Many universities around the world offer either credit hours or course credit for satisfactory scores on IB exams. It's always best practice to check with the school, but by law all public universities in Illinois accept IB scores of a 4 or higher. This is true in several other states, including but not limited to California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. There are also numerous private universities who offer credit, scholarships, and other perks to IB graduates.
In the US, 85% of IB students enrolled in a university immediately after high school, compared to 66% of all high school graduates. Of those IB students, 90% returned to the same university in their second year. (Pilchen, Caspary, Woodworth, 2020).
Qualitative data found that IB graduates in the US were better able to adjust to the rigors of university coursework; students specifically highlighted a number of skills gained through participation in the DP, including critical-thinking, time management and research skills (Conley, McGaughy, Davis-Molin, Farkas, and Fukuda, 2014).
Low-income IB students in US Title 1 schools enrolled students in college at similar rates to all IB students in US public schools. They also had much higher rates than the national average for low-income students. This was particularly true for African-American students in the study (Gordon, VanderKamp and Halic 2015).
US IB graduates are significantly more likely to persist and to complete college than their non-IB counterparts (Conley, McGaughy, Davis-Molin, Farkas, and Fukuda, 2014).
IB students had a higher university graduation rate (83%) compared to the US national average (56%) (Bergeron 2015).
Click here to watch testimonials from the Stanford Admissions staff about the value of the IB Diploma.
Marilyn McGrath Lewis, Director of Admissions
Marilee Jones, Director of Undergraduate Admissions
Fred Hargadon, Director of Undergraduate Admissions
Allison Jesse, Associate Dean of Admissions
William Shain, Dean of Admissions
Christoph Guttentag, Director of Undergraduate Admission