How are IB scores converted into ATAR?

With different curriculums that assess and score their students in completely different ways, how are Australian IB students compared against ATAR students for university entry?

If you completed secondary education under a state-imposed curriculum, such as NSW's HSC or Victoria's VCE, you will receive an ATAR, an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank.

An ATAR is a number between 0 and 99.95 that indicates your academic position relative to all other students in your state's cohort that year. If you got an ATAR of 90.00 that means you had performed in the top 10% of the state.

Australian universities use the ATAR along with any other applicable adjustment factors to help them decide which students to admit into their institution.

But what about IB students who also want to attend an Australian university?

How does the IB score?

Unlike ATAR, which ranks its student participants and gives them a percentile, the IB allocates points out of 45.

IB students are awarded grades from 1 to 7 for each of their six subjects (for a total of 42) and up to an additional 3 points for the three core components (TOK, EE, CAS).

'Theoretically', all IB students could achieve a perfect score of 45 if they all performed extremely well because it is a score. In the past, 4 to 7% of IB students each year achieved a perfect IB score of 45. To achieve a perfect ATAR score of 99.95 however, you have to be in the top 0.05% of students so it would be impossible for everyone to achieve a perfect ATAR.

But how do universities coincide these two drastically different grading methods to make fair comparisons?

If you completed a state-imposed curriculum and received an ATAR the traditional way, you would apply to university through your state's university admission portal. For UNSW it is UAC (Universities Admissions Centre) and for Victoria, it is VTAC (Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre). They do the job of allocating students based on ATAR and adjustment factors into their desired course and university.

If you completed the IB and wish to attend an Australian university, you would apply for courses through UAC or VTAC with a notional ATAR based on your IB admissions score. That is, your IB score will be converted into a corresponding ATAR that allows you to apply to university just as if you had done an ATAR curriculum.

This conversion is calculated by The Australasian Conference of Tertiary Admissions Centre (ACTAC).

IB Diploma score to Combined Rank conversion table

There has been some controversy concerning the IB to ATAR conversions. In particular, many ATAR students felt the conversions unfair since it gave all IB students with a 45 a 99.95 ATAR despite about 5% of IB students receiving a 45 and only 0.05% of ATAR students receiving a 99.95. Furthermore, the conversions were very clear-cut and gave no consideration to the performance of the IB students in their respective subjects. This resulted in ACTAC enforcing a slight change in conversion methods in 2022 which differentiated IB students on the same IB score. That is, not all IB 45s would convert to a 99.95.

Amended IB Diploma score to Combined Rank conversion table

Example values only; the exact Combined Rank conversion values are set based on data for each year.

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