We live in a different state, but when we were looking into possible high schools for my child who is highly gifted academically, we had several options including an IB option. We ended up concluding the particular IB program near us would not be good for our son. That one very clearly incorporated a heavy workload of relative busy work. We were told by the teachers associated with that school that students who excel in their IB program are "organized" and "hard workers" and it seemed from the samples of work presented that those were the main qualities needed. At the time dh and I joked that ds was neither "organized" nor a "hard worker" so we had better look elsewhere! Seriously though, I remember someone representing that particular program (IB school near us) at a presentation actually said it was not a program for "gifted" kids but for students of more average ability who were willing to work hard.
