IB? Been there, done that. As has already been said, IB is a huge leg up if you want to study abroad. Not only do you get the language skills and an internationally recognized diploma, but there's also a lot of valuable contacts you can make. IB teachers are primarily highly qualified people, often internationally recognized, and as such they have connections to all kinds of places. People from my class got interviews at really high-end universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Harward, etc.) with teacher recommendation, and a number of them got accepted to boot. Plus, there are organized information seminars by various universities for all graduating year IBers so you should have no shortage of potential study places to choose from. A number of schools will also quite openly favor IB students in their application handling (bonus points for entry exam, reserved spots etc.) and it's generally something of a cool club within academic circles, especially now that the whole 'international cooperation' aspect is so trendy in many lines of work.
Even if you don't want to go abroad, though, (I don't) I'd still actually vouch for it simply because IB is a completely different level of education. I don't know how it is in your country, but over here we have a huge level gap between high school and university that can reel up and bite you hard if you're unprepared. IB, on the other hand, is far closer to university level and lays down a lot of the principles and work habits you have to adopt to make it there; it's a steep learning curve, but it's far preferable to tackle it now (when you still have ample support for it) than later, when you'll have to do it all on your own.
Finally, and what really clinched the decision for me, there's the staff. This will obviously differ from school to school, but where I went, the IB teachers were simply in a completely different league than their national stream counterparts. Not only did they know their subjects better, they also made it a lot more interesting, and I'm the kind of person who needs a motivating teacher to really learn something, so the moment that entry interview got somewhere I realized that the IB was definitely worth shooting for. Despite my utter frustration with some of the work (I'm terrible with deadlines; IB treats them like God) I have to say that if I was back to making that decision again, I'd definitely want to go.
So yes, based on my experiences I'd definitely recommend that you give the IB a try at the very least if you have any intention of doing academic work or heading on to university. Going to that entrance exam won't take that much of your time and it may help you determine whether it's the school for you or not. It's intense, but as long as you're prepared to put in the work you can gain so much from it and even have some fun while you're at it.
