I'm more than 15 years out from city so better to ask someone there now... but yes, I got the full IB Diploma. It did come at a price of sleep and social life. In retrospect, I'd still do a lot of IB classes but it's totally not necessary to do all IB and the thesis. On the plus side, freshman year of college was actually easier than senior year of IB and I finally learned how to strike a better balance then.