As part of the global education industry, the International Baccalaureate (IB) plays an important role in education systems around the world. Although laudatory descriptions of the IB abound, knowledge about it remains vague and superficial, relying predominantly on information produced by the IB organization or its affiliates. To gain fresh insight into the IB phenomenon, this study combines corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to examine representation of the IB around the world in non-IB generated data. Based on the principle that choice in language is not random, meaning is intimately connected with the way words are used, a 23 million word corpus of global press articles and Sketch Engine, patterns of typicality are analyzed to uncover values associated with the IB that are taken for granted. Findings show hegemonic ways of talking about the IB in highly positive terms tied to corresponding discourses of deficiency surrounding other education systems.