International Baccalaureate

 

MHS IB Alum Madeline Diamont, Class of 2018

Madeline Diamont was an MHS IB student from the very beginning of the program when she began in the fall of 2016. She lived in Magnolia for 11 years attending Parkway Elementary, Bear Branch 6th, Bear Branch Junior High, and then Magnolia High School where she graduated in the top three percent of class rank.

What have you done since graduating high school?

I attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 2021 with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Business Foundations, graduating in three years thanks to my IB credits. Shortly before graduation, I worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant in the Business Law and Ethics course, after which RSMB Law hired me as a summer intern and later extended my employment as a legal assistant. I remained a legal assistant for the next year at RSMB Law and tacked on another job in retail while also studying for the LSAT.

Currently, I am a Juris Doctor candidate at Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut. I am a part of the Society of Dispute Resolution where I compete in mediation and client counseling competitions. For the future, I would like to practice in the intellectual property and entertainment law fields. Civil litigation has piqued my interest as well.

How has your experience in IB benefited you?

Although my experience in IB truly aided me in my undergraduate studies, I am noticing that the skills I learned in IB are more significant than ever in law school.

It is no secret that an attorney’s catchphrase is, “It depends.” The ambiguity of that phrase is not lost on anyone, but that ambiguity forces law students to explore, contemplate, and logically justify every scenario that falls under, “It depends.” IB taught me to take a surface-level concept and dive deeper into its complexities to understand it, rather than memorize and repeat the concept.

The program encouraged me to make connections between different areas of study in order to form holistic understandings of difficult material. In law school, what you learn in Contract Law will be important to understanding Property Law. Constitutional Law will give you insight into Civil Procedure. Besides all of this, you are assigned a lot of papers and memorandums in law school. Thanks to IB, I am no stranger to extended essays.

What would your advice be to current and anticipating students of IB?

Before deciding whether to enroll in the IB program, ask yourself if you are ready to put in the work. The assignments you will be given and the exams you take will not resemble those that you have experienced before. You will have to determine which studying methods are actually beneficial to you. Sometimes it will feel like studying is your full-time job, though that's hardly the truth. I say none of this to scare you, but to honestly explain that IB is hard work. IB will prepare you for the challenging work in college.

 

Speaking plainly, having IB on your resume will impress college admissions councils. If you are the kind of person to even contemplate joining IB, you are the kind of person who belongs in IB. The value of the program is beyond words. It is worth it. If you do not think the valuable scholastic nuance IB instills within you is worth the hard work the program requires, then just think about the number of college credits with which you will graduate high school. I graduated from UT Austin a year early because of the credits I earned from IB.