Grade boundaries

The IB releases the grade boundaries for every year’s papers shortly after the exam results are published in July. They have been steadily increasing year on year from the course’s update in May 2014. Here is a summary of the past 4 years and our projections for the 2018 cohort for HL Computer Science (given in %):

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Level 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Level 2 14 15 14 15 15 14
Level 3 28 29 27 30 30 29
Level 4 37 39 37 40 40 39
Level 5 46 48 46 50 50 49
Level 6 55 57 56 60 60 60
Level 7 64 66 66 70 70 69

 

Here are the official published grade boundaries for the different components for both SL and HL:

IB CompSci May 2019 – Grade Boundaries (HL only)

IB CompSci May 2018 – Grade boundaries (HL only)

IB CompSci May 2017 – Grade Boundaries

IB CompSci May 2016 – Grade Boundaries

IB CompSci May 2015 – Grade Boundaries

IB CompSci May 2014 – Grade Boundaries

 

The IB also publishes ‘generic grade descriptors‘ to show what are the traits and characteristics of someone who gets a particular grade (in this case, level 5 and level 7)

IB Grade descriptors (e.g. difference between a level 5 and level 7)

 

Also, the IB publishes a statistical report on the whole of IB diploma’s program every year. Fun fact: in 2017, there were only 1451 HL Computer Science students in the world!

IB Diploma Statistical Report: May 2017