COLUMBUS — A suburban Columbus high school will be the fifth in Ohio to offer students a rigorous two-year academic program designed to broaden their view of the world and give them a head start toward college.

        The International Baccalaureate diploma program will be made available to juniors and seniors at Upper Arlington High School in 2005.

        This year added its 1,000th school worldwide. In the United States, 400 institutions participate, including schools in Akron, Cincinnati, Dayton and Warren.

        Most students who graduate with a baccalaureate diploma enter college with credits. Some have as many as a year's worth when they start.

        Organizers say the program can open doors at colleges looking for students who go beyond the standard curriculum.

        Upper Arlington has received $30,000 in private funds to help pay for teacher training and other startup costs. As many as five additional teachers could be hired, said the school's principal, Kip Greenhill.

        Mr. Greenhill expects more than half of the school's juniors and seniors to pursue the curriculum, which is considered more rigorous than an advanced-placement curriculum.

        The programcurriculum will give students a broader perspective, said Paul Craft, an Upper Arlington science teacher who is coordinating the lengthy admissions process.

        “The perception is that our students grow up thinking the world is Upper Arlington,” he said. “There is such an international flavor with this, they get exposed to the whole world.”

        The program was started in 1968 at 11 schools in nine nations to educate the children of diplomats and other foreign government officials. Staff development, which includes weeklong training sessions for every teacher every five years, is one of the program's greatest assets, Mr. Greenhill said.

        It motivated Ken Ferris, who coordinates the program at Cincinnati Princeton High School. “I don't know if I had ever been so excited about teaching,” he said of the training.

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