Some advice for a noob?

[sjhingran]

before ib, what sort of grades have you been getting? if for year 9 and 10 you've benn first or second in all your clases i would recommend hsc as hsc rewards ou a lot more for being first in your classes. in hsc, you only need 10 units (were most subjects are 2 units so 5 subjects) but in ib, with your subject combo, you're doing equivalent to 15+ units so you're doing a lot more +tok/ee/cas 

 

My grades are all A's apart from Photography, but that's a Year 10 elective so no worries. As a ranking, I believe I'm ranked around a 5 out of the 150 cohort - so I'm doing fairly well? Is this good enough for a 45? I don't know!

Hmm, it seems like my school isn't too strong in the HSC and our curriculum is based around IB so a large portion of the students take IB for this reason. No one in our school really gets an IB mark under 38.

Can anyone give me some pointers on CAS? What exactly is it? What's involved?

[ShootingStar16]

How you're doing now doesn't necessarily reflect how you're going to do when you actually enter IB, but I'd say you'll be fine. It's just that IB is a huge jump for a lot of people and it weeds a lot of people out, but once you know what your teachers and IB exactly want, you're good to go. That seems like a good school if nobody has gotten under 38 btw. 

 

CAS stands for Creativity, Action and Service. It's pretty much extracurriculars you do outside of school and anything counts. For the new curriculum, they're not counting hours. You just need to do 12 activities over the span of two years. One of the activities has to fit under two of the three categories and another has to be an issue of global importance (for example I'm collaborating with other IB kids on a gender inequality blog). Just do what you are passionate about and also, don't be afraid to try something new. 

 

What you can do for creativity: take art classes, learn a new language, learn an instrument etc.

 

Action: join a sports team/club, go to the gym etc.

 

Service: it's basically volunteer work. See if your school keeps you updated on volunteer opportunities. 

[sjhingran]

How you're doing now doesn't necessarily reflect how you're going to do when you actually enter IB, but I'd say you'll be fine. It's just that IB is a huge jump for a lot of people and it weeds a lot of people out, but once you know what your teachers and IB exactly want, you're good to go. That seems like a good school if nobody has gotten under 38 btw. 

 

CAS stands for Creativity, Action and Service. It's pretty much extracurriculars you do outside of school and anything counts. For the new curriculum, they're not counting hours. You just need to do 12 activities over the span of two years. One of the activities has to fit under two of the three categories and another has to be an issue of global importance (for example I'm collaborating with other IB kids on a gender inequality blog). Just do what you are passionate about and also, don't be afraid to try something new. 

 

What you can do for creativity: take art classes, learn a new language, learn an instrument etc.

 

Action: join a sports team/club, go to the gym etc.

 

Service: it's basically volunteer work. See if your school keeps you updated on volunteer opportunities. 

 

Oohhh! Thanks! I didn't know what CAS was entirely until this

Would you say that doing lots of curricular activities (outside of what you have to do for CAS) is worthwhile for wanting to study Medicine, or should I just focus on IB and academia more?

[sjhingran]

I want to study medicine and I'm trying to start doing UMAT past papers and what not now. So if any of you have good websites for FREE sample questions and past papers please link me!

[ShootingStar16]

I think there should be a balance between school and extracurriculars. You should also make room for a social life. It's good to be involved in lots of things, but make sure you actually enjoy the things you are involved in and don't overwhelm yourself too much by taking way too many extracurriculars. 

[King112]

 

Oohhh! Thanks! I didn't know what CAS was entirely until this

Would you say that doing lots of curricular activities (outside of what you have to do for CAS) is worthwhile for wanting to study Medicine, or should I just focus on IB and academia more?

 

You should focus on everything. I play guitar in a band. I get CAS hours, but my band was formed with just the aim of trying out for the Battle of the Bands. Plus, colleges like people who do more stuff, so it will look cool to say "I did dhadhdahda". 

And while you need to focus on grades, take time of. You need to chill, or IB will burn you out. Simple as that.

[ShootingStar16]

 

 

Oohhh! Thanks! I didn't know what CAS was entirely until this

Would you say that doing lots of curricular activities (outside of what you have to do for CAS) is worthwhile for wanting to study Medicine, or should I just focus on IB and academia more?

