Apr 23, 2014 1 min read

In response to “The failure of international baccalaureate evidence” in the April 16 issue, I’m 23 now, but if I learned anything as an IB student at Upper St. Clair, I learned to embrace the dialogue in the face of critics – because there have been a lot of them. I should point out, though, that while my 2009 graduating class of 330 students got into six Ivy League colleges, four of those were from IB diploma students (a tiny group of 10 students). But, don’t take my word for it. Harvard, Yale, Penn, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, Cornell, NYU, UCLA and Duke all have acceptance rates at least 50 percent or higher for IB students than for non-IB students – and the overall college acceptance rate is 22 percent higher (Source: IGI Services, 2011). I understand the worry about IB … I was there once, too. My parents went the AP route at my age, and so did all of their friends. We had no idea what IB really was. But today, I share my IB education with pride. Because, hey, if the brilliant minds at all the schools up there embrace IB, then I think it’s safe to say we should, too.

Sidney Kushner

Upper St. Clair