Which universities in the United States accept IB Certificates (which is where you take less IB subjects than required for the full IB Diploma and/or take one or more subjects in the same category)? What if one was doing IB certificates with only SL subjects and not studying for any qualifications other than the IB certificates??
Also, do any slightly to moderately selective universities in the US (with a 50% acceptance rate or above) accept students with the equivalent of a C average during their senior year and/or a C average as calculated by their grades during the last 4 years of high school?
There are plenty of very good but not selective schools. Based on the limited info you have provided, you should target those given the C average and the non- rigorous hs program.
A C average is a 2.0 and most students with that GPA attend community college.
What’s the grading scale that you’re basing the high school C average on? The recommendation is usually that you not try to convert international grades to US grades by yourself.
US universities typically give subject credit and/or advanced placement for specific IB HL test scores (e.g. 5 or higher in math HL may allow starting in calculus 2 or 3 instead of calculus 1). Some may give generic credit for IB DP completion, but subject credit and/or advanced placement depends on specific HL scores.
Thank you for the responses.
I think IB grades corresponds to US letter grades of (I’m not sure if this is entirely accurate):
7: A/A+
6: A
5: B
4: C
3: D
My school doesn’t use GPA, but I believe a 2.5 GPA is still a C average?
For the USA, I am aiming at state universities. I am hoping that I could perhaps get a B average after my final IB exams, but I think it would be quite difficult. For at least one subject I think it would take some work to get a 4 which may be important because the universities I am looking at require you to get at least a C- in their required courses (some require at least a high school B average).
My parents advised me to apply to one specific state university system. For one of the universities I applied to I found out after applying that I don’t meet their IB freshman admission requirements listed on their website.
Many schools give placement, often a year of it, for the IBD. That is one of the few ways to get credit for SL classes (becausethey were part of the IBD).
If you are looking for credit based on the SL test, that’s not very common. Some students will take the AP exam when they take the SL so they can get college credit.
It’s not clear from your post whether that is an option for you.
Thank you for the reply. I am only doing IB SL subjects and not AP. I do not live in the US which is why I am not really looking to go to community college in the US (and only a few community colleges offer accommodation).
I am not really concerned about getting college credit from my high school subjects; I am more concerned about applying to colleges that I have a realistic chance of getting into.
You need a 4/5 on an IB and it should be an HL class to benefit from IB for credit. You need to check each university credit transfer
Yes, I just want to make sure that I have a realstic chance of getting into the universities I am applying to (in order not to waste time and money).
Somehow I managed to get into colleges with less than a 50% acceptance rate, maybe because my predicted GPA might be slightly higher than a C average (e.g. B but I don’t really know what my calculated GPA was).
Take a look at Lawrence University - they give credit for SL as well as HL courses, although it depends upon the grade. I think an IB certificate is treated like an ordinary high school degree by most schools, so what will matter are other factors like grades and test scores. The IB/GPA conversion tables are somewhat suspect in my experience - each school seems to have their own methodology for evaluating the IB scores.