 

You should focus on everything. I play guitar in a band. I get CAS hours, but my band was formed with just the aim of trying out for the Battle of the Bands. Plus, colleges like people who do more stuff, so it will look cool to say "I did dhadhdahda". 

And while you need to focus on grades, take time of. You need to chill, or IB will burn you out. Simple as that.

 

But don't universities look at depth more than breadth for extracurriculars? Because if you actually enjoy your extracurriculars, you have a lot more to talk about on essays/applications, but yeah I agree on how you will burn out in IB if you put yourself through way too much stress.

Edited April 1, 2015 by ShootingStar16

[sjhingran]

 

 

 

Oohhh! Thanks! I didn't know what CAS was entirely until this

Would you say that doing lots of curricular activities (outside of what you have to do for CAS) is worthwhile for wanting to study Medicine, or should I just focus on IB and academia more?

 

You should focus on everything. I play guitar in a band. I get CAS hours, but my band was formed with just the aim of trying out for the Battle of the Bands. Plus, colleges like people who do more stuff, so it will look cool to say "I did dhadhdahda". 

And while you need to focus on grades, take time of. You need to chill, or IB will burn you out. Simple as that.

 

But don't universities look at depth more than breadth for extracurriculars? Because if you actually enjoy your extracurriculars, you have a lot more to talk about on essays/applications, but yeah I agree on how you will burn out in IB if you put yourself through way too much stress.

 

 

Thanks for the advice everyone! Would going for exchange internationally for two weeks be a good, worthwhile? I've always been really keen on doing so and the school is now offering places! What do you all think?

[Maha]

I had a look at the syllabus and some general information on all of the subjects that I'm planning to take, and none of it (particularly SL Maths) is very difficult, which is good. This probably means that IB is focused on workload rather than content? Or is this just me?

It is good that you do not feel that they are difficult. 

IB focus on workload and content, but like the internal assessment in all the subject they need more work than just knowing the content.

  Math SL is not very difficult and is not easy, the exam questions sometimes are tricky. But since you have high grade know, you will not have any problems with the IB. The good thing about IB that you know what exactly you need to know in all the subjects, which make it much easier. 

[ibprincess]

 

before ib, what sort of grades have you been getting? if for year 9 and 10 you've benn first or second in all your clases i would recommend hsc as hsc rewards ou a lot more for being first in your classes. in hsc, you only need 10 units (were most subjects are 2 units so 5 subjects) but in ib, with your subject combo, you're doing equivalent to 15+ units so you're doing a lot more +tok/ee/cas 

 

My grades are all A's apart from Photography, but that's a Year 10 elective so no worries. As a ranking, I believe I'm ranked around a 5 out of the 150 cohort - so I'm doing fairly well? Is this good enough for a 45? I don't know!

Hmm, it seems like my school isn't too strong in the HSC and our curriculum is based around IB so a large portion of the students take IB for this reason. No one in our school really gets an IB mark under 38.

the way nsw schools that offer ib and hsc work is that in general, the top 50% of the grade takes ib while the bottom 50% takes hsc which is completely 3807035% wrong. if you're ranked 5/150, you're in the upper part of the cohort, and i'd say almost definetly those people ranked higher than you will be taking ib so you should be able to get ranked 1/75 if you chose to take hsc. the thing you said about being 5/150 maybe being good enough for a 45 is completely wrong and that is a hsc mentality. ib has no ranking and hypothetically its possible to be ranked lowest in the cohort and still have a grade of 45 if your cohort is just really smart and really small and its a very unlikely hypothetical but is possible. hsc only rewards students who are top of their cohort (you) while in ib the mark of others doesn't affect your mark and therefor you can get a good mark without being top of a course. hsc classes are easier than ib, for example hsc history has 4 topics, ib history has 16, continuers languages in hsc get you to the same level as beginners levels in ib, science courses are completely different (hsc is theory based, ib is practice based), literature courses are incomparable. on top of harder subjects, you have ee tok cas which make life a lot harder.

