High school GPA and IB Diploma.

I see a lot of comments on threads that “as long as your GPA is high, IB point doesn’t matter for admissions.” How is it possible to get a high GPA and low IB point. Your IB mock exams and mini tests in classrooms are what determines your GPA and IB points in the future… Does this even make sense?

Splitting into 2 comments.

The external assessment will certainly impact your final IB score, and for most courses, weighs more heavily than internal assessments.

For US high schools, how a grade is assigned for transcript purposes is determined by the teacher/school/district, not IBO.

Grade inflation.

IB students will take her IB exams next Spring and the scores will be published in July. By then, most US students will already have been accepted somewhere. In that regard, IB scores aren’t considered for university admission.

As far as high GPA/low IB score, I can see it happening. Maybe the coursework isn’t scored vigorously by the high school? Maybe the student isn’t a good test taker? Just my thoughts. Either way, it won’t matter for college admission. Low IB scores could mean the student doesn’t get much credit at the university level.

Is it the school report card or the semester exams that are considered in GPA? in sorry but i just need to know for the sake of confusion. AND im pretty sure IB score does MATTER. There is no way colleges arent gonna consider it

At my daughter’s school, semester exams were 20% of the class grade so absolutely factored in the GPA. Not all schools in the US use a uniform system though which is why high schools send in a school report with the transcripts. Schools also have different GPA scales and weighting which is why often people will ask for an unweighted GPA.

As mentioned above, if you are in a US model, the IB scores for senior year come well after acceptances to colleges. If GPA/Grades are high, I don’t think schools would rescind a student for lower IB results. If you are coming from abroad though, and the IB scores are the equivalent of your diploma, it’s a different scenario because then you haven’t officially graduated.

Like @momofsenior1, semester exams are 20% of the class grade so they are factored into the GPA.

The only thing I think would happen with low IB scores is that the student would not get as much college credit as they may have thought. I do not believe admission would be rescinded because the IB exam scores are not part of the admission process for (most) US students. Just being in an IB program shows a rigorous course load.

It depends upon the school, but semester exams will contribute to the GPA. At some schools, the semester exam is part of the Q2/Q4 grade; at others it’s a separate grade on the transcript.

Well, believe what you want to believe, I guess. But as noted above, IB scores come out after admissions decisions are made, and AFAIK, no US college considers projected scores. Now if the US HS is one of the rare schools which adjusts grades based on IB scores, and you score a 2 in a subject, then yes, recission of the admission is a possibility.

My daughter’s senior year IB scores did not matter at all.

She had an unconditional offer from her first choice UK university and her top 2 US universities had admitted her and any credit she got from AP exams was same or more than she would have gotten from IB.

So she did kind of blow them off. (mostly 5’s) There was a lot of other stuff going on those weeks that required her focus and she decided she just wanted to get the IBD and didn’t care much about her scores.

@VikiSoCalThats great for your daughter! Would you mind telling me which uk uni she got accepted to? And wow how did she manage to take both IB diploma and APs?

She is entering her second year at St. Andrew’s, she also had an unconditional offer at Durham.

She APHug and Euro in 9th and 10th grades then took AP tests at the end of most of her IB classes. AP Spanish at the end of SL Spanish, both AP econ at the end of SL econ and so on.