Are chances higher in the universities like Harvard, UPenn or Cornell to be admitted for IB students

Answered

Great question.

No, not necessarily. The reason is that the Ivy League is overbooked and they have more qualified applicants than there is space at each of the 8 schools. So on average 95% of applicants regardless of their grades, test scores, ECs, and other attributes get rejected.

At Harvard, for example, 8,000 applicants had a perfect 4.0 GPA in the class of 2019 but there were only 1962 spots to fill. And that was 8 years ago when only 35000 applied. Nowadays the applicant pool varies from 57000-61000 so I'm certain this statistic is stale and perhaps 12-15,000 have perfect GPAs. The same could be said about how many applicants are valedictorians, have top AP and IB test scores, and top SAT and ACT scores.

The key differentiators for admits versus applicants at Ivy League schools are not grades and test scores but other factors like the following:

1. How many hooks one has matters. A hook is whether you are an ALDC or a marginalized applicant like a low-income or trans/BIPOC or a first-generation student. Those who are "legacy", "recruited athletes", "faculty children", "donor kids", or hand-picked "VIP applicants like Olympians, Nobel winners, or celebrities" have a leg up on everyone else applying which unfortunately trumps grades or test scores. Although affirmative action is dead, Ivys will use zip codes and other demographic information as proxies for understanding someone's lack of privilege. So although race is no longer a "hook", zip code may take its place in the future.

2. Intellectual vitality and curiosity matter more than how many APs or IBs you take. Ivys want to see evidence that you pushed yourself outside of the box created for you at your high school. So this means, you extended your learning beyond what was available in the classroom like taking college courses, doing supervised research, pursuing intellectual challenges like creating patented technology, or working unique jobs to gain perspective on your interests.

3. Personal character is a difficult metric to discuss but often Ivys seek out applicants that have superior communication skills that are shown vis a vis their interviews, personal statements, recommendations, portfolios, writing samples, and optional videos. When Brown gives applicants a 2-minute video option, this is a way for them to "fill in the blanks and connect the dots" because it shows them who you might be versus just words on a form.

A 44/45 is impressive as a statistic but less so when you know that thousands of other applicants have similar stats and they are all applying to the same schools with limited space.

My takeaway is to focus on things that make you unique and special.