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

jess, you know i like you. but this is a bit OTT.

they were saying that AAA is easier to get than 777.
ofc it is, the grade boundaries are "lower", which is why they are bringing in A* is it not? because they cannot distinguish the exceptionally great students from the great students... with the iB it is possible to distinguish them because there are more grades to choose from, or more grades are given out according to a normal curve.

it's not a superiority complex. it;s jealousy. do you know how much i wish i could have taken just my HL's at A-level with the languages gone? and how much i suffered to get my EE and TOK done. . .
maybe i would have gotten AAAA then, instead of a lousy 36.

im not saying you dont have the potential to get a really good score in the IB, (well depends what you classify as good. the IB generally says that those with 36+ are "distinguished" students) everyone with AAA predictions probably could get that. no doubt, but only a very very few could get 777 in their HL.

this discussion is so off topic.

It is not a bit OTT and the actual thread inevitably turned into an IB vs A-level topic, which is not my fault. they weren't saying that 777 was AAA, they were saying it is easy to get AAA. If it's OTT, do you think I should just let people sit down and think my A-levels were easy and given to me on a silver platter? No. I worked just as hard as most IB students, had a job at the same time and did voluntary work and had little time for a social life.

I think it IS a superiority complex with some of them. A lot of them clearly think their IB is worth 10X more. And frankly it's ******* me off a LOT when people think they could walk into A-levels and get AAA and then life would be perfect, because unfortunately it doesn't work like that for most people with A-levels. If you've got the teaching, the help, and everything is perfect then maybe, but a lot of the time A-level students find themselves teaching themselves a lot of it, if not everything. I've worked so hard for my A-levels and it's annoying to say that it's harder to do the IB. I never anywhere claimed that 777 is equivalent to AAA, I said that sometimes Universities give 777 offers for AAA degrees but I didn't say it was equivalent and that's not what they're arguing about. They're trying to demean A-levels to make themselves feel better.

As much as I like you too it's ******* me off when people think that we have it so much better when a lot of the time we don't. I acknowledged that in some ways IB can be seen as harder, but that doesn't make A-levels easy and it doesn't mean that it'd be easy to do A-levels. What I said was the truth and not over the top and it's not as though IB students can think they know so much more about the difficulty of exams than A-level students. I'm sorry, but I stand by what I said.

You didn't do as well as you hoped, but you still did well and I feel sorry for you in the fact that you missed out on a chance to do medicine as an undergraduate, but that doesn't mean that A-levels have the right to be ridiculed in such a way that the work we do becomes worthless, as much as they may deny it that's what is happeneing. Every results day we're faced with news stories of how much easier a-levels are getting and it is not true. It may be for some people, but certainly not for all. You can't always say you'd get AAAA just because of the lack of TOK and languages, it doesn't work like that. I'm sure you could have, but then people have bad days at A-level and we do have difficult exams as much as people like to deny it, and the module system has a lot of flaws as well as a lot of benefits.

I'm not going to stand around whilst the people on that thread say achieving AAA is easy, which is what they were doing. I'd find the IB impossible because I've not had the teaching to make me handle the subjects, but A-levels are not easy and I wish people would get off their high horses and stop saying that. I'm not saying you're on a high horse, but the people on that thread were. Unfortunately in this country maybe it's seen differently. The IB is taken in top achieving schools and to some of them (obviously not all) people doing A-levels are pretty much seen as stupid. In Sweden there isn't really much choice as you probably have to sit the IB, but A-levels here are seen as the easy way out and often people in the higher achieving schools are told that A-levels are worthless and we get people in higher power always ridiculing the A-levels we sit, so it gets tiring, and coming onto that thread just reflects the way A-levels are seen. The education in this country needs a lot of improving before people can sit the IB comfortably, until then, A-levels will be the highest standard most can achieve and they will be hard for those sitting them.

In Sweden there isn't really much choice as you probably have to sit the IB, but A-levels here are seen as the easy way out and often people in the higher achieving schools are told that A-levels are worthless and we get people in higher power always ridiculing the A-levels we sit, so it gets tiring, and coming onto that thread just reflects the way A-levels are seen. .

Just thought I'd say that we don't have to do the IB in Sweden, most people who do it are actually ridiculed cause the Swedes who take easier courses (you can choose 3 different courses to do in the Swedish high school system) can't believe why one would want to suffer through that.

