What's better IB or A levels?

Ib or a levels? Help!?

• Im in year 11 and im considering doing the ib diploma after being given leaflets about it by a 6th form i got accepted into. In the leaflets it said an ib score of 26-30 was the same as straight a's at a level. So i did some research but ended up getting really confused. I looked at entry requirments of universitie courses im interested in and found that for one of them the a level requirement was b,b,c but the ib requirement was 36! Then i checked another the a level requirement was a,a,b but the ib requirement was 32! It just makes no sense. Im fairly smart and im getting mostly a's and one b at gcse but i dont know whether 36 would be possible to get, where as id be more confident at getting the b,b,c grade. But then i like the choice of having 6 subjects and then having the core subjects aswell and i like the fact ib would prepare me for uni more but im so confused about the points and whats equivilent to what after seeing the uni entry requirements. Any help or additional infor?

• Answer:

  Hello! I'm a first year IB student who is loving the course! The thing about 26-30 being straight As is a lie! 26 is a very low score for IB... in fact, the lowest grade you can get on IB is 24 in order to pass, so it is definitely not the same as straight As! 36 IB points is probably equivalent to straight As across the board... seeing as it would require approx. a level 5 or 6 in each of your subjects. 36 IB points will get you into most Russel Group universites in England, so that's saying something. The world average for IB points is 30... which is actually quite low. As long as you put in effort and dedicate yourself to your studies and the extra parts of IB life, it's easy to get upwards of 36, and easily crack the 40 point mark! I am currently predicted a minimum 40 points - I was a straight A* student at GCSE. Admittedly, universities do want higher IB scores in comparison to A level scores, BUT they are getting better at equalizing this at the moment. Universities prefer IB-ers. All of our IB Oxford/Cambridge applicants at my school GOT OFFERS, whereas only half of the A levelers did. IB subjects are graded from 1 - 7, and it's genuinely considered that a 7 = A*, a 6 = A, a 5 = A/B, a 4 = B/C etc etc.