Penn GSE Professors Study College Success for IB Students: Do Accelerated Programs Offer an Edge?

March 13, 2009 - Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education announced today that they have received a $700,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to study the relationship between an accelerated high school curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, and college-related outcomes. The study involves analyses of 12 years of data from the Florida K-20 Data Warehouse and the National Student Clearinghouse.

Henry May, assistant professor and a researcher and statistician at GSE's Consortium for Policy Research in Education, and Laura Perna, associate professor, will lead a team of faculty and students to examine how participating in an IB program is related to students' academic readiness for college, college access, academic performance in college, bachelor's degree completion and graduate school enrollment.

"Despite their promise, little is known about whether programs like IB improve academic readiness and college success, particularly for low-income students, racial/ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups in higher education," Perna said.  "President Obama has called for the U.S. to again be the world's leader in educational attainment by 2020.  Improving students' academic readiness for college is one important step achieving this goal," Perna said.

"The work GSE is undertaking is valuable not only to the IB, but also to the many high school students across the country who could ultimately benefit from the findings of this study," Beth Brock, IB global head of research, said.  

The study will take place through February 2011.

Media contact:  Jill DiSanto-Haines at 215-898-4820 or jdisanto@upenn.edu