I meant between that and a-levels really.
There's a european baccalaureate as well isn't there?

yupp but thats only for people in the European schools... and the European schools are onlhy (or mostly) for kids whose parents work at the EU

I met someone doing it at my Newcastle Interview, apparently it's not as highly regarded as the IB and some english universities are pretty reluctant to accept it. Is that correct? At least that's what I think she meant, she was french and had a nice accent though.

It is not a bit OTT and the actual thread inevitably turned into an IB vs A-level topic, which is not my fault. they weren't saying that 777 was AAA, they were saying it is easy to get AAA. If it's OTT, do you think I should just let people sit down and think my A-levels were easy and given to me on a silver platter? No. I worked just as hard as most IB students, had a job at the same time and did voluntary work and had little time for a social life.

but that was what they were getting at. that it's relatively easier to get an AAA compared to a 777. that's what THEY meant by a good grade.
ofc not. you have every right to be proud of that. but what elle_flower is saying is that AAA = about 666,[i personally think it's a bit more in some subjects] thus AAA offers should be lowered to a 666. as to her those two are valued the same.



well dont tell me i didnt do the same.
even if i come from a school that does quite well we are never spoonfed. we arent even taught the whole syllabus in detail. and our year was the first year that they had the new syllabus for the sciences. my science teachers, as much as they were nice people, sucked at teaching (basically it was the students who taught themselves everything....like you, we had to)

demeaning as it may be, you will find a lot of IB people bitter about the education we got. some people deal with it this way.



just like to point out, i still got 7666 in my HL's. english and tok screwed me up. yeah without those grades i think i would have acheived AAA at least.
but its the same. pros and cons. it's all same same at the end f the day, IF only they were using the same grade system. but they are not. so you have to decide the equivalent. which i think is being fought over. maybe not by you but by the IB kids anyway.

please dont feel sorry. i still could apply. i can do a toefl test or whatever and get my english requirements back on track, and 36 is accepted by 17(i think) schools as the equivalent of AAB. my change in career choice has been because of my lack of commitment which had been spurred by the four rejections and disappointing score. but it's still a damn good score. and im damn proud of my HL's.



again it's a relative easiness to acheiving 777, nothing else.
get A* around i dont think it's going to matter as i heard A* will be more difficult than a 7 to get.

no IB is for the "elite" at my school. still they suck at teaching.
it's just they bring the best students in who are motivated to work.
and i can do the swedish system which is even more difficult to get 20.0 (the full score, which i almost got.. 19.87 with my IB grades and pre-ib grades...)

This is kind of going round in circles so I've got no more points to make, just my other points still stand.

I know you did well in your IB and I did acknowledge that somewhere in there, perhaps you just missed it, I don't think you did badly BUT you seemed disappointed in it. I don't think 777 is equivalent to AAA but that's not what the others were getting at, many of them said it was EASY to get AAA and it isn't.

Also, I'm bitter about the education I got at GCSE and sometimes at A-level, but I don't demean others about it, it's not a constructive way of dealing with things and needs to be stopped.

no IB is for the "elite" at my school. still they suck at teaching.
it's just they bring the best students in who are motivated to work.
and i can do the swedish system which is even more difficult to get 20.0 (the full score, which i almost got.. 19.87 with my IB grades and pre-ib grades...)

well EASIER.
circles. yeah...
well different people have different ways of dealing with things

i am disappointed. in english and TOK. subjects i would not have taken at a levels.

To be honest, if you didnt want to do those subjects dont do an IB. Surely that's pretty simple or am i missing something?

i didnt have a choice.. if i wanted my education in english.

im in sweden. lol..

it's quite funny how people who were best intheir respective classes did math HL and most of them failed. miserably... though went down to math methods with a 7.

All AS level students finished by 2nd June, most that I know by 28th. Last proper A levels were like the 17th/18/19thish. That means the AS students finished a week after you and then have to wait 2 months and 20 days, and A2 students have to wait 2 months. That's still longer than you.

I mean, I don't really care that you get yours earlier, because it's international and so doesn't really come under the same umbrella, and it's definitely not "unfair", but I don't think "we finished earlier" is a valid rebuttal of the OPs post.

im not saying you dont have the potential to get a really good score in the IB, (well depends what you classify as good. the IB generally says that those with 36+ are "distinguished" students) everyone with AAA predictions probably could get that. no doubt, but only a very very few could get 777 in their HL.