Is it true that universities have a higher acceptance rate for IB Diploma students ?

[Tsunami]

I heard that the acceptance rates of IB students into institutions are higher compared to the total population acceptance rates? I wanted to know if this is actually true or not because I also heard that its not...If this is true, does it apply to USA and Canada universities ?

Edited June 14, 2017 by Tsunami

[VeronicaG]

Many Canadian universities don't put IB on a pedestal. Some like to see IB students (UBC) and others literally do not care at all (Waterloo). If you do IB it's because you genuinely like learning advanced topics in different subjects, because the benefit for applying to universities in this country is very small.

 

Can't speak for other countries.

[Nomenclature]

It is true, but it does't necessarily mean IB kids have an advantage. For the U.S., I would say most highly selective universities might have a negligibly higher acceptance rate, but do not actually give preference to IB candidates. If you're applying to a school that is not highly selective, then as an IB student you're much more likely to get in and IB is an advantage. However, at highly selective schools generally all applicants have taken one of AP/IB/A-Levels, and the disparity in admission for IB students goes down. This is because IB students tend to be really good students in general. For example, a recent statistic was that Harvard admitted 7% of all applicants and 10% of IB applicants. While the difference in percentage is not insignificant, I'd wager that the general IB applicant is more qualified than a regular applicant and that's why you see that difference. Why do I think that? Well, at my school there were about 12 kids who qualified for a National Merit Scholarship and 11 of them were IB students. Our school offers AP courses as well, and the AP kids outnumbered us by what we saw is that the highest-performing students are attracted to IB. Also, you have to remember that in the U.S. community service and extracurriculars are very important. IB kids generally have those because of CAS.

There are of course outliers like Yale who admitted 7% of all applicants and 18% of IB applicants, who probably give some preference to IB, but I'd say that most highly selective schools, even though IB kids get in at a higher rate, do not have a preference for IB kids.

[Pati12]

But is it worth it, if for example you would like to go to an european university like, Karolinska Institute ?