How the UCAS Tariff Treats the IB Diploma
By Renzo Diaz··2 min read
UCAS does not give the 45-point IB Diploma a single Tariff score. Instead, each component — every Higher Level and Standard Level subject, plus Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay — earns its own Tariff points, which are then added together. That means an IB total and a UCAS Tariff figure are two different scales, and comparing them directly produces the wrong number.
UCAS uses the Tariff as a common points framework for comparing different qualifications. The IB Diploma is unusual within it, because the Diploma as a whole does not receive one Tariff value the way a single A Level grade does. This matters practically whenever a published university requirement is expressed in Tariff points rather than IB terms directly — which is not the norm for the UK's most selective courses, but does happen.
An IB total and a UCAS Tariff figure are two different scales — comparing them directly produces the wrong number.
1. Your IB score and your UCAS Tariff score are not the same thing
UCAS does not assign one single Tariff score to the 45-point Diploma. Instead, the constituent components each receive their own Tariff points, and those are added together.
A 45-point Diploma with three HL 7s, three SL 7s, and an A in both TOK and the Extended Essay generates 56 × 3 + 28 × 3 + 12 + 12 = 276 UCAS Tariff points — not 624. That gap is not a mathematical curiosity; it is exactly why an IB Diploma score should never be casually compared against a UCAS Tariff requirement as though the two sat on the same scale.
Layer 1 — HL grade 7
56 Tariff points
Layer 2 — HL grade 6
48 Tariff points
Layer 3 — HL grade 5
32 Tariff points
Layer 4 — SL grade 7
28 Tariff points
Layer 5 — SL grade 6
24 Tariff points
Layer 6 — TOK or Extended Essay, grade A
12 Tariff points each
2. Does the Tariff actually matter for IB applicants?
Sometimes — but not always in the way students assume. UCAS is explicit that universities and colleges may publish international qualification requirements differently, and that some list an overall IB score rather than a Tariff-points figure.
UCAS is equally clear that universities decide for themselves whether to use Tariff points at all for a given course. So the right conclusion is not "competitive universities ignore the Tariff" — that overstates it. The right conclusion is narrower: use the university's own published entry requirement for the specific programme, rather than assuming the Tariff is the metric being used to assess the application.
“Some providers choose to show entry requirements as an overall score in the International Baccalaureate Diploma, rather than grades from individual certificates. Please check the entry requirements carefully.”
UCAS — About the entry requirements filter3. Why the most selective courses mostly bypass this entirely
The clearest sign of how a course actually assesses IB applicants is whether it publishes requirements in IB terms directly, rather than in Tariff points. LSE, Cambridge and Imperial all do this — total IB points, a specific Higher Level profile, and in many cases a named subject condition, stated on the programme's own page rather than translated through a Tariff figure.
That is exactly the level of detail what UK universities actually require from your IB Math score documents for real Mathematics-relevant degrees at LSE, Cambridge, UCL, Warwick and Imperial — the Tariff table above explains the mechanism; that article explains what specific programmes actually publish.
Sources
Both sources below are UCAS's own current pages, checked directly via browser rather than an automated fetch — UCAS, like the IB itself, blocks non-browser requests to some of its pages, which can make a genuinely public page look inaccessible to automated tools without being inaccessible to a real visitor.