piece of the puzzle. Focus on the other pieces, too, and I don’t just mean your test scores. Try to make an effort to speak up in class and get to know some of your teachers, planning ahead on who you will ask for a recommendation–make sure they will know you well when the time comes. Also, start thinking now about your essays–specifically, how to improve your writing. There are a huge number of writing guides. My favorites are by Roy Peter Clark, who has some amazing advice on how to improve writing technique. One I like is called, “How to Write Short.” Work on improving those skills so the rest of your package shines as much as possible.

My other recommendation is to try to get an awesome summer job that connects to your interests, maybe an internship with a professor at a local college. The top schools seem to want to see that you have a specific passion and are pursuing it, as opposed to being well-rounded. Well-rounded people have never changed the world. What do you like to do? Show them.

You’ll be fine. Look at the document I linked to, and breathe deep.