nonstop Posted January 29, 2012 Report Share Posted January 29, 2012 I'm in Grade 11 IB (aka Year 1) in an Ontario public school and my question is, if I'm getting 70s on my report card, is university going to give me higher marks? I know that the general perception is that your marks decrease by 5-15% as you transition from high school to uni but that I think only applies to the Academic (ie regular high school) program. IB is significantly harder than Academic in my school atleast.My coordinator says that IB is harder than anything you will ever do in your future, but he's probably biased. I've heard that IB is just as hard as first year but then university gets harder. I've hard from separate sources that first-year uni is the hardest of all 4 years (ie it gets easier). I even know IB graduates who end up doing mediocre in university.There's just so much conflicting information out there. I'd love to know your opinion on the issue. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Award Winning Boss Posted January 29, 2012 Report Share Posted January 29, 2012 No. University is harder. Your teacher is just saying that to make you work hard. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imma Be Posted January 29, 2012 Report Share Posted January 29, 2012 It honestly depends on the school.If it's a local community college then IB will probably have been harder. If it's Harvard or Oxford then Ib was nothing. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shweta Garg Posted January 30, 2012 Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 It depends on the school you go to. My brother completed IB and goes to ASU in Arizona and says classes like Chemistry are fairly easy since he took IB Chem SL. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted January 30, 2012 Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 Well I think it depends partly on your talents, the University and of course what course you do. I find my University course harder than IB in many respects. It's difficult to call - University has been very difficult, but then now I'm taking subjects I'm good at rather than compulsory subjects I suck at (Maths) so in that sense even though it's hard, I feel less out of my depth now than I did before. Intellectually I've not struggled with anything as much as I struggled with IB Maths. On the other hand, if you think there's a lot of content to learn for the IB you'll be laughing at how naiive you were when you get to Uni. You have to learn in a single lecture what you used to spend a week doing. Then you have to teach it to yourself and consider the fact you might have 4-5 lectures a day, plus have to do extra reading to get the top grades. Content-wise, IB = paddling, Uni = drowning. Generally I think Uni is hard. For sure my marks have gone down, but grading is on a totally different scale here from at school. Back there 80% was a 7. Here, 70% is a 1st and you should be damn proud if you get one of those 5 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dessskris Posted January 30, 2012 Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 however, you know in some countries, some universities are just really really bad they're not teaching you much and you can easily graduate. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonstop Posted January 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 Interesting. I guess it's hard to come up with a conclusion since not only do different universities teach/mark differently, but also that IB high schools have different thresholds for converting a percentage grade into an (predicted) IB grade. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jallie Posted January 30, 2012 Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 I have a friend who finished IB last year and is at Harvard taking English now - he came back over Christmas and told us struggling DP kids that high school was harder than Harvard Then again, he is a super-genius, so I guess it depends both on you and the university you go to. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonstop Posted January 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2012 I've heard that IB is harder than university from a lot of returning students too. Like, not harder in terms of the content (goes w/o saying), but harder in terms of the workload. But it really depends in which school you do the IB. From the perspective of the IBO, IB is just 6 courses with a couple of IAs and an exam each and the EE/CAS thrown in, which really isn't too stressful, but in my school we have like tests/quizzes/presentations/assignments due every day. We were literally given a weekend to read King Lear on our own. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrypton Posted February 4, 2012 Report Share Posted February 4, 2012 University is harder Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peanut Butter Jelly Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 Well, it depends on what/where you're studying. If you're studying math at waterloo, I can see why university would be much harder. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jess1ca Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 (edited) Well I think it depends partly on your talents, the University and of course what course you do. I find my University course harder than IB in many respects. It's difficult to call - University has been very difficult, but then now I'm taking subjects I'm good at rather than compulsory subjects I suck at (Maths) so in that sense even though it's hard, I feel less out of my depth now than I did before. Intellectually I've not struggled with anything as much as I struggled with IB Maths. Generally I think Uni is hard. For sure my marks have gone down, but grading is on a totally different scale here from at school. Back there 80% was a 7. Here, 70% is a 1st and you should be damn proud if you get one of those What? For us, a 96 + is a 7... I hear people say that university is easier, but some how I'm not convinced! It depends on the university program I guess Edited February 5, 2012 by SmilingAtLife:) Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 What? For us, a 96 + is a 7... I hear people say that university is easier, but some how I'm not convinced! It depends on the university program I guess That's the weird Canadian internal grading system, it boosts everything to artificially high numbers. So 96 is a 7, but it's also quite possible to obtain 96% if you put the effort in because (one assumes) the exams are easy. Or some other mysterious way of twisting numbers to unrealistically high levels, anyway! Are Canadian %s based on classwork and homework? Because that might also underlie it! Anyway I'm not 100% sure how it is that grades suffer the massive inflation that goes on in Canada! When you sit your actual