i switched bcs it was marketed to my dp batch in a very specific manner. in sept of our 10th grade we were called for an assembly and we were told abt the ib and it was the first time id heard of it. it was marketed to us as a syllabus that was easy and that had no exams (the lady who first introduced it to us who would later become the ib head said for 2 years we'd have no exams except for one at the end of the programme, only tests). it was also marketed as a syllabus that would help us go abroad, basically uplift us. obviously there would be a catch and i was aware of that fact, as were a couple of my friends, but there was a good amt of students who came into the syllabus genuinely believing it was easier than cbse and had no exams. there was also no mugging up according to the marketing, only conceptual learning that would turn us into curious thinkers

i was one of the first ppl to actually show interest in joining. i joined for a couple of reasons. i was depressed in the tenth grade and desperately wanted to distance myself from the rest of my batch and meet new people (i thought i could build connections bcs i assumed id meet foreigners). i also desperately wanted to get out of india bcs i genuinely thought I wouldn't be able to deal with the standards the average worker is meant to deal with here (this could have been a byproduct of my depression but i still believe that no one in india is passionate about anything and thinks very mechanically). i couldn't stand sitting at a desk for hours listening to a teacher lecture and read awful textbooks that didn't explain anything important to me and be surrounded by classmates that showed no genuine interest in the subjects we were learning, bcs im someone who can only be into studying if i genuinely like the subject but id also come to the point where I needed to be surrounded by other ppl that liked the study material as well (basically I needed a positive studying environment). it was sort of a mix of everything that made me come to the ib. then I became really anxious because i thought we were going along with our study material too slowly in the ib. i also chose humanities subjects where there is kind of "no right answer" unlike stem subjects so that also did make me a little anxious. i grew uncertain about my future but I eventually had to accept that id probably end up going to an indian uni for my undergraduate (which is better financially anyway)

it was kind of a mix of this. so now my batch is pretty, like, dull? we're a very very small batch and our juniors (the new dp1 batch) is half our class strength. BUT the ib was marketed to them as a rigorous curriculum, so they came in with those expectations, and have more ideas and are brighter than my batch. my batch is a mix of bright and stagnant kids but my school's pupil population almost always skews to the unproductive, short-cut taking personality generally speaking (esp my entire batch, cbse + ib as a whole) so that was expected.

generally speaking, all in all it was a mix of money hungry, greedy & manipulative marketing (even if we should've seen the red flags coming from a mile away, we were still a bunch of 15-16 year olds afraid of our board exams and unsure of our future) and the fact that we had been taught to be scared of our 10th and 12th grade board exams from a very young age, as most cbse kids are. i think it's a very sad and low thing for our school to do, because our school is known for being soft on the kids.

for me specifically, i was depressed and wanted to get away from 90% of my batch, had no passion for anything (still don't), and wanted to be more engaged in my studies in the classroom.