Should I choose IB or A-level?

  • January 30 2021
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IA – Many international students in Vietnam have always been wondering about should I choose IB or A-level? As both are reputable educational programs with their own perks, so choosing between the two can be quite difficult.

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Should I choose IB or A-level?

In order to figure out the answer for should I choose IB or A-level, first we need to differentiate between IB and A-level to better understand their advantages and disadvantages with the table below:

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Advantages Disadvantages
IB
  • You can study more subjects.
  • There are extra elements to help make you well rounded.
  • You don’t have complete free choice over your subjects.
  • To pass the IB, there is no choice but to work hard.
  • You’ll have fewer study periods while having increased teaching time (and still have plenty of homework).
  • You’ll have extra calls on your time such as TOK, CAS and  EE.
A-level
  • You can study whatever subjects you like.
  • You’ve got more flexibility over how much time you want to spend studying.
  • You can’t study as many subjects.
  • If you’re not self-motivated, you may end up slacking.

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IB vs. A-level: Which’s for the win?

With A-level, you can pick from 4-6 subjects from any combination of subjects you like (as long as your school can timetable). For example, if you want to take all linguistic subjects, nothing else you can do, so that would make your curriculum fairly narrow.

While IB program, this is designed to make sure students have a broad range of subjects (6 in total). However, you don’t have the freedom like A-level when it comes to choosing subjects. There are 6 subject groups and you have to take one subject from each of the first five groups; your sixth subjects can be either from the sixth group, which is arts, or a second subject from any of the other groups.

Please be advised that even if you picked IB or A-level, you’ll typically only have three main subjects that will be the key requirements for your college entry. So now you know should I choose IB or A-level.

For more: Math in English

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