IB Students: Tips for Success and Preparation for College

Structuring college applications is the most vital part of high school. All the activities that an individual participates in help them construct a strong application. Here, I will offer a few suggestions for high-school students, specifically IB students.

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Advice for IB Students

Grades

It is crucial to maintain a high score/grade or to always strive to improve a bad grade. As IB students, if you fail in a summative test, make sure that you increase your grade on the next test.

Initially, during the first few months of the diploma program, it is normal to see a significant decrease in your scores. The transition from MYP to DP is usually not smooth for everyone. But, it’s important to learn from the mistake and gradually improve your grade.

An individual who’s willing to take challenges would be characterized as a risk taker if he/she attempts to increase their grade gradually after receiving a low grade.

CAS (creativity, activity and service)

IB students usually regard the CAS project as a time-consuming and boring part of IB. But, we need to find ways to make it more interesting based on what we are inclined towards. For example, I have always been interested in art. But, I wasn’t able to choose visual arts in DP because I needed two sciences for my university course. To supplement, I have decided to participate in activities such as teaching my friends how to paint or teaching visual arts to younger students online. These activities would be an amalgamation of ‘creativity’ and ‘service’.

TIP

Try to participate in a lot of activities in grade 11. In grade 12, you would have to focus on EE, TOK, college applications, SAT/ACT, IB exams etc. If you complete the requirement in grade 11, you wouldn’t have to stress out too much in grade 12. But you can still continue to participate in activities that you are interested in, in grade 12 in order to take some time-off from school work.

Extended Essay (EE)

Extended Essay is one of the most dreaded assignments for IB Students.

False.

It doesn’t have to be intimidating if you choose a topic that you are willing to spend time working on for a few months. Moreover, the earlier you start to brainstorm or structure your essay, the better it is. The Extended Essay is introduced to students at the beginning of grade 11. I would highly recommend that you choose a topic related to your desired university course. However, if you aren’t sure about what you want to pursue at university, that is completely okay. Just remember to choose a topic that you have always been curious about.

I would also suggest that you explore topics in philosophy and world events as well as an IB student because these are broad subjects which allow you to pick from a range of topics.

Extracurriculars:

It is crucial for an individual to show the university that they participate in activities outside the classroom. This allows the university to get to know more about you and it also demonstrates the skills you have developed in school.

However, it is not necessary to include a huge list of activities in your application. In fact, it is important to filter your extracurricular list such that the unique activities that you are interested in stand out.

According to post.edu, “Extracurricular activities show colleges a wide range of aspects and characteristics that form a positive impression, such as being willing to learn new skills or work with others as a team.”

Try Out an AI Course during a Break:

As an IB student, whether it is the summer break or the winter break, it is never too late to explore the uses of Artificial Intelligence as an IB student. Inspirit AI offers AI courses during the summer, fall and winter for beginners and advanced students.

Considering that AI is the future, every occupation will use AI in someway or another. Hence, it is important for us to build our knowledge about AI as early as possible so that we can discuss our experience with AI in our college application. Moreover, these courses allow you to choose a topic that you are interested in.

For instance, I joined the AI Inspirit summer course as a beginner with no programming skills. In 10 classes, I have learnt so much about AI ethics, AI uses, CNN networks etc.

I got the opportunity to explore a topic that I was interested in which was detecting exoplanets using AI. It was a challenging course, but I got to learn a lot about how AI can make our lives easier. Considering that high school students from all around the world participate in this course, I had a chance to build collaborative skills and communication skills.

Sources:

https://post.edu/blog/the-best-extracurricular-activities-to-include-on-your-college-application%E2%80%AF/