IB exams, the IB level for a 7 is around 80% - but because the exams are harder, it's very difficult to get above 80%! If you can get 96% in your final IB exams you're a helluva brain Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocfx Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 (edited) Yea, well... The way I see it, having taken a pretty tough subject combo in the Diploma programme and now studying Chemical engineering in Finland's most respected technical university (Aalto), is that IB definitely is a quite a bit easier for a number of reasons. I mean obviously the IB prepares you for academic and critical thinking that you won't necessarily get in regular high school curriculum, which has definitely been useful for me, but the amount of work still doesn't match what I'm doing here. I mean a single course exam can cover as much material as the entire IB syllabus for say Chem HL. For instance, I had my first organic chemistry course in the autumn and the course material was a oxford university book; out of which the course covered 360 pages of pretty heavy chemistry. And then there's the other practice work that is pretty essential if you want to pass a course without killing yourself before the exam, which is a lot more than homework on IB.Having said that, it really depends on what your going to study, because in engineering sciences universities expect you to have a good basis in math and other sciences, whereas when you start studying psychology for example the course might begin right from the basics. Edited February 5, 2012 by ocfx Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summer Glau Posted February 5, 2012 Report Share Posted February 5, 2012 What? For us, a 96 + is a 7... I hear people say that university is easier, but some how I'm not convinced! It depends on the university program I guess That's the weird Canadian internal grading system, it boosts everything to artificially high numbers. So 96 is a 7, but it's also quite possible to obtain 96% if you put the effort in because (one assumes) the exams are easy. Or some other mysterious way of twisting numbers to unrealistically high levels, anyway! Are Canadian %s based on classwork and homework? Because that might also underlie it! Anyway I'm not 100% sure how it is that grades suffer the massive inflation that goes on in Canada! When you sit your actual IB exams, the IB level for a 7 is around 80% - but because the exams are harder, it's very difficult to get above 80%! If you can get 96% in your final IB exams you're a helluva brain @SmilingatLife - I think you're thinking of it backwards. You get a 7 if you score 80%+ or whatever the grade boundary is for that subject, according what IB sets. If you get a 7 according to those IB standards, then your mark for that subject on your Ontario diploma gets converted to 96%+. So if I got 85% in IB chemistry, then I would get a 7, according to IB mark boundaries. That 85% would get converted to 96% or higher for my Ontario grade. If the IB boundary was 96% for a 7, it would be extremely difficult to get a 7 in any subject! If your teachers are telling you that you need to get 96% or higher on your IB exams to get a 7, then they aren't doing it right! Show the the IB grade boundaries and explain to them that they convert to 96% AFTER you get a 7 according to the grade boundaries. @Sandwich - Yes Canadian %s can be based on classwork but usually IB stuff has a higher effect on your grades. It's a mind-boggling system at times, I know To reply to the original question, I've heard that people find first year easier because the workload in IB and first year is pretty much the same or less. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonstop Posted February 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2012 If the IB boundary was 96% for a 7, it would be extremely difficult to get a 7 in any subject! Exactly! There's way too many people in my class who think they need to score a 97 in school work to get a 7, when the highest mark in the class is like a 91. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeekChloe Posted February 18, 2012 Report Share Posted February 18, 2012 I am honestly so confused about the marks looking at what people above said. My school says 96+ is a 7...so confused. I finished Grade 11 HL Chem with an 88..so that is a 5? Anyways, at my school IB is considered first/second year university coursework. I think what you gain mainly that will help you in university are analytical skills and good work habits. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summer Glau Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 I am honestly so confused about the marks looking at what people above said. My school says 96+ is a 7...so confused. I finished Grade 11 HL Chem with an 88..so that is a 5?Anyways, at my school IB is considered first/second year university coursework. I think what you gain mainly that will help you in university are analytical skills and good work habits.96+ is a 7, but after your grade has been converted. If you finished chem with an 88 after conversion (ie if you got 88 on your report card) then that corresponds to a 5. If you got an 88 before conversion, then you got a 7 as the IB boundary for a 7 in chem HL is about 80%. In that case, you report card mark should be 96% or higher (probably 97%). Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wombat123 Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 I am honestly so confused about the marks looking at what people above said. My school says 96+ is a 7...so confused. I finished Grade 11 HL Chem with an 88..so that is a 5?Anyways, at my school IB is considered first/second year university coursework. I think what you gain mainly that will help you in university are analytical skills and good work habits.96+ is a 7, but after your grade has been converted. If you finished chem with an 88 after conversion (ie if you got 88 on your report card) then that corresponds to a 5. If you got an 88 before conversion, then you got a 7 as the IB boundary for a 7 in chem HL is about 80%. In that case, you report card mark should be 96% or higher (probably 97%).Which school and who your teacher is depends on how your grades are converted. For example, my chem teacher isn't the most generous with conversions, so an 88% still might not be a 7...and there are other teachers who don't bother converting your marks at all. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
precious22 Posted March 10, 2012 Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 I used to hear IB is harder than university too. But when I experience university myself, now i have to say that university IS HARDER than IB. IB is nothing compared to university. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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