IB Mathematics · Online, one-to-one · AA & AI, SL & HL
An online IB Maths tutor for families in Switzerland, on Swiss time.
Renzo Diaz is an IB Mathematics tutor based in Italy, teaching IB since 2016 and teaching one-to-one online across all four courses — Analysis and Approaches and Applications and Interpretation, Standard and Higher Level — and currently teaching an IB Math AA SL student in Switzerland. His documented results include Grade 7 in both IB Math AI SL exam papers (Paper 1 and Paper 2, May 2024), and a 4.9 / 5 rating on Google from 19 public reviews since June 2020 (as of October 2026). Milan is on the same time zone as Zurich and Geneva, so lessons fit straight after school, and the first step is a free 45-minute strategy call. Lessons are in English or Spanish.
Families looking at ETH Zurich should read its admission requirements before changing a course. For the 2026/27 intake, admission without an entrance examination needs 38 of 42 points without bonus points, with Mathematics at Higher Level — Analysis and Approaches or Applications and Interpretation — plus Physics, Chemistry or Biology and a Language A at Higher Level; otherwise ETH sets a reduced entrance examination. The Maths course therefore belongs to a whole-Diploma plan, and ETH publishes separate rules from autumn 2028.
Many of the students I work with think across more than one language day to day. That is not a disadvantage to correct — it is simply the environment the method is built to work inside, the same way it works for a monolingual student: locate the exact step where the reasoning broke, in whichever language the student thinks in, and rebuild from there. Switzerland's IB World Schools — in Zurich, Zurich International School and Inter-Community School Zürich among them — sit the same syllabus, so the diagnostic applies the same way regardless of which one your child attends.
IB Maths tutor for families in Switzerland: the key facts
- Teaching IB since
- April 2016, with a dated record on the About page
- Rating on Google
- 4.9 / 5 from 19 public reviews, with a review in every calendar year since 2020 (as of October 2026)
- Documented IB result
- 7 in both IB Math AI SL exam papers (May 2024); every documented IB result is a 6 or a 7
- Courses
- IB Math AA and AI, SL and HL, one-to-one online, in English or Spanish
- Time zone
- Milan (CET), the same as Zurich, Geneva and Basel, so lessons fit straight after school
- Students in Switzerland
- Currently teaching an IB Math AA SL student in Switzerland
- First step
- A free 45-minute strategy call: 15 minutes with a parent, then 30 with the student on a topic they choose
- Lesson record
- Every programme includes the session recording, an AI-generated summary and a searchable archive
The unexplained Grade 4: the report says it, nobody can say why.
School reports record outcomes, not causes: a grade, a comment, occasionally a remark about attention. Before any plan is built, I diagnose the exact step where the reasoning broke — whether that step lives in this term's topic or three years back in algebra. That diagnosis, not the report card, is what the weekly work runs on.
AA or AI, SL or HL: the choice, made with half the information.
International schools ask families to commit to a Math course and level while the student has never sat a real IB paper. The choice shapes university options across Switzerland, the UK and further afield, and is expensive to reverse mid-Diploma. I walk families through both courses with real exam questions before the school deadline, including what each university faculty actually requires.
Mid-Diploma transfer: arrived from another curriculum, partway through.
Switzerland absorbs a steady flow of relocating families, and a student arriving mid-Diploma from a different curriculum — or a different IB school — inherits the Diploma clock with gaps shaped by whatever they studied before. The first month is structural triage: find where the previous curriculum left holes, rebuild those, and align to the new school's assessment calendar from the next mock onward.
The high-expectations plateau: the effort is real, the standard is high, and the grade won't move.
In a cohort where the baseline is already strong, a plateau rarely means a student is behind — it means the remaining gap is narrow and specific: a proof habit, a pacing issue, a method chosen a few seconds too slowly. Closing a narrow gap takes a more precise diagnosis than closing a wide one, not more hours of the same practice.
Coverage
All four IB Maths courses. Find the one your child is sitting.
AA and AI are different subjects wearing the same name, and SL and HL are different workloads again. Each has its own page with the situations, syllabus coverage and exam technique specific to it.
What's actually examined
The exam your child is sitting.
AA HL and AI SL are examined differently — knowing the real structure changes how the weekly work is built. Figures below cover AA HL (the most demanding of the four courses) and AI SL (the course in the documented case: Grade 3 to two Grade 7 papers); AA SL and AI HL sit between them and have their own dedicated pages.
| Paper | Duration | Marks | Weight | What it tests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA HL Paper 1 | 120 minutes, no calculator | 110 marks | 30% | Pure algebraic fluency under time pressure. |
| AA HL Paper 2 | 120 minutes, calculator allowed | 110 marks | 30% | Application and modelling. |
| AA HL Paper 3 | 1 hour 15 minutes, calculator allowed | 55 marks | 20% | Two extended investigative questions, unfamiliar scaffolding. |
| AI SL Paper 1 | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 80 marks | 40% | Short-response questions. |
| AI SL Paper 2 | 90 minutes, calculator allowed | 80 marks | 40% | Extended-response questions. |
| Internal Assessment (both courses) | Across the two-year Diploma | Marked on 5 criteria | 20% | Mathematical exploration, student-chosen topic. |
The method
A documented weekly system — the same one, wherever your child studies.
Every week opens with last week's wrong answers, because wrong answers are the cheapest source of marks. We work on what is live from school, advance the syllabus in order, and hold the same rhythm through mock weeks, IA deadlines and report cycles. Every session is recorded, summarised, and archived into a searchable library your child keeps for the entire Diploma.
The diagnosis starts from one short proof. Why is the sum of two odd integers even? Write them as 2m + 1 and 2n + 1; their sum is 2(m + n + 1), an even integer. The explanation is the point, not the arithmetic: a student who answers 'it works for 3 + 5' has given an example, not a general argument — exactly the gap that opens when Analysis and Approaches moves from computing to reasoning. Bring a recent marked question to the strategy call; it shows whether the difficulty is notation, choosing a method or checking the result.
Documented · public reviews since 2020
The same evidence standard, wherever the student is based.
The method does not depend on geography — it depends on rhythm. The weekly system runs the same everywhere: diagnose, rebuild, drill against real exam questions, record everything.
The clearest documented case is a student who moved from a Grade 3 to two Grade 7 papers across a full two-year Diploma, in IB Math AI SL — delivered entirely online. It is a public Google review on the Business Profile, one of 19 reviews behind a 4.9 / 5 rating on Google (as of October 2026), with the IB Math AI SL exam results (May 2024) documented component by component. Open the profile and read them yourself; none of it depends on taking my word for it.
Real admission requirements
Where the IB score actually leads.
For a