karenzae Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 I think the concern in Ontario is not so much with the students who are excelling in IB (who, I agree, will get into pretty much any Canadian university regardless of whether they are given preference for being in IB) but for the students who are struggling in IB. I know plenty of kids who had averages in the 80s or even 90s in middle school who have now dropped to 60-70 averages. One of my friends left IB with a low 70 average, and she now has a high 80 average in an academic program. A lot of the kids who struggle with IB are smart enough and hard working enough to get into most Canadian Universities, I'm just not sure if the universities recognize this. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
__inthemaking Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 All this preference stuff is making me quite jealous, as we in the UK receive no such thing. Actually often it counts against us as many people don't realise exactly what the IB entails! Sucks, rather.Anything which translated into being 100% is just ... wow! I can't imagine getting that high on any exam. Is the normal Ontario qualification really easy enough that people can achieve 100%?Haha it depends on how each school decides to translate the marks.At my school, what the IBC did was translate your marks based on your rank in the course prior to IB exams. So the reason I got 100 in bio was because in the bio SL course, I was getting a 96 before IB exams and that was the top mark in the class. That means I get the 100%. The secondly top ranked student in the class would get 99% (if they received a 7 in their IB exam), the third would get 98 etc. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
moneyfaery Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 I think the concern in Ontario is not so much with the students who are excelling in IB (who, I agree, will get into pretty much any Canadian university regardless of whether they are given preference for being in IB) but for the students who are struggling in IB. I know plenty of kids who had averages in the 80s or even 90s in middle school who have now dropped to 60-70 averages. One of my friends left IB with a low 70 average, and she now has a high 80 average in an academic program. A lot of the kids who struggle with IB are smart enough and hard working enough to get into most Canadian Universities, I'm just not sure if the universities recognize this.Perhaps your teachers are not adequately trained i.e. not marking according to IB guidelines. I was predicted 4s and 5s alllllll year long for Bio SL, yet I achieved a 7. Interesting enough, this is what prevented me from achieving 100% in the course. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NA19 Posted July 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Yes, I know that we do have conversions that help us. But the fact is, the workload IS higher than the Academic program. Not to mention all the extra things that we have to do, such as EE and CAS. These are great things and they are what contribute to making IBs better people, and to help them succeed in the future. Should universities not recognize that? As for international students who are in IB, they may not have such conversions as Ontario students do, so is it not only fair that the universities give a 5-10% buffer to all IB students who apply? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
moneyfaery Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Yes, I know that we do have conversions that help us. But the fact is, the workload IS higher than the Academic program. Not to mention all the extra things that we have to do, such as EE and CAS. These are great things and they are what contribute to making IBs better people, and to help them succeed in the future. Should universities not recognize that? As for international students who are in IB, they may not have such conversions as Ontario students do, so is it not only fair that the universities give a 5-10% buffer to all IB students who apply?Academic students have extracurriculars as well... frankly, competitive programs such as the ones in the Ivy Leagues require ECs, so EE/CAS only help. The extra workload is compensated by the conversion for home students. For internationals, there are a ton of different programs out there all with varying workloads. It would be ridiculous ranking one system over another as they all have their pros and cons.I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but IB is recognized in that you're granted transfer credits. If you want, you can skip courses and save money on course fees and textbooks, not to mention graduate early. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1-2-3 Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Universities give preference to students who have high academic averages, good community involvement and the kind of attitude that causes them to choose a difficult and competitive high school program.i.e. Indirectly, universities do prefer IB students not because they are IB but because they are ^ all of the above. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
master135 Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 All this preference stuff is making me quite jealous, as we in the UK receive no such thing. Actually often it counts against us as many people don't realise exactly what the IB entails! Sucks, rather.Anything which translated into being 100% is just ... wow! I can't imagine getting that high on any exam. Is the normal Ontario qualification really easy enough that people can achieve 100%?No...its quite impossible to get 100 in normal Ontario courses. For the past years the highest average student in my district ends up being an IB student since its easier getting those 100s. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
moneyfaery Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 All this preference stuff is making me quite jealous, as we in the UK receive no such thing. Actually often it counts against us as many people don't realise exactly what the IB entails! Sucks, rather.Anything which translated into being 100% is just ... wow! I can't imagine getting that high on any exam. Is the normal Ontario qualification really easy enough that people can achieve 100%?No...its quite impossible to get 100 in normal Ontario courses. For the past years the highest average student in my district ends up being an IB student since its easier getting those 100s.Oh yeah, another thing. You know those 'Top Scholars' who end up getting ridiculous averages like 99.7 or 100?? (we have one on our forum) Well, they're IB. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
__inthemaking Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 (edited) Lol, Irene is right. Actually most of the students in the top 10 consists of IB students.I was Top Scholar 2008 for my region with a 99.17% average and 6 of my IB friends were also in the top 10. I forget what all of them got, I know the second student (a classmate of mine) had 98.6%, and my best friend got 98.3%. This year, a girl from my high school got Top Scholar 2009..she beat me, she got 99.33% . It would've been impossible for me to get a 99% average without IB..so I'm definitely grateful towards IB/generous Ontario conversions for that . But as master135 said, it's pretty much impossible to get 100% in the normal academic stream in Ontario..maybe in grades 9/10 it would've been possible, but definitely not by grade 12. Edited July 23, 2009 by __inthemaking Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomlilnikki Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 A guy from the IB came to our school and said that while Universities (this is in Australia anyway) don't give a specific preference to IB or OP (the mainstream course), they do like IB students better because they tend to stick it through and not drop out. Probably because there is nothing worse than the IB, even first year uni isn't as bad. Honestly. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetnsimple786 Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 I'm pretty sure uni is worse. Experiences vary greatly, but even my friends who say their first year at their respective colleges weren't so bad admit that it's because IB prepared them, not just because of what they had to do in IB but also because of the skills they developed from the tasks. It's just that we grow from doing IB so we can handle harder things. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Matter Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 I personally don't think universities should give preference to IBs ... especially when other people may not have had a chance to take IB. I know that in my city (not sure about the province as a whole) there are only two schools that actually offer IB. Some of the other high schools offer AP, but I am not sure if all of them do. So I think that it is unfair to give preference to IBs or APS. Just because a student doesn't start off in a good program doesn't mean they can't achieve the same marks as the other students or be less successful. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
greaterthaninfinity Posted July 24, 2009 Report Share Posted July 24, 2009 Agree to an extent with all of the fellow Ontarioans (is that a word? haha). Universities here definitely already give preference to IB kids as a result of the mark conversion system.However, I have to say that it is definitely easier in the academic programme to obtain low nineties. Most of my friends in non-IB (a skewed sample size, so you have to take this with a grain of salt) plateau at the 92-94 range. It is VERY hard for them to get high nineties because I'm sure that even super geniuses are very very liable to making mistakes. However, with the IB programme, your mark is totally NOT a reflection of the number of stupid mistakes you make but your true ability to grasp certain concepts (as there is such a large percent range for each of the IB grade levels).I also think that in general, on IB exams, unless you just cruise for the entire year or are just overloading yourself with too many hard subjects and extracurriculars, most people will be able to achieve fives even if they are not "naturally gifted" at the subject. Hence, IB makes getting an average in the 80s very easy.Besides, most programmes in Ontario aren't competitive in the first place. Being in IB, we already get a lot of special treatment, IMO. If we start asking for me, it'd be unfair to the academic students. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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