 

also you said that your schools hsc marks are not great so people chose ib but you're wrong actually. your schools hsc marks are not good because the top half of the year takes ib, so the weaker students are left in hsc which is not how the system should be played but it is. this is really shown in results from 2013 i think because a sydney girls private school that offers ib had 9 students receive 45's while James ruse (top academic school in sydney) had 5 students get 99.95 atars. this is because in hsc its impossible for more than 25-30 or so students to receive a 99.95 while any number can get it in ib. so yeah that sydney girls school had a low ranking on the hsc scores chart because their best marks were in hsc. you can see this looking at trinity grammar, mlc, and newington from the top of my head where they don't have great academic rankings but amazing ib scores.

 

i personally think doing hsc will be more beneficial to you because you will quite easily get ranked 1st or 2nd in each of your classes, you can take fewer classes that are easier and you could do really well in hsc.

[flinquinnster]

 

 

before ib, what sort of grades have you been getting? if for year 9 and 10 you've benn first or second in all your clases i would recommend hsc as hsc rewards ou a lot more for being first in your classes. in hsc, you only need 10 units (were most subjects are 2 units so 5 subjects) but in ib, with your subject combo, you're doing equivalent to 15+ units so you're doing a lot more +tok/ee/cas 

 

My grades are all A's apart from Photography, but that's a Year 10 elective so no worries. As a ranking, I believe I'm ranked around a 5 out of the 150 cohort - so I'm doing fairly well? Is this good enough for a 45? I don't know!

Hmm, it seems like my school isn't too strong in the HSC and our curriculum is based around IB so a large portion of the students take IB for this reason. No one in our school really gets an IB mark under 38.

the way nsw schools that offer ib and hsc work is that in general, the top 50% of the grade takes ib while the bottom 50% takes hsc which is completely 3807035% wrong. if you're ranked 5/150, you're in the upper part of the cohort, and i'd say almost definetly those people ranked higher than you will be taking ib so you should be able to get ranked 1/75 if you chose to take hsc. the thing you said about being 5/150 maybe being good enough for a 45 is completely wrong and that is a hsc mentality. ib has no ranking and hypothetically its possible to be ranked lowest in the cohort and still have a grade of 45 if your cohort is just really smart and really small and its a very unlikely hypothetical but is possible. hsc only rewards students who are top of their cohort (you) while in ib the mark of others doesn't affect your mark and therefor you can get a good mark without being top of a course. hsc classes are easier than ib, for example hsc history has 4 topics, ib history has 16, continuers languages in hsc get you to the same level as beginners levels in ib, science courses are completely different (hsc is theory based, ib is practice based), literature courses are incomparable. on top of harder subjects, you have ee tok cas which make life a lot harder.

 

also you said that your schools hsc marks are not great so people chose ib but you're wrong actually. your schools hsc marks are not good because the top half of the year takes ib, so the weaker students are left in hsc which is not how the system should be played but it is. this is really shown in results from 2013 i think because a sydney girls private school that offers ib had 9 students receive 45's while James ruse (top academic school in sydney) had 5 students get 99.95 atars. this is because in hsc its impossible for more than 25-30 or so students to receive a 99.95 while any number can get it in ib. so yeah that sydney girls school had a low ranking on the hsc scores chart because their best marks were in hsc. you can see this looking at trinity grammar, mlc, and newington from the top of my head where they don't have great academic rankings but amazing ib scores.

 

i personally think doing hsc will be more beneficial to you because you will quite easily get ranked 1st or 2nd in each of your classes, you can take fewer classes that are easier and you could do really well in hsc.

 

 

 

I wasn't going to chip in here, but after reading the discussion and because I'm procrastinating on my uni revision, I thought I would give my general thoughts on HSC vs IB. (There's also a lot of school-specific thoughts that I have since OP and I went to the same school, but I won't detail that too much here). 

 

I'm going to disagree entirely with ibprincess - I think that if you are aiming for a 45/99.95 (and indeed, a 42+/99+) you would be remarkably unwise to do anything other than IB. 

 

Firstly, I would dispute the notion that HSC is intrinsically less work than IB if you want to do well. I won't deny that CAS/EE/TOK is an additional requirement that's not encountered in HSC - but I think that especially with CAS, to a large extent it would be happening in HSC anyway. You may end up taking fewer subjects overall, but if you do, often you will end up doing more in those specific subjects - e.g. extension subjects. Although IB subjects may be more intellectually rigorous (although this is a bit controversial, I think it is true - that's partially why I chose IB), I also don't think that necessarily makes it harder - I found it actually easier/more interesting to study. Also, if you do want to be ranking top, that requires hard work, even if the cohort may not be of the same standard as in IB. There's also the element of competition which can make it more stressful. 

