Am I Wrong about the Full IB Diploma?

Question

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the way I see it:

1) Students apply to college in November and December.

2) Colleges reply in the following March or April

3) The Full IB Diploma is given after a student passes all six tests, which is after May.

Therefore, the Full IB Diploma doesn't help on college applications because students receive it after colleges have decided who's in and who's out.

So why does everybody say that it will help?

Answer 1

You're correct-

However.  The college is replying based on the fact that you're in the class to begin with, and what your grades are in the class.  The diploma can be a make or break (i.e. they reject you after they accepted you because they expected you to get the diploma and you didn't) but usually not.  It's more a help to you... the program prepares ou for college, can save you money with college credit, and affects what classes you take in your freshmen year (you may be able to skip some of the 101 classes).

Or at least that's my current understanding of the program.

Answer 2

Yeah but (at least this is true for me) you receive predicted marks at the end of grade 11 and from then on, (term 1 and 2 of grade 12) you also get predicted marks, which to my understanding are pretty close to your marks after you take your exams so that when you send in your apps for uni, they will see your predicted marks and accept you accordingly. Sometimes they can accept you conditionally, saying that you can attend, granted you achieve a certain mark on your exam. This is because sometimes, but rarely, a students predicted and the actual mark they receive on an exam might be different if the student does unexpectedly poorly or well. This does not usually happen.

It will help you with college because the IB program is like taking all your classes AP- ive heard some kids say 1st and second year Uni was a breeze because their IB classes were as difficult as what they learned in University (sometimes you can even skip the first year if you do well in IB also depending on which University you go to), plus you have to do CAS (community service) hours which many unis will like because it means you have done a bunch of volunteering and possibly gained life experience (which might give you a competitive edge against those who do not have these experiences) Also, you have ToK, which is like a philosophy course of sorts which will also show that you have something unconventional that other high schoolers might not have, At the very least, if you take philosophy 101 or something, youll be ahead of the class for it. And, when you write your EE, if you do it well, it is very appealing to college admissions because most universities will be very impressed that you wrote a 4000 word research paper independently in a specific subject area because Most Universities don't ask you to write a paper of this length until the 3rd or 4th year.

Also, you dont have to apply to Uni in Nov and Dec if you dont want, you can always take a year off and travel or whatever you please and then you can use your Diploma marks if you anticipate that your predicted grades will drastically change. Which, from my understanding, it is very rare that they get better, the cases I have heard are those where the student had a meltdown and got really poor grades on their Exams which voided their application to their University of choice.

I hope this helped.