IB Predicted Grades and Why They Decide the Application

Subject teachers forecast the grade they believe a student will achieve in the May session, and the school moderates across departments. Schools are accountable for accuracy, which pushes predictions towards the defensible rather than the generous.

The evidence is whatever exists by the autumn of Year 13: Year 12 internal exams, mock results, coursework, and classwork over roughly eighteen months. A strong final term does not feature, because it has not happened yet.

Students treat the Year 12 end-of-year exams as practice. For predicted grades they are close to the main evidence, sat while the student still believes there is time.

This is the single most useful thing to tell a Year 12 student in Hong Kong, and the most commonly left unsaid. Preparing seriously for the Year 12 internal exams is preparing for your university application. A student who works out in Year 13 that the mock mattered has already produced the evidence their prediction will be built on.

First, understand what it is based on. Ask the teacher what evidence produced it and what would change it. This is a reasonable question and most teachers answer it directly.

Then be realistic about the options.

• Improve the evidence. If there is an assessment still to come before predictions are finalised, that is the lever. After they are submitted, there is no lever.
• Adjust the application list. Applying to five courses that all require grades above your predictions is a plan with one outcome. A list with range is not defeat, it is arithmetic.
• Consider the sequence. Some students do better applying after results with actual grades in hand, particularly if predictions understate them.

What does not work is asking the school to raise a prediction without new evidence. Schools track their accuracy and will not move on request.

Missing them means the offer condition is not met. Universities sometimes accept a near miss, particularly if the shortfall is a single point and the course is undersubscribed, and sometimes they do not. If a subject sits just below a boundary an Enquiry Upon Results is worth considering, and it must be started quickly.

Beating them is a better problem and still a problem, since the application was built for a lower band. UK adjustment processes and clearing exist for this, both operate fast, and both favour students who prepared for the possibility.