Critics of the university's plan to award exclusive entrance scholarships to International Baccalaureate graduates say the plan will turn the U of C into an elitist institution. They are wrong. It doesn't take an IB student to realize that bribing individuals whose academic decisions are so easily swayed by financial considerations is not the best strategy for developing or maintaining any kind of institution with longevity.
Eliminating scholarships for 69 intelligent students and creating 20 new ones for well-educated but not necessarily learned individuals who have a particular sheet of paper simply admits to the university's inability or unwillingness to recognize on its own who is or is not a student worthy of our financial support. Using the IB program as a benchmark for that purpose not only unfairly discriminates against potential students based on geography--as not all Canadian students have access to IB schools--but doing so also blinds the university to the many desirable non-IB students not highlighted by letters on some parchment.
Such a focus on attracting high-school students bearing the label of being the best and the brightest in certain subjects opposes directly the university's current goals. Deliberately recruiting students strong in one or two areas does nothing to increase interdisciplinary activities, nor does it enhance the U of C's reputation for graduating well-rounded individuals. More knowledgeable students in the classroom can cover up poor instruction quality and the bias towards perceived excellence forces non-IB students to discover the joys of unskilled employment as their $3,500 IB scholarship friends research the mating habits of snails.
Many IB students have already received a more equal share of public education funding for additional teachers and equipment while in high school. Why then, should the university preferentially subsidize them again in this time of fiscal hardship? We should focus our resources on teaching those who don't know instead of reiterating to IB graduates material they have already spent two years learning. Monetarily rewarding an IB diploma when doing so does not relieve stress on the rest of the system does not make financial sense.
Finally, as was pointed out by a few enlightened faculty members at the Nov. 21 General Faculties Council meeting, high-quality students do not refrain from the U of C because of funding alone. They stay away because the U of C is just "good." We're "good" at engineering, art, biology, history, computers, law and many other things, but until we become great, IB students seeking a great education will continue to reject the U of C, scholarship or not.
Comments
$3500.. That is seriously not alot if you think about it. IB students pay way too much for their IB exams, and basically over $1000 is the amount of money full IB students pay in order to write their IB exams. Their effort is incredible, and it is difficult to not see why the univeristy is readily offering scholarships for them.
Most importantly, to stay in FULL IB, you need to take all the core subjects as IB, which includes ELAIB, which is seriosuly a very difficult course perhaps. The regular ELA30-1 is already difficult enough to pull a 90 final average (diploma + school mark), so what makes anyone think ELA IB is easier? Many schools across Calgary have around 80 potential IB students with around 50 signing up as full IB students in grade 10, and in grad 12 the number of students who receive their IB diploma drops to about 6 or 7!
This is ridiculous, and it clearly shows the difficulty of the course is rather very serious. In my opinion the article seen here is very bias and untruthful. Second of all, I would like to see partial IB students receiving sholarships for their effort too. Partial is quite hefty, especially when it comes to taking everything IB except for one or two courses being in the regular stream.