Comstock's magazine 0919 - September 2019 | Page 64

n EDUCATION
International Baccalaureate programs
AT PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE CAPITAL REGION
• Armijo High School, Fairfield-Suisun Unified School
District, Fairfield • Laguna Creek High School, Elk Grove Unified School
District, Elk Grove
• Colfax High School, Placer Union High School District,
Colfax • Luther Burbank High School, Sacramento City Unified
School District, Sacramento
• Cordova High School, Folsom-Cordova Unified School
District, Rancho Cordova • Mira Loma High School, San Juan Unified School
District, Sacramento
• Franklin High School, Stockton Unified School District,
Stockton • Oakmont High School, Roseville Joint Union High School
District, Roseville
• Granite Bay High School, Roseville Joint Union High
School District, Granite Bay • Stockton Collegiate International Secondary School,
Stockton Unified School District, Stockton
• Inderkum High School, Natomas Unified School District,
Sacramento • Tracy Joint Union High School, Tracy Unified School
District, Tracy
• Kit Carson International Academy, Sacramento City
Unified School District, Sacramento
Loma IB coordinator David Mathews. “They know how to
speak up in class, how to plan their time and how to think
independently. The real value of IB is that it prepares our stu-
dents for college.”
UC Berkeley senior T.G. Roberts, who graduated from
Stockton’s Franklin High School in 2016 with her IB diploma,
agrees. “Having teachers who have very high expectations
for you to do your homework, and do it well, really pushed
me to sit down and focus,” she says. “And then in college, it
was a very beneficial relationship with professors because
they could see that I cared about my education, so they
cared. It was good training in the IB program.”
The IB program appears to have a statistical advantage
for college admissions. A 2011 survey by i-graduate that
profiled 4,171 graduating high school seniors found that
for selective California schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA
and several Ivy League schools, the IB program candidate
acceptance rate was more than double the total population
acceptance rate.
Alternative pathways, such as transferring from com-
munity college or taking a gap year to work or travel, are
gaining in popularity and have their own advantages. Cal-
ifornia’s community colleges offer an Associate Degree
for Transfer where specific two-year associate degrees are
transferable to a California State University campus with
guaranteed priority admission for eligible students. The
UC system has a similar Transfer Pathways program, but
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comstocksmag.com | September 2019
source : international baccalaureate foundation
with no guarantee. UC accepted a record number of trans-
fer students for admission for the 2019-20 academic year,
including a 76 percent acceptance rate for transfers from
California community colleges, compared to a 62 percent
acceptance rate for California freshmen.
A gap year alone isn’t enough to boost admission chanc-
es, but a year spent volunteering, traveling or interning is
something that can broaden a student’s experiences and
expand their story, according to the Gap Year Association, a
national nonprofit working to extol the benefits of taking a
year off before starting college.
PICKING A MAJOR MATTERS TOO
Another factor that affects college admission is how many
applicants apply to each academic area and the enrollment
space available in that area, which can vary from year to
year. Last fall, UC Davis had more than 78,000 freshman
applicants for slightly more than 6,100 spots. On average,
incoming freshman students apply to 4.5 UC campuses and
8-12 schools overall. And they tend to apply in the most pop-
ular majors.
“I’ve watched this happen cyclically over the years,” says
Hunter, who has been with UC Davis admissions since 1972.
In popular majors such as the biological sciences and com-
puter science, there are fewer enrollment spots.
For example, the College of Engineering received more
than 5,100 applications for computer science and engineer-