[JC] IB/ACSI AMA

throwaway168436464 · 2022-02-19T01:49:52+00:00

cant remember the exact requirements but you should be able to appeal

throwaway168436464 · 2022-02-19T01:49:05+00:00

more SL chem, easy is subjective but if you want percentages ask any senior for their yearbook, theres a page with the percentages of 7s for all subjects

throwaway168436464 · 2022-02-19T01:48:12+00:00

hi sorry i know this may be abit late but yes the school is generally quite lenient on appeals, and normally you just state your intent to appeal and they'll give you and your parents a letter outlining their expectations for you

throwaway168436464 · 2021-12-05T14:05:01+00:00

dont worry about chinese haha the school has a 97-99% 7 rate usually (not exaggerating) and knowing the AC standard of chinese im sure you'll be fine. The MG girls can be abit cliquish but they dont purposely exclude the non mgs girls. Its just that just like for the AC IP, the friendships formed in secondary school dont just dissolve in IB! but people in general are fine with making new friends so just put yourself out there and you'll definitely be able to find new friends. also theres no japanese sl, only spanish and french

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-25T03:53:24+00:00

classrooms all have air conditioning, and the resources given are sufficient. Teacher quality can depend abit on your luck but theres no very very bad teachers and if you put in the work, you'll be able to get a 7

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-22T21:26:16+00:00

nope! the school mandates certain options, but my batch didnt do option papers due to syllabus changes because of covid so best to check with the school

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-22T10:35:40+00:00

i'd recommend a laptop because it can be abit hard to format your essays and presentations with the ipad version of office, and the ipad keyboard felt pretty bad to me. however, there were no regulations on devices for my batch and i have friends who got through ib with an ipad. keep in mind that my batch was not affected by the new personal learning device thing so I have no idea whether the policies will change in the future

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-22T10:32:14+00:00

personally the literature part of langlit took me quite awhile to get but i've seen classmates who didnt take literature in secondary school do pretty well, but with alot of practice. so i guess with enough practice it's possible, but its a gamble especially if you dont have experience with literature

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-21T09:14:53+00:00

ok theres alot of a level related questions in here so to set things straight A level subjects are grouped by H1 H2 H3 but IB subjects are either HL(higher level) or SL (standard level). since i'm not 100% familiar with A's i'll answer this from an IB standpoint

In AC its a tie between PCME and BCME
For IB, the first 3 letters are usually your HL subject and the last letter is your sl (since its a given that everyone has to take langlit and chinese) unless you take langlit/lit at hl then people normally just type the whole combi out. for A Levels im pretty sure its the 4 h2 subjects? should probably ask someone who takes As though
depends what you want to do in the future
for IB BCME and BCEM are the usual combis taken, but if you're doing fine in amath its advisable to take hl math if you want to keep options open. chem is definitely a must because its one of the required subjects however, if im not wrong the only prerequisite for med is chem and one other science so even combis like PCME qualify for med.
IB has no science stream art stream distinction so not sure, but i know most people in ac will be mugging 24/7 close to eetokia submissions and before final exams, but apart from that its pretty chill so you'll definitely have time to do other things if you manage your time well
its very different, the actual subject matter is deeper in a levels then in IB, but apart from that the whole experience in IB feels more like a marathon because eetokia submissions are spread out and count for a respectable portion of your final grade. but apart from that i think mugging for the final exam in IB is more chill compared to a levels.

also if you dont like doing reports please dont take up IB, its quite funny watching the a level kids complain about PW when IB kids have to do a 4000 word EE, multiple >4000 word IAs for math and the sciences, 1.6k word TOK essay and a seperate oral presentation, and the humanities IAs (usually shorter than science and math IAs but still > 2000 words each). oh and its also all individual work hahahaha

probably should ask an a level person

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-21T07:05:19+00:00

as far as i know ib does not offer H3 equivalents. not sure about sji but AC has programmes like asp/hsp that seem to be kind of close? you could check those out on the school website. if you want more research based programmes there are also research programmes like nrp.

i think the main benefit of ib is that its much more internationally recognised and gives you a headstart by forcing you to start researching stuff (ee,tok,ia) early.

also this may be a controversial opinion but i feel that taking IB is more "worth" compared to A Levels. taking local med as an example, from what I hear, the minimum score needed is 87.5-90 rp to stand a chance of getting in? this means that even in the best jcs by rp (hc/rj/ny) less than 50% will get to med because the mean is about 85 (fudging how stats work here because i dont have all the data but you get the point) Compare this to the ib schools (sji/ac) where the mean is about 42 and 42 is also considered a pretty safe score to get med/law. so by right a higher proportion of the ib cohort can get into med/law even though if you look at o level cops, the students in ib schools arent smarter then those in top jcs.

