The AP International Diploma – AP Students (2024)

FAQs

How many people get the AP International diploma? ›

Recently took 7 APs and got the AP International Diploma as an award. It has a bunch of required exams in different areas, each with a good score. Apparently, about 1200 people got it in 2020, out of 2.6 mil students, giving it an approximately 0.0005% acceptance rate.

AP Score Reports for Educators

The AP International Diploma (APID) is a globally recognized certificate awarded to students who display exceptional achievement across a variety of disciplines.

The College Board's Advanced Placement Program (AP) is a rigorous academic program that gives motivated students the opportunity to pursue university-level studies while still in secondary/high school. The AP offers a curriculum designed by college professors who are experts in their fields.

The APID is a globally recognised award for students interested in pursuing study outside of their native country. It requires students to display mastery on AP Exams across several disciplines, and represents an exceptional level of achievement.

The benefits of an AP Scholar Award all come in being able to put it on your resume and college applications. It's an impressive achievement that demonstrates to colleges, universities, and internships that you have completed several college-level courses and excelled in them.

In the case of AP World History, around 60% of test-takers earn a passing score and, potentially, college credit. The exam may save students thousands in college tuition, making it a worthwhile class.

Does Harvard prefer IB or AP courses? Harvard does not explicitly state a preference for IB or AP courses. To receive credit for IB classes, accepted students must earn an IB diploma. Incoming students must earn a score of 5 on at least four AP exams to earn college credit at Harvard.

Students who take IB classes in high school have higher acceptance rates into Ivy League schools, but this doesn't necessarily mean a higher acceptance rate than AP students; it just means that IB students have a higher acceptance rate than the general application pool.

Harvard only accepts AP® scores of 5 for course credit. If you have 4 scores of 5, you can opt to obtain Advanced Standing. You can use AP® credits to opt-out of lower-level classes. Harvard has general academic requirements that all students must take.

Is AP or IB harder? ›

Difficulty. While HL (“High Level”) IB courses are generally considered to be more difficult than equivalent or similar AP classes, SL (“Standard Level”) IB courses are typically seen as similar or easier than their AP counterparts.

Both academic options are looked on favorably by colleges and universities, and both can help earn a student college credit, depending on exam scores. The IB is increasing in popularity in the United States, especially among international families and students who hope to study abroad.

Nationwide, less than 10% of students earn the distinction of AP Scholar or higher by the time they graduate and less than 20% of those who take AP exams earn this distinction.

Admissions officers instead look at other factors, which means that all the hard work students have put in to earn AP Scholar awards mean less. Even without AP Scholar awards, taking AP courses can still be really beneficial to college admissions, and doing well on exams can save you money in college.

Nationwide, less than 10% of students earn the distinction of AP Scholar or higher by the time they graduate and less than 20% of those who take AP exams earn this distinction.

While AP is quite widespread, the IB program is rarer since schools have to be able to offer enough classes for the diploma in order to host an IB program. Adding IB is often more costly than starting a few AP classes.

About 18 percent of the 1.8 million students worldwide who took AP Exams performed at a sufficiently high level to also earn an AP Scholar Award.

Popular and more widespread in the US and Canada: The AP program is US-based and is much, much more widely available among US high schools than IB. While the AP program is not as widespread in Canada as compared to the US, it's still much more common than IB programs.