 

I believe (though I'm not certain on this!) that to get 99+/99.95 ATARs in HSC, it is not only your ranking within your school cohort, but ranking within the state cohort that matters. Although I completely agree with ibprincess that it is deeply unfortunate that a two-tier system has arisen in a lot of NSW schools, it is the case (and I think particularly for OP) that IB gets better resources and teachers generally. There is also the school's ulterior motive of focussing on keeping IB scores high, as to maintain their advertising campaigns - HSC tends to receive less prominence for them. Even though the higher IB scores vs HSC ATARs is a reflection of the students who choose the respective programs, I think that there is actually something else going on there as well.

 

Really, I think the strongest argument for doing IB if you are aiming for a 99.95 is that by putting in hard work there is a much greater degree of certainty that you will actually end up getting a 99.95 (or even 99+). HSC's scaling system is remarkably opaque, with many myths sprouting up about certain subjects - and is ultimately dependent on how everyone else does. IB does of course have shifting grade boundaries as a quasi-scaling system, but the grade boundary shifts are far smaller and more explicable by the difficulty of particular papers. Also, once you can predict what grade out of 7 you can get for each subject, you have a pretty certain idea of what your IB score and hence ATAR is going to be, even with conversion changes - there are ATAR calculators for HSC but they are far more complex, being based on 0.05 gradations and weird scaling, rather than clearly apportioned integer points out of 45. 

 

So, even if you think you may have topped every subject at your school, HSC gives you far less certainty as to whether you can get 99.95. With a strong cohort in IB, if you've done the equivalent, then it is more certain that you will have done enough to get a 45 - though that still does depend remarkably on luck. It's true that your actual ranking in IB doesn't matter, but if your school is able to maintain a regular trend in IB scores, it does give you a strong indication of where your ATAR might fall. Moreover, you have a strong idea of what percentage improvement you need to reach 7s, so you can work up to that point to reach it. 

 

It was that certainty which led me to choose IB over HSC - even though it's not really that massive a thing, I thought that there was increased 'peace of mind' in knowing that in previous years of IB our school had gotten multiple 45s, whereas there were very few 99+ ATARs in HSC. Even if I could have done the same in HSC (which I doubt very very much, though if someone's willing to pay me, I'd totally be up for retaking high school with HSC!) it would have been inherently less certain and more stressful, at least at our school.

 

Even though I am massively biased, I would wholeheartedly suggest taking the IB. Of course, it varies between different schools in NSW and indeed different people, but I think that - as unfortunate as I agree that it is - it is preferable for those aiming for 99.95. A 45 is by no means impossible, although it does depend so much on hard work and sometimes chance - good luck!

[45outof45]

I'm the first out of my family and friends to do IB so everything is very new to me.

I just wan't to know what it's like and whether I've made the right choice in doing IB, or whether the HSC is more suited to me. (I'm from Australia)

The subjects I am planning to do are HL English, HL Biology, HL Economics, SL Latin, SL Maths and SL Chemistry. 

I'm aiming to get a 45 and study Medicine at the University of Sydney (which I know don't really take UMAT that far into consideration)

What type of person/learner is suited to IB?

Generally, I'm a memorising type of learner (everything needs to be seared in my mind for me to understand it), a bit of a stress ball and I prefer an assignment over an exam any day. 

Keeping this informal and chill lol, what do you all think?

Tell me anything and everything about the IB because at the moment I can't even pronounce Baccalaureate

Thanks!

Take it from me, 45outof45. Listen noob, you can get a 45 if you believe in yourself. That's all it takes: hope and dreams. Don't listen to these other scrubs. When I was helping my friend, 44outof45, he could have gotten 45, but he didn't believe. Sjhingran, how the heck do you pronounce that? Anyway dream hard nub. That's all you need. 

 

BTW N00B:

This is how you pronounce baccalaureate: bak-uh-lawr-ee-it. 

[lucettafetta]

For HL Bio, memorisation is essential - so that's really handy that you learn that way.