How hard is it to get into Berkeley High IB program (BIHS)?
We still have a few years until high school, but our child is very interested in attending an IB program. We currently rent in Oakland and would be willing to move to Berkeley and rent there for the 4 years of high school. If we are going to make such a big move however, I'd like to first get a better sense of just how hard it is to get into the program. I've gotten somewhat conflicting information on that, particularly since they overhauled the program a few years back, so wanted to see if people have any more information to share: 1. How hard is it to get into the BIHS program? If you don't get into BIHS after 9th is it even possible to try again, given the progressions? 2. When would we need to move to Berkeley in order to enroll in Berkeley High for freshman year? 3. Any other advice from families that know BIHS, any particular courses or areas he should be focusing on if he wants to do IB in high school? We're at a public middle school in Oakland right now. We had hoped that the planned IB program at Skyline would be up and running by the time we reached high school, but it doesn't seem to be happening.
Parent Replies
As of right now, it is not difficult to get into at all. My sophomore is in AC, but everyone she knows who put IB as a first choice got it. Many who didn't even want IB got it. You register for high school in Jan/Feb of 8th grade, so you would want to move by then. But I'm sure many people move to the district after the enrollment date, so it's probably not an issue. 9th grade is now Universal 9th grade, so he wouldn't be in a small school until 10th grade.
As you may already know, all students at BHS now start their 9th grade year in "universal 9th grade" and don't enter their small school communities until 10th. After 9th grade, it is a lottery system..... so it is hard to say how hard it is to get into the program. For example, my daughter and 4 of her friends did *not* put BIHS as their first choice (they put AC.... you have to rank BIHS and AC if you don't choose any of the smaller learning communities), and she and her friends all got placed into BIHS. None of them wanted it.
My daughter started in BIHS as a freshman before this universal 9th grade thing they now have in place. She initially liked BIHS, but she ended up transferring out her junior year because she didn't like the lack of flexibility around what courses you could take in 11th/12th and she did not want to do the IB diploma. She wanted to take more science classes and BIHS is very humanities-focused, which is just not her thing. She knows quite a few kids who transferred out junior year, so if you wanted to get *in* junior year, it would maybe be pretty easy!