Risk-Takers: The Juniors begin IBDP

Thirty-three juniors step into a demanding two-year journey designed to challenge how they think, learn, and grow.

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a notoriously rigorous, two-year academic curriculum that fosters critical thinking skills, and sets students up for success in university and beyond. In the class of 2028, there are thirty-three IBDP candidates ready to take on the scholarly challenge.  

The transition from sophomore college prep and honors classes to IB courses is a huge one, shifting from around less than an hour of homework a night to two to three hours or more. New IBDP candidate Nicky Boncel says he’s “just starting to figure out how to balance my school and sports workload” since he can “definitely see change in difficulty of work.” He is “in general getting used to reading 15-20 pages from different classes daily,” but overall, he says the change has been “hard but not impossible.” To manage the dense curriculum, he said, “Study Hall period has been super clutch for me to stay on top of my workload. When I’m productive, I can crank out a lot of work at once, so the free hour to start the day has really helped me stay on top of things.”  

“Diploma and IB requires more than just being really right or wrong. It requires critical thinking, collaboration, and kind of pushing your boundaries.” - Mr. Garbarino, IB Coordinator

Another IBDP candidate, Tara Kiarostami, says that the programme is “definitely a lot of work compared to the last two years of high school” but that she really likes that it’s challenging her and “pushing me to think outside the box and work harder than I ever have.” To handle the abundant amount of work, she goes to a coffee shop with her friend and studies hard, which “[has] been really helpful because it forces me to manage my time and get my work done.” In general, she is “glad to be in something that’s pushing me and challenging me.”  

Mr. G., Rancho Solano’s IB Coordinator and IB Economics teacher, also provided some insight to the new Diploma students. While it’s still very early on in the year, he says that the new IBDP students are a “really strong academic group” but “Diploma and IB requires more than just being really right or wrong. It requires critical thinking, collaboration, and kind of pushing your boundaries.” Ultimately, he said, “If that challenge is met head on, I think this could be really an interesting group that could make their mark on Rancho significant and also set a tone for the 9th and 10th graders that are coming up.” 

While the new IBDP juniors have only been in the programme for a little over a month, they are looking like a group that is ready to transform from students to open-minded, principled thinkers and risk-takers.