IB Predicted Grades Explained
Jamal Lewis
IB Predicted Grades Explained
Your predicted grades matter more to your next two years than almost anything else in the IB and they're what most universities actually make offers on, months before you sit a single final exam. And yet most students never find out how those numbers are actually decided until a teacher hands them a number that feels like it came out of nowhere.
Here's what predicted grades really are, how teachers arrive at them, and what you can actually do to influence yours.
What a Predicted Grade Actually Is:
A predicted grade is your teacher's professional estimate of the final grade you're likely to achieve in each subject, submitted to the IB and to universities before your real exams take place. It isn't a guess the teachers are expected to base it on concrete evidence of your performance, not just a general impression.
Predicted grades are graded on the same 1 to 7 scale as your final results, and a predicted total out of 45 which is what most conditional university offers are built around.
How Teachers Actually Decide Them:
Predicted grades are drawn from a combination of evidence, not a single test:
- Classroom performance and formative assessments across the two years of the Diploma.
- Internal Assessment drafts and final IA scores, which are one of the few pieces of evidence that closely mirrors real IB marking.
- Mock exam results, usually the single heaviest factor, since they're sat under timed, exam-style conditions closest to the real thing.
- Overall trajectory, meaning whether your performance has been improving, plateauing, or dipping over the course of the DP.
Predicted Grades Timeline:
Why Predicted and Final Grades Can Differ:
It's common and not necessarily a bad sign for final grades to land slightly above or below predictions. Predicted grades are built on evidence available months before the real exam, and exam-day factors like nerves, timing and an unusually hard paper, it can shift the final result in either direction. Universities generally understand this and build some flexibility into conditional offers, though how much varies by institution.
What matters most for you is making sure the evidence your teacher is working from is as accurate as possible which is where realistic, well-marked mock exams matter far more than they get credit for.
How to Positively Influence Your Predicted Grade:
- Treat mock exams like the real thing: A rushed, half-effort mock gives your teacher inaccurate evidence to predict from often working against you.
- Get your IA drafts in early and act on feedback: IA scores carry real weight and are one of the few marks a teacher can point to directly.
- Ask your teacher directly what's holding your predicted grade back: Most teachers will tell you plainly if asked, vague self-assessment is far less useful than a specific answer.
- Show consistency, not just peaks. A single great result surrounded by weaker ones is less convincing than steady, reliable performance.
Get a More Accurate Picture:
Baccalytics mock exams are marked against real IB grade boundaries and give you a genuine 1–7 estimate with topic-level breakdowns — the same kind of evidence your teachers actually use to set predicted grades, so you can see where you stand before it's decided for you.