2020 IB Results. What happened?!

It's all over the news, on social media, and in you text feeds. Final IB results were a shock to tens of thousands of diploma candidates. 

Yes, it's true, it was a difficult spring, to say the least! But when you are predicted a 39 and end up with a 29, that's no consolation. Some students are reported to have missed their predictions by as much as 12 points. Missed offers have had students scrambling to call and attend online chats with university admissions tutors. What about a gap year? Given the outlook for internships during this pandemic, the gap year option has become less appealing to many. And it's been challenging to navigate Clearing with A Levels results still pending. When these are released on 13 August, you can be sure of a flurry of additional questions and perhaps even ire.

So what the $&*@! happened at the IBO? This Wired article points to a faulty algorithm 

​used to "predict" what students would have earned on the IB exams. But the IBO claims that they do not use any such algorithm. Is this a he said, she said? Really?!

TES, a UK-based organization founded over 100 years ago and which serves over 25,000 schools in 100 countries, reports that the UK government, via its Ofqual office, is investigating the IBO's handling of its unusual, albeit crisis-motivated, grading practices. Yet Ofqual has not commented publicly and the IBO has dedicated a detailed article to supporting their statement that "Grades were awarded for the May 2020 session through an IB awarding model, not a computer-based algorithm." 

Students are upset and caught in the middle. And that's an understatement for the group of over 24,000 (and counting) who have signed a petition on Change.org calling for "Justice for May 2020 IB Graduates."

Change is in the air, just like the COVID-19 virus that has prompted the start of what will inevitably be a sea change throughout higher education. In fact, today Ofqual announced several modifications to A Levels, AS and GCSEs in 2021. 

You can be sure of one thing: we have not heard the end of the #IBScandal.