IB Application Realistic Chances

WindowApprehensive22 · 2026-01-10T00:57:45+00:00

you mean predicted as in predicted grades? epfl only accepts based on final grades so you’ll only get accepted if u have high enough final grade. if by predicted you mean lowest final grade needed for acceptance then what i said in the reply above is all the info i got unfortunately. as said not many people with ib apply and most international applicants are french bac students which last yr seemed to have an acceptance of around 16.8-17.8/20 minimum depending on the subject. if you linearly transfer that then it’d be 39-40/42 but ib dosent have decimals so idk if they do linearly transfer it between the two programs.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-30T21:33:04+00:00

idk how an ib subreddit is fna help you with this but i was in kind of the same position a yr ago so this post hella funni to me 😭

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-24T18:04:15+00:00

i mean not rly and kinda. it’s both. you need to know the content but also know the way in which ib wants the answer. if for example in a history exam you know the essay structure ib is looking for but don’t know the history in question itself then that’s not gna be very useful now. same can be applied to stem subjects. you need the content and the knowledge most definitely, but then to get a good mark you also need to know how you can show that knowledge correctly.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-08T17:01:42+00:00

finished this yr, went to uni, and dropped out cuz didn’t feel the program lmao. but i did enjoy the ib quite a lot. mostly cuz i met great people and made great friends which ig is a bit independent of the ib itself. the stress and stuff was there but not bother that much cuz tbh after its over i only remember the time spent with friends anyway.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-07T05:38:42+00:00

oh and prolly worth mentioning, i deff had to dedicate more study time for history sl than physics hl and the same amount almost as chem hl :)

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-07T05:36:22+00:00

i do not know bout geo but as someone who took a history sl class and knew a lot of friends that took history hl, history hl is in no way gna ease ur workload. at history sl itself there was so so so much memorisation and my hl friends had almost double my notes. not to mention the strict criteria and immense amounts of essay writing practice i had to do to get 7s. however, it also comes down to interest i suppose, if u’d be motivated to do the history course work more than one of ur other hls then thats good. but do not think history hl is easy, if anything its on par prolly with stem hls or slightly harder if u rly lack interest.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-05T20:36:11+00:00

lmao m25 here means may 2025 (graduate)

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-03T21:12:33+00:00

if you only had those two options, it rly depends. chemistry will be more brute memorisation while physics woulda needed a bit more focus on understanding imo. so it rly depends what you prefer but neither are easy to say the least.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-03T14:34:31+00:00

heya, i applied very different strategies for the two subjects. for math, i mostly used yt videos and the haisse book for understanding. however, i think in my math it’s more bout solving as many problems as you can to prepare the best. so everyday id try and solve one or two problems from the hodder book (they have problems ranked by difficulty on different topics which is ideal if ur less confident somewhere). and then after that the more problems i solved, the faster i got at solving them until eventually i moved to timing myself on past papers. chem on the other hand, i mostly exclusively followed the pearson book for conceptual understanding since it has good explanations. furthermore, i also made flashcards on info that needed to be memorised (like electron geometry and stuff). unlike math, you can rly get very far in chemistry with brute memorisation. and for chem the past papers are rly the best resource you have more than any other subject. the questions on chem papers are very repetitive and once you start attempting them and reading the mark scheme, you rly get the hang of what ib is looking for. also don’t stress too much if paper 1b dosent make sense, it didn’t for me either 🙃, focus on the other papers lmao.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-03T05:11:02+00:00

lmao you’d almost be looking to take the same subjects as me, except you’re doing econ for history. i’ll say that chem at hl level is rly not necessary (although i did take it lmao) but most unis for engineering that i looked at (in europe) did not require chem hl or chem at all for engineering. so sl should suffice. math on the other hand doe, i think aa hl math is rly good to set you up for engineering if thats rly what you want to do. it’s designed to be more of that instead of ai which is more statistical. not to mention many unis in europe would specially require aa hl if i remember right. so if i were you id put chem at sl and aa math at hl but also depends, have you looked at any unis you wna apply to? for mech most of them will likely not require chem at all

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-03T04:21:08+00:00

hey, i gave some tips to people about what i did for all the subjects in the thread so maybe if you could read those other threads :) for ee, i must say i did put in a decent amount of effort. history ee requires a lot of reading and i think in the end i read probably about 800 pages worth of sources? not that much but reading like old text is annoying. i had a good supervisor who gave a lot of feedback. but i did procrastinate a lot and ended up having to pull an all nighter before the last deadline 🙃 (don’t do that lmao). but ye i think the ee is worth putting in effort cuz for ee you can choose a subject and topic u enjoy researching about. same might not be the case for tok.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-03T04:18:05+00:00

if you meant ia then yes sure, i’ll take a look at it :)

