3 Top Tips For IB Students

Thea Pillay

The IB defines itself by the ability to draw from international best practices, empowering students to participate in the opportunities offered by their global community.

An important aspect of this goal is equipping IB students with the information, awareness and support they need to prepare for higher education. We have defined 3 best practices for university preparation – as well as 3 things to avoid – which directly link to the goals of the IB DP program:

Inquiry, Reflection, Action
Global Contexts for Education
Significant content

What to Avoid: Cookie-Cutter Applications

Best Practice: Inquiry, Reflection, Action

We believe students should be empowered with an understanding of what admissions officers in different university systems are looking for, and how to build out their application writing (e.g.: personal statement, essays) with the breadth and depth required to be a compelling candidate.

BridgeU has built an interactive tool that draws on the IB principles of inquiry, reflection and action by:

Prompting students with questions to gather a record of relevant experiences and accolades that can be used in their application.
Students learn about the factors admissions officers look for (e.g.: leadership, formative interest in subject, community service and critical thinking). They then ‘tag’ their experiences with how they relate to those factors.
Students then understand where they have strengths and where to improve, so that they can make a personalised action plan.

With insight into the difference between systems (e.g.: US vs. UK), students are fully equipped to write their global university applications to their best advantage.

What to Avoid: Narrow or out-of-date options

Best Practice: Global Contexts for Education

To best serve the Internationally-minded IB student, it is crucial that the information they are getting about their options is comprehensive, up-to-date and tailored to them as an individual.

With 2,500 universities in the US and UK alone, BridgeU has built an algorithm that enables students to consider their future without limiting them to one destination, or to where students from their school have been before. It adapts to their personality, preferences, subject interest and academic capability to provide realistic and well-matched recommendations.

These recommendations can be explored, shortlisted or discarded, giving the students a well-targeted starting point for their research into university options. By enabling them to search for courses or colleges, they can discover that the place their family had picked for them may not be a good fit for their personal preferences, or may be unrealistic.

What to Avoid: Overwhelming content in unfriendly formats

Best Practice: Significant content

Many websites provide large chunks of content about university and course options, but the digital generation accesses knowledge through interactive forms that are personalised, adaptive and targeted to the most relevant pieces.

With personalised suggestions, and videos of admissions experts from across the world, relevant content is curated for the IB student to help support their decision-making and preparation.