Dressed to the nines and ready for a night of celebration, students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program flocked to Cedar Park on Friday, Dec. 12, for the annual IB Ball. A chance for IB students to come together before the stress of finals week, IB Ball has been a tradition in the program.

The IB Student Officer (IBSO) team, consisting of both junior and senior officers, were tasked with planning and executing the ball. Since the scale of the event was larger than the team’s usual tasks, it presented new challenges for the officers.

“The planning consisted of mainly organizing, or kind of connecting with the venue to make sure that we had the capacity and necessary resources to host the event,” IBSO President Sundar Carey ‘26 said. “We also had to work with the [IB Parent Association] to coordinate setup and stuff like that.”

To open the event to a wider variety of people, IB students were allowed to bring plus-ones that were not in the IB program.

“A lot of IB kids brought their [Advanced Placement] friends as well, so I thought that was really cool to see everyone there,” IB student Grace Xiao ‘26 said. “Even though we’re a small community, we’re not that small if you think about it, because we have AP friends who also know a bunch of these IB students.”

Students were heavily involved with the ball, from IBSO officers planning the events and helping set up to IB student Aaron Yeh ‘26 helping photograph the event.

“I like taking photos, and I think it’s sort of a nice way to relive those memories, especially with friends,” Yeh said. “Taking photos at IB Ball was special in the sense that I was actually asked to do it instead of just doing it because I wanted to, or because I thought it would be something nice to give back.”

There was a wide variety of activities at the ball, ensuring there’d be something for every student. Some of the highlights included making gingerbread houses, entering a raffle, and dancing.

“I think there’s a unique energy in IB Ball that wasn’t really present in Homecoming or Prom,” Yeh said. “I thought that was fun and I enjoyed it. I liked the winter theme because I really enjoyed making gingerbread houses.”

One of the highlights of the evening was the announcement of the two IB Royalty winners, Xiao and Nikita Reddy ‘26.

“I love Nikita, I’m very happy that we won,” Xiao said. “I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to go up on the stage and get the little Mickey Mouse crowns. I think that really just shows how close I’ve gotten with the IB community over this past year and a half.”

The ball represented an elevated version of the social events that IB frequently holds, allowing students to have a night where they could dress up and enjoy time with their friends.

“I think it’s important because we kind of see people get really caught up in the academic rigor of IB, and we just want some events that people can decompress [and] socialize,” Carey said. “IB Ball was different from other events because it was more fancy and more complicated, so we wanted this event to be the final big event of the semester.”