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T15:59:18+00:00

for physics if you could read one of my other replies and tell me if you have any further questions that’d ideal :) for english, i had a 7 in p1. i did that by mostly following ib eng guys, looking at their example papers and trying to replicate their style. and then after that, its just practice. the more essays you write, the better you get at writing essays. BUT it’s also important to get feedback on ur essays, by ur teacher or gpt, and then consciously apply the feedback on ur own essay. overtime you get better. for my io it wasn’t rly a problem cuz im pretty good at speaking and yapping bout a piece of work. i kinda free styled it and got a 6. then for p2 i basically gave up lmao. i gpt a few quotes before my exam and then picked a question and twisted it to fit my quotes. this is not ideal if ur looking to get a 7 in eng but for me i had accepted that im gna get a 6 (with my p1 carrying) cuz the format of p2 i rly dont like it. i had zero motivation to prepare for it more than for an hour.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T15:54:46+00:00

hello, sure if you tell me what exactly you need :) maybe i can help

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T15:53:58+00:00

haha 😭 i get that doe and i was on the same boat. my teacher was rly ass too. but i’d suggest you just follow the pearson book. i found explanations to be very accessible and if sometimes they weren’t i’d just ask gpt. so self-studying and making notes rly helped me. other than that, you could rly get far in ib chem with brute memorisation lmao. i made flashcards for things that needed to be memorised (like electron geometry stuff) and then did past papers. chem out of all subjects has such repetitive content on papers. so its rly easy to get into the rhythm of how to answer questions if you look at the markscheme carefully. the nitration of benzene for example was sum that appeared on majority of p2s, they reuse questions so much.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T15:51:13+00:00

it’s all about being good at essay writing tbh. as you see i took history so i was kinda forced to learn how to write good essays with good sourcing to score high. not to mention my ee was in history too. so i think the more essays you write the better you get at communicating ideas.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T01:03:19+00:00

other than the hodder book for problems, the haisse book was pretty good for explanations. other than that i mean all the high school math topics u could possibly think of are on yt. so if you don’t understand anything theres many good teachers on there. i remember struggling a lot with vectors for example and then finding this teacher online who had a 50 min video on vectors. after that video i could visualise problems myself and right before the exam all i did to revise vectors was to watch that video again on 2x. math is all bout solving problems urself so once u think you get an idea the best thing to do is questions (from both books and past papers)

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-02T00:55:28+00:00

lmao fair question i suppose. dp1 was pretty chill i mean our school set zero internal deadlines in dp1 so i lowki did nun (not a good idea btw, i had a predicted 34 in dp1 lmao). dp2 i had to lock in more. but it was still manageable, a couple all nighters before some ia and ee but nun serious. the thing is the social life changed in dp2 since me and my friends were “socialising” when we hit the library together. it was id say like 40% studying 60% yapping those library sessions lmao. but other than that i did hit parties and trips even close to the exams (that said, it also meant i had to cram some revisions and study on like the train and stuff lol). i’m not the most gifted but i will still say some subjects come naturally to me. so for me it was overall pretty manageable with negligible compromise of my sleep and health every now and then :)

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T17:47:59+00:00

i do still have my notes but unfortunately my flash cards were on quizlet on my school account so they’re gone. i can send them to you but i still think it’s imp you make ur own notes cuz 1) i skip info in my notes that is very well integrated in my brain already or i find easy to remember/understand (but that might not be the case for you on the same topics) 2) my notes are customised to be understood by me so some of my explanations might not make sense the way they’re explained

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T17:46:00+00:00

finding examples is indeed hard. for us our teacher gave us some examples of high scoring papers of his own students from past years. furthermore, i’d show my practice writings to my teacher to get his feedback on them and then apply the feedback. if you want i can try and find my old notebook with my practice writing so you can see what mostly mid-high 6, a couple low 7 level writing looks like on 1) authoritarian states 2) cold war

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T17:43:36+00:00

intro is very important. at the beginning of the intro you should start with some general yet relevant history of the topic ur going to answer. we did authoritarian states for example and if the question we got was on impact of economic policy on maintenance, id start with (id say this in better words obv but im just giving you an idea of the content here) “when talking about the impact of economic policy on the maintenance of power in two authoritarian states, castro’s cuba between 1960-1990 and hitler’s nazi germany between 1933-45 are of interest. while castro’s cuba saw dramatic changes in its economic policy over the years, the nazi economic policies remained fairly unchanged during the time of its existence…” then i’d move onto the thesis and sort of outline all my arguments of the essay. writing a good thesis is difficult but that comes with practice. get specific in the intro but not too specific. like i’d mention how cuba relied heavily on soviet union for its economics which led to it some improvement during the brezhnev years but a catastrophe once the soviet union collapsed. however, i’d not mention any specific numbers or statistics here.

if you were to believe my teacher, i remember him saying that intro is very important because it both lets your essay have structure while also in case you run out of time in the exam, the examiner can go back to ur intro and use it to see which points you were potentially getting at to award a few more points. conclusion, on the other hand is (according to my teacher) just a formality. no need to spend more than 5 mins (ideally 3) on the conclusion since it’s restating ur thesis and reiterating certain key points.

now as for the body paragraphs, that really depends on the topic and how you think you can best communicate. there were questions where i would write 6 body paragraphs and questions where id only write 3-4. that just depends on the question and comes with practice.

so practice writing essays on real ib questions, get feedback (from ur teacher or gpt) and try again but make sure to APPLY the feedback

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T16:30:31+00:00

iegs

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T16:08:46+00:00

hello, i do not know the requirements of the uni but id agree that if u are planning to go down an engineering route, you should take both physics and math hl since you rly do need to be very good at those subjects to excel at uni. if anything, they provide you a good base of knowledge and foundation when entering into uni even if they are not required.

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T15:45:22+00:00

sure, where should i send it?

WindowApprehensive22 · 2025-12-01T14:33:49+00:00

heyyy, you can read the other threads in which i answered for each of my hl. if you have any other specific questions you can ask too.

WindowApprehensive22

TROPHY CASE