Prepping for Success: Oakridgers Share Tips on Cracking the College Application Process for Top Universities

For most individuals, college admissions is a very crucial phase in their lives. It can often be overwhelming to think about ways you could make your profile stand out; this is primarily because these profiles display more than just your academics. The fact that students are expected to show who they are through their actions and interests means that the activities and initiatives are taken up by the need to be a reflection of their identity and ability to use their skills. Getting into one of the world’s top universities is a dream for many but only a select few achieve this, this makes it necessary for aspiring students to plan such that they stand out.

Other than the obvious part, academics, most universities look for a holistically developed student – one that likes experiencing various aspects of life other than just academics. They look for students’ values, their ability to utilize resources around them, and their resilience to sustain the rigor of college life. This is primarily what the IB diploma program is all about – holistic development. In addition to these characteristics, universities also want to get to know you as a person through your contributions to society and your ability to put your skills to use such that it makes a change.

With all these to take into consideration, it can often be overwhelming for students to fulfill the criteria for a “perfect” application; however, the IB diploma program takes all of it into consideration and guides students to satisfy these university requirements through a curriculum that covers a wide range of these aspects. This program guides learners to utilize their knowledge in various real-life aspects through core components such as the theory of knowledge and extended essays in addition to subject-specific internal assessments. The diploma program also helps develop various essential learner attributes that students use throughout their life; developing these attributes early on will inevitably make the transition to college much easier.

Firstly, IB trains students into getting used to the rigor and workload of college life. Different aspects of the curriculum help ensure that each student reaches his/her potential, these include the core components such as the theory of knowledge and extended essays which develop thinking and research skills, and the subject-specific internal assessments that help students utilize what they learned in a real-life scenario.

The Theory of Knowledge(TOK)is a compulsory core subject of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The TOK involves Ways of knowing i.e. how do we gain knowledge of the world, Nature of knowing in terms of knowledge communities, knowers’ perspective and applications of knowledge and justification of knowledge claims, etc. This brings in an interdisciplinary approach that would not only widen the perspective of the student but this would also reflect in the research one carries out.

The concept of Extended Essay(EE) is taking TOK a step ahead wherein a student indulges in acquiring more information about a certain region of interest. This in turn helps them to not only pursue a project of passion but also document it professionally. A well-documented essay carries weightage in university admission in terms of highlighting profound knowledge one has gathered during research.

The creativity, activity, and service (CAS) component is another core feature of IBDP that encourages students to initiate and carry out community service and reach their personal goals; these CAS projects and experiences help students display their contributions to the society and their participation in fields other than just academics. These features of IB help develop students such that their work is perfectly aligned to the requirements of getting into their desired university.

By Shanyu

Grade 12

Oakridge International School.