Uni application when doing IB .

[mybrainisfull]

Don't know much about the IB and UCAS to be honest, but wondered if this sounded right to you?
A friends DC is very clever, predicted high marks etc etc, and is applying for medicine courses I think.
They have applied for Cambridge, Durham, and Edinburgh, and Exeter.
DC did not get an offer from Exeter, and now they're worried that it's something to do with her doing IB rather than A levels.

I was just wondering how other people have got on applying to Universities when doing IB. Did you think it was an advantage/disadvantage/no different to other A level friends?
thank you

In total? That's definitely won't help as many unis have strict minimum gcses too

I applied with ib in hmm 2009 now and got in fine. Ib was quite new then and a lot of medical schools didn't really understand it so gave offers waaay higher than their alevel equivalents eg their alevel was aaa but ib was 42 points which was much harder to achieve

My grammar school was pretty much 95% ib students and tons of us got in but the alevel equivalent were much easier to achieve

(Conversly non medical degrees seemed to do the opposite and gice far lower offers than alevel

It's far harder than alevels is why many private and grammars do it (higher subjects are equivalent of 1st year degree in sciences) so sets you up well.

I applied for alevels at my school as didn't think I could do ib as didn't do language gcses as moved to an awful school due to bullying that didn't offer them...I was told off the record you could only do alevels if they didn't deem you smart enough to do ib (only 5 ish in our year did alevels) so that was the default (and I learnt Italian from scratch instead)

That's definitely not what the UK deems equivalent Ib to alevels btw

In the south of England where ib is quite common, we all did gcses as normal then ib instead of alevels (so I ended up with 15 gcses and then ib

DD is doing IB and intending to apply for medicine (for 2025). College offers IB and A Levels and says that their offer rates for medicine are similar across both courses.
Anecdotally some places/admissions tutors prefer one over the other, but I think applying for medicine is much more likely to be this person's 'problem' (if it is a problem - still very early in the process) than doing the IB.
I'm not sure I have ever heard anyone say IB is a significantly easier option than A Levels before!

DS did IB, DD did 3 A Levels (each at different state schools).
Both academically bright kids.
At DS’s school, multiple people got offers to Oxbridge, offers for medicine, economics and computer science etc. IB is well regarded. Since it’s a UK school, he had sat GCSEs in year 11, and had done well in them.
@mybrainisfull - As you know, there a lots of factors that play a part in getting an offer for medicine. Please try not to worry just yet, as the fact that your DD has done IB will not exclude her.
And try not to listen to those on this thread who are saying that ‘it’s not as good as A levels’ - absolute rubbish.

If they have applied to Durham they aren't applying for medicine. Durham stopped offering medicine years ago when the department moved to Newcastle.

IB is highly regarded and considered more challenging than A levels as they cover more subjects. That said A levels go into greater depth as students take only three or four subjects.

Thanks all.
so obviously Durham I have got wrong. I was just thinking of top universities. Maybe it was Manchester?

anyway, my point is, if they’ve been advised to go for super top unis to do medicine, I would have thought they would get an offer from Exeter.

Your comment about Exeter reflects that you don't know about medicine applications. Exeter requires the very highest predictions and UCAT scores for non contextual candidates. And Edinburgh the same. As to Durham, see above.

Cambridge was a foolish choice with IB as they translate a level to IB much less charitably than Oxford, requiring 2 or 3 points more

Medicine applications really aren't like that (if you're good enough to consider Cambridge, you will walk into Exeter). Your score on the medical school admissions test is of far greater significance than your A Level/IB predictions. They all score applications slightly differently and the highest scoring applicants get interviews (and then, mostly, the playing field is levelled and the ones who do best at interview get offers).
Specifically, Cambridge and Exeter use different admissions tests and it is entirely possible to do much better in one admissions test than the other (they are quite different). If this person had aced the BMAT (which Cambridge use), but got an average or below score in the UCAT (used by Exeter), they would be very likely to get a Cambridge interview but not an Exeter one. It really does have nothing at all to do with the IB.

I don't think I got the tone of that quite right - I was aiming for reassuring!

anyway, my point is, if they’ve been advised to go for super top unis to do medicine, I would have thought they would get an offer from Exeter.

As the walrus says it doesn't work like that and I would be questioning who has been advising them and how much they know about the application process. It varies from university to university. Some care about GCSEs others are not too bothered. Some use UCAT others use BMAT. Some use predicted grades others don't. Even what might seem like a high UCAT score - say top 25% of people taking the medicine entrance exams is often not enough to secure an interview.

You can't even say that Cambridge is better than Exeter. It has a very different course structure so might not always appeal to every applicant. Dd didn't even consider it or Oxford because she didn't like the more traditional structure. Someone offered an interview at Cambridge might not be interviewed at Kent and Medway. Fortunately Cambridge tend to offer lots of interviews so he might get lucky there. If not plan a gap year and next year look on the student room or medicine thread here and make a more strategic application.

If applying for medicine RampantIvy you can only put down four medical schools on UCAS and then have to put something different for the fifth choice because medicine is so competitive. The OP's friends dc could well have applied for a science course at Durham.

OK. @thewalrus That all makes perfect sense. Thanks.
As everyone has rightly guessed - I do not know anything about applying for medicine! My own DC both did other subjects, and followed the standard GCSE/A level curriculum.

Well, I guess time will tell how they get on. I am sure they will do well wherever they go in the end. Good to know though that having done the IB should not work against them. And I assume the school has steered DC through the application process.

Of course @mimbleandlittlemy. I had forgotten about the fifth subject.

@mybrainisfull It really doesn't matter where you apply for medical school, so university rankings aren't important. All degrees for medicine are conferredby the GMC so where you achieve your degree is irrelevant.

As previously mentioned medical schools select on different criteria. They also have different teaching methods. Oxbridge for example, doesn't offer early patient access.

😂😂😂

This is total nonsense. The IB is far more work than 3 A-levels, it’s more similar to doing 5 A-levels. Most UK schools don’t do the IB because it’s too much work. The students I know who are studying the IB are way more stressed than those doing A-levels.

OP: universities greatly respect the IB and students that do it usually have an advantage over those who only have 3 A-levels, unless they’re applying for eg a maths degree where the maths component of the IB doesn’t cover enough to be a solid groundwork for a maths degree.

I don’t know why Exeter said no and can see that would have been very alarming, I wonder if there was some misunderstanding where they only looked at the gcses but that would be very incompetent, I would seek a phone call with DC’s current school to ask what’s gone wrong, perhaps they might be able to phone Exeter.

I teach at one of the universities mentioned in your OP @mybrainisfull although not in Medicine.

My experience of teaching students with the IB is that they are extremely bright, and far more resilient and used to working independently. They've also studied in greater breadth than equivalent A Level students. We require a minimum of 36 points (AAA), but tend to offer places at 40 points on an IB, which is equivalent to A Star, A A

This is not the easy option!

I don't know what @Mirrormeback does for a living, but if they're not an Admissions Tutor of academic at a UK university, I'd hazard a guess that their information is not particularly accurate, and is also out of date.

Looking at the Exeter medicine admissions document and the student room for reports of the cut off it looks as if the interview cut off, assuming no contextual flags was a prediction of 43 on the IB (3A⭐) and ucat over 2660. Anything lower than that in terms of predicted grades or ucat and they did not interview.

Do not assume that the school knows what they are advising. Often just a few apply each year from each school and the entry requirements are all quite different. Exeter for example only needs a pass 4 on GCSE English whereas Hull needs mainly 9s on at least six GCSEs. Hull bases more of an emphasis on GCSEs but doesn't look too much at predicted grades.

totally ignorant. IB is much harder than A levels, 6 subjects plus mandatory extra curricular activities. I got into my top choice uni with IB. Medicine is just very competitive.

I had friends from my IB go to Cambridge to study medicine so it’s perfectly possible. They said it benefited them as they had continued essay subjects like English.

Thanks everyone.
I'm sure they have told me what scores they are predicted, but to be honest I can't remember. I just hope they get in somewhere they're happy with.

Another refutation of @Mirrormeback from me. I am a former STEM admissions tutor in a School just below the COWI group in my subject.

During my term on Admissions I did a comparative study of our IB vs A Level students. Our IB students had and were still almost uniformly excelling relative to their peers. For background, we had used standard and further expert guidance to equate the standard IB offer to the standard A Level offer as best we could.

OP, I do think that in Medicine of all subjects much besides the PGs will go into the offer, or lack thereof.

@poetryandwine - I’d be really interested to know your thoughts on trying to equate the two for admissions purposes.
DS did IB and for a course which was AAA at A level, he’d be offered 36 points and for an A* AA course he was offered 38 points. That seemed pretty standard across all courses and unis.
IB was hard work, DS would not deny that. He learnt loads and definitely found the step to uni pretty easy. But he did think that 38 points (his offer for economics) was ‘easier’ than AstarAA just cos there was more ‘wiggle room’. He knew he’d get 38 points and wasn’t worried, but I’m not sure that A starAA is as guaranteed- iyswim?

Yes, @blametheparents this is my memory of the standard equivalence.

I think you are saying there is more ‘wiggle room’ because there are more ways to earn 38 points than ways to earn A star A star A. Is that right?

I agree. But this is a consequence of the marking rubrics and the broader examinable IB curriculum, which give the generally agreed perception that IB is more difficult to begin with. Furthermore the flip side is that it is easier to slip an IB mark than to slip a grade at A Level. So I see it as swings and roundabouts.

@poetryandwine I have heard that the science subjects aren't covered in as great a depth at IB as opposed to A level. Is this correct?