IB or A Levels

I think Cambridge and Harvard probably ARE hard though, whatever qualifications you had to get there.

IB is harder! My brother is super smart (went on to Cambridge/Harvard) and still found it hard and didn't get top top marks in his IB

A bit late to this but...
My dd was absolutely an all-rounder although she was pretty set on her uni subject choice quite early on. She felt really sad at having to give up so many subjects at sixth form - I wondered about IB but locally she would have had to go to an independent school (which we couldn't have afforded) and in any case there was no way she would have agreed to leave her school which she loved.
So she picked her A levels and didn't regret them. The one subject she missed the most at A level she is now doing as additional study at uni.
She is at uni with a lot of IB students and I gather that they have all found the workload very intense and the expectations very high. She doesn't seem to feel that anyone has a particular advantage/disadvantage. I think doing NEAs as part of her A levels has been beneficial though (but possibly only because of the type of subject she is doing).

[quote TizerorFizz]@Dancingdreamer
I think it’s difficult measuring success by first class degrees too. It wholly depends on university attended. As I mused above, the IB suits very intelligent all rounders who seek out schools offering the qualification. They have the advantage of being bilingual as evidenced by Ofsted at the Cambridgeshire school. They might have very intellectual parents too! The DC who couldn’t achieve very highly elect not to do the IB and change schools. So it’s a bit like saying grammar school DC do better then secondary modern DC. Of course they do.[/quote]
The research I found (can’t remember where as it was a few years ago) compared results within institutions not generally across all universities and looked at 1sts and 2.1s.

@RampantIvy
Yes, it is high at 52 points across 8 gcse subjects. So a 6.5 average. I guess there are requirements for subjects that the students want to do at higher, but then many schools might say the same for A level requirements.
I’m not sure how that compares to other grammar schools for 6th form entry, or 6th form colleges. Though there aren’t really any 6th form colleges hat do A levels or IB in this area, a vast majority of those students taking those pathways will stay at school, or move to another school.

The school achieves a very high average points score each year

Well it is very selective, so you would expect that. I imagine that anyone not doing well will be managed out.

@Veronica25
One of my DC went to Dartford Grammar and loved it. Fully IB at 6th Form (which I am sure you already know) and great support with all aspects of the IB. Great teachers, in my experience, who know the criteria and syllabus of the IB very well.

The school achieves a very high average points score each year - I recall it being over 38 for the last few years, which will get you into a vast majority of universities - although obvs you do need to take into account university requirements for Higher level subjects as many do not just base their offer on overall points.

Lots of girls join from other local (and not so local) schools at 6th form - in my DC's year it was an almost 50:50 gender split at 6th form.

A huge variety of different universitites and courses from amongst the peer group - check out the school website, they show destination data in good detail.

@Dancingdreamer
I think it’s difficult measuring success by first class degrees too. It wholly depends on university attended. As I mused above, the IB suits very intelligent all rounders who seek out schools offering the qualification. They have the advantage of being bilingual as evidenced by Ofsted at the Cambridgeshire school. They might have very intellectual parents too! The DC who couldn’t achieve very highly elect not to do the IB and change schools. So it’s a bit like saying grammar school DC do better then secondary modern DC. Of course they do.

We looked at IB for my indecisive eldest DS who wanted to keep their options open academically. He was really tempted as he loved the breadth and whole ethos behind IB. In the end, however, we discounted it because if you are really strong in one area eg arts subjects but not maths and sciences, it is really hard to get the grades you need to get the overall IB score you need for top universities. Many are asking for a minimum of 38 points which means getting 6 and above in all the subjects across the board. Not easy if you are not a natural linguist etc. And the demands in grades for the HL subjects at some unis seemed so high compared to A levels eg asking for 7 in HL maths (which is widely accepted as more difficult than A level Maths) when only an A is required in A level.

My son, a keen sportsman, also thought that the extra, and prescriptive, demands of CAS would clash with the demands of his sport. Then if he failed this or any part of the programme, he failed the whole IB. With A level he could do the extra curriculars he wanted and there was no pass fail associated with this. And if he failed an A level, he still held the others.

IB also promotes that IB students perform better at university (by proportions of top class degrees) however, the data and evidence shows that IB students tend to have achieved higher grades than A level students on entry (which probably says something about the entry requirements universities are asking for from IB students). When you compare students with the same UCAS score, the IB students don’t actually perform significantly better.

Very few DC select themselves out of grammar 6th forms. But yes, where there’s a myriad of choice and options, it’s great. Less great where there’s not. But even Ofsted seem to suggest it’s the go to school for international students.

I’m interested to know if pupils “select” themselves out at 6th form

Well, sort of but don't they for all 6th form choices? The provision in Cambridge and surrounding areas is pretty good. We don't have the grammar system so no state before 6th form is selective. Students tend to choose 6th forms based on their requirements. That may well be A-levels, especially for those who want to go STEM heavy at Uni and there are a good range of technical 6th forms as well. For my humanities child who is also very good at maths and wants a specific career, IB is a good choice. For others, they might choose the 6th form which is well known for its Arts programme, or its Sports programme. I don't actually think one is better than the other, I think different qualifications suit different people. We are lucky here that we get that choice.

There are a tiny number of state schools offering IB. Very large 6th form colleges but few schools with, say, 300-500 in a 6th form could offer it on top of A levels and BTecs. Most comprehensives are not full of DC who could manage it. In my view it’s not worth a long commute to get IB over A levels.

The Cambridgeshire school mentioned above has a lot of new DC in the 6th form. Especially international DC. It therefore seems that a number of pupils might have to leave if they are not academically strong enough for IB. It’s not a selective school for y7, but I’m interested to know if pupils “select” themselves out at 6th form. Ofsted mention SEND 6th form pupils have different provision and GCSEs start in y9 thus diminishing the breadth of the curriculum offered in y9. Ofsted want to see this changed as pupils are not offered the national curriculum in y9. So broader in the 6th form and narrower elsewhere!!

Plenty of US offers this year (A level).

IB doesn't seem to have any advantages other than being broader than just 3 A levels.

@TizerorFizz

Probably the same one that Temporaryanonymity went to as they have been offering IB for around 30 years. It's just outside Cambridge if you're interested in googling.

OP, I wanted to add that I too come from an international background ( am an expatriate ) and I do know US unis like the IB. Though this doesn't mean they don't take A level students. Just that they like all rounders and it is easy to demonstrate that with the IB. You may not be considering US unis but on the off chance....

If I were you, I would also look carefully at UK unis offers for IB and A levels. Some make very high offers for the IB, some do not. The other thing to consider is which HL subjects your child may take and the workload involved. DS friends who have taken HL Maths, Physics and Computer Science are having a hard time; others who have taken slightly less punishing subjects at HL are doing better.

If you take the IB diploma the prerequisite A level requirement is just replaced with an HL subject requirement. My ds’s course required A level maths grade A minimum or HL maths 5 points minimum.
Many of my ds’s cohort went on to stem degrees in UK so IB does not seem to be a barrier to entry.

Should add our local 6th form college offers it but it does have 4500 students so can offer a very broad range of options

It's great for those going onto arts and humanities at university or subjects that don't require a prerequisite a level (not mfl though) as it's broad. Not so great for sciences ad they are not taught to such depth so don't have prerequisite knowledge. Suits some students not others learning style wise

I did IB albeit a billion years ago. I was an all rounder but it was lots of work and teachers who taught both said it was more exacting. At the time most universities didn’t understand it so offers were odd - too low too high or odd combinations compared to their Alevel asks.

Our (indie academic) school has decided 3 A levels plus an epq/core maths/language Delft/AS in a couple of subjects plus extra curricular sport/music/art/entrepreneurship produce a broader, happier student so have done away with the IB. That's their logic anyway and still getting plenty into top unis so either approach works.

I thought everyone agreed we are talking about the IB diploma. This gives more choice for students who want to continue with a broader spectrum of subjects and do not know what career path they want. The career based one is directly the opposite of what we are talking about in many respects. I live in a grammar county and I can assure you no secondary modern could ever offer the IB diploma. They simply don’t have the DC capable of doing it in any numbers. Or the money!

Oh I think it's probably great if you are interested in going down one of those paths.

As I say, I don't know much about it. It's a very popular school though, so it's clearly not deterring people. Also, it raises the point that the 'intellectual snobbery' associated with the IB that someone mentioned earlier is quite a UK thing. I think in other countries the breadth of the IB is more of a general educational philosophy - it's not just the most academically able who take it.