The Official Newspaper of Ascend International School
MYP to DP
The diploma programme is one of the most established educational programmes a high school student can experience. The DP is known to pave the way for numerous career opportunities for students of this generation, providing them with nuances, subject combinations, and application-based learning.
Ascend’s batch of 2025 (the current 11th graders) transitioned to DP in the beginning of August. Students had a month to try out classes and experience the subjects which could be chosen later in the month.
Our school offers Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Design Technology, and Economics, Business Management, Global Politics, Psychology, History (Humanities), Spanish Ab and B, Hindi B (Languages) as well as Language and Literature and Math AA/AI.
Many students find that selecting subjects they are closely interested in and skilled at provides a major advantage in the DP. The personalized subject combination that the DP offers provides students the opportunity to work with subjects they are best interested in. The selection of these subjects provides more clarity on subject groups that students want to pursue in college or university, and it's the first decision students make to start preparing for their long term academic journey.
The MYP curriculum is known to be more application-based and less content heavy. DP students taking subject groups such as the sciences see a huge jump in the content they are required to be familiar with for these classes. The humanities branches out into multiple DP subjects, which MYP Integrated Humanities classes don't extensively cover. The work rigor for the DP as well is much more demanded than what students are used to in the MYP. The DP constantly assesses students across all subject groups, resulting in regular summative assessments throughout the year. Other components of the DP such as CAS require students to commit to service projects, and activities outside of school, which can often be hard to balance.