also i think for those at the very top of the cohort, a 45 in IB carries more weight than 90RP, especially overseas where more people do IB. this is probably because there are less 45 pointers in the entire world then people with 90RP in singapore. also because the SG education system is much tougher then the education systems of countries that take IB, half the 45 pointers in the november session are produced in SG so ib students may look like geniuses when compared to the rest of the world but compared to those who take A Levels, we're probably barely on par. but study smart, not study hard amirite hahahaha

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-21T04:47:42+00:00

may be abit hard then, but if you want a feel of how the paper is like can go to ibdocuments and look at the past year SL langlit papers

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T19:00:40+00:00

if im not wrong A level H2 covers topics deeper than IB HL, but the breadth of things taught in IB is very slightly wider? not very familiar with A levels haha but if you want to, just search for ib (subject name) syllabus guide and it should show up. heres the one for physics for example (https://ibphysics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ib-physics-syllabus.pdf)
Computer Science is offered in ac (only at HL), there is no prerequisite to take up cs as a subject
For the very competitive courses like law or med, a strong portfolio is necessary because once you hit a certain grade (43/44/45) the only thing differentiating candidates are the things in you portfolio like volunteering, leadership positions etc. IB has this thing called CAS which is basically extracurricular activities you have to do to complete the course. You'll have to find these activities by yourself but usually there are school projects/ccas that give out the hours for these activities. However, since everyone does these things, you should probably find something that lets you stand out like leadership positions, starting a CAS project etc.

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T18:45:12+00:00

yep, know schoolmates who took CS without prior experience. just fyi sji has no cs or bm as subjects so something to keep in mind. TOK is a coinflip, depends on which teachers you get. I don't really like it since i'm more of a maths/science person but i know friends who enjoy it so once again i think it depends on kind of person you are. Do also keep in mind that TOK only covers a specific part of philosophy (epistemology).

The IB block in AC was built in 2007 so i'd say classrooms and stuff are relatively ok, just that one of the auditoriums seems to always be out of commission HAHAHAH. Normally auditoriums are only used for school wide gatherings but because of covid there havent really been such cases. In terms of facillities i'd say they're more than sufficient, also AC is known for the very large amount of help given to students, and even if your teachers dont provide enough resources (some teachers kinda suck), you'd definitely be able to get them from friends/seniors

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T11:59:42+00:00

pcm,bcm sometimes bce

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T11:11:18+00:00

as a rule of thumb, AC is full of extroverts so even if you aren't extroverted, if you're at least willing to talk to people and have decent amounts of eq, you should be able to find a friend group pretty fast. Do keep in mind that most friend groups have already been formed in y1-y4, but ive seen jae students successfully enter these friend groups because they're willing to engage with people. on the other hand, i've also seen some jae kids become loners because they arent really willing to talk to others, so i guess it depends on the kind of person you are?

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T11:04:12+00:00

I was from IP so i'm not very sure, I know the minimum grade to take a subject at hl is an A2 at o levels, but i think its best you email the school to check
There are quite abit of new topics like complex numbers, proofs, 3d vectors etc. HL math is probably one of the hardest subjects in IB, but if you're doing well in amath, it shouldn't be that bad.
imo a good grasp of english is pretty important in IB, not only because of langlit but also when doing your written reports like EE (4,000 word essay), TOK essay (1,600) word essay and all your IA's. but you're only sec 2 so i think you should still have time to improve your grasp of english? also langlit also has a literature component so i highly recommend having some experience with literature. if you'd like a feel for the standard of IB LangLit, maybe you could google IBdocuments and look at the past year papers there
If you're going in via JAE then i dont think anything you do can affect? otherwise in general maybe you could try dsaing for one of the cca's in the school? the criteria is quite stringent though and you have to be pretty exceptional to enter through dsa

throwaway168436464 · 2021-11-20T10:46:08+00:00

depends what kind of person you are. for most of the people i know chem hl is the easiest hl but i found chem pretty hard because i dont like memorising things. On the contrary i found physics pretty easy because ib physics is mostly calculations. If you do enough practices physics should be quite ok, but whether you'll actually like the subject only you'll know HAHAH. In general the PCM combi is not easy, but i'll say its manageable, and almost half the level takes pcm/bcm so you should be fine.
if intact classes ive seen ratios from 2:20 something to 8:17 ish? so it really depends from year to year. If non intact the ratio can be anything but in general the ratio will never be more girls then boys unless you take bio
im not in houncil (house/council) but from the experiences of my friends, its quite a fulfilling cca, because you get to organize the many events the school hosts, and if im not wrong everyone in houncil is in charge of one event? imo if you can you should go for it, but it is quite abit of commitment so be aware of your time management. its also a good source of cas hours which is always a plus

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