I find it extremely unfair that IB students get results much earlier.

How would you know you don't even live here.

A-level gold standard? It's internationally regarded as deteriorating in authenticity actually.. thus resulting in the desperate governmental attempt to reduce the disproportionate number of 'A' yielding students by introducing the A*. It's still a decent secondary education system, but globally, the IB is regarded in better light than GCE A-levels.

thank god IB is finally over.

I know, only the first part of my post was your answer haha sorry!

First of all, EB is taken by students who go to the European schools (most of their parents work for the EU), while the IB is mostly taken by students who go to International School.
The IB is marked out of a max grade of 45, while the EB is marked as a percentage of 100. For the IB, each subject is marked out of a grade 1-7, and then you can get up to 3 extra points for the combined grades of your TOK Essay and Extended Essay.
75-80% of an IB:ers final science/humanities/math/arts grade is from the exam taken in May, and 20-25% is from an Internal assesment (project) while for languages the exam taken in May is worth 50% and the orals and written internal assessments are worth 50%. For EB:ers, their grading works like this:
15% coursework from 7th year (last year of EB)
25% exams in January
24% Oral exams in June
36% Written exams in June

For the IB you take 6 subjects, plus write a 4000 word Extended Essay and a 1500 word TOK (its like philosophy) essay. For the EB you take 11 subjects.

Both the EB and the IB comprise of many compulsory subjects.
The EB comprises of the following compulsory subjects: a foreign language, a science, mathematics, philosophy, gym, history and geography (these are taught in the students' first foreign language, i.e. English, German or French).
The IB comprises of the following compulsory subjects: at least 1 foreign language, English, at least 1 science, at least 1 humanities subject (geography, history, ITGS, B&M, Economics, Philosophy or Phsycology), and math. Optional subjects include art, theatre and music. In total you need to have 6 subjects.

For the IB we have to take at least 3 subjects at Higher Level (HL) and 3 subjects at Standard Level (SL). The higher level subjects are usually graded harder have more exams because if you study a subject at a higher level you are expected to have further knowledge of the subject than if you were at standard level. There are therefore more teaching hours for a HL subject than a SL subject.

ok a long post sorry but hope you have further understanding of what the difference between the two are now

Couldn't have put it better myself. Yeah, as there's only 14 European Schools at all, that means that students currently studying for it merely number in the thousands. In the EB you also have different levels of subjects, from standard to advanced, like Maths, first language, History and Geography, so in some ways I suppose there are similarities between the two.

Out of interest, how have you heard about the EB?

Last time I checked A levels were still the gold standard. A levels prepare you better for university as we go into far more detail with our subjects. So i wouldn't call it a doss you ****

You have more subjects to study but its the bredth of IB that makes it hard- you have to be good across lots of subjects but we study the 3/4 subjects we do to a higher level as we have more time to learn within each subject- standard level IB is equivalent to a cross between GCSE and AS level and a higher level is equivalent to a cross between AS and A level

Actually last time I checked, the IB was ranked higher by the unis than A-Levels.

Oh boo-*******-hoo. A-level guys lave LONGER to learn and revise, so it's LONGER before the results come out.

Stop winging. You lot have every advantage - you can do retakes; you only have to do a couple of subjects; your qualification is a doss. Live with the one upshot of A-levels.

Maybe they do, but they certainly don't show it. Oxbridge IB-ers can get offers of 7,7,7 at HL and 42 points overall. There's no way in hell that's equivalent to AAA.

Honestly some of the arguing in this thread is pathetic.

What does the difficulty of the qualification even have to do with the thread topic, which was about results dates?

Some people need to grow up with the "My qualification is better than your qualification" rubbish.

At the end of the day we took whichever qualification because we either a) didn't have a choice, or b) thought it was best for us, so the bickering is pointless.

So all of the marking wont be started until after 24th.

Maybe they do, but they certainly don't show it. Oxbridge IB-ers can get offers of 7,7,7 at HL and 42 points overall. There's no way in hell that's equivalent to AAA.

i find it extremely unfair that A level students only have to do 3 subjects. Which are much easier. Touche.

we have it a LOT tougher than you guys anyway...so we get our results earlier...

Oh boo-*******-hoo. A-level guys lave LONGER to learn and revise, so it's LONGER before the results come out.

Stop winging. You lot have every advantage - you can do retakes; you only have to do a couple of subjects; your qualification is a doss. Live with the one upshot of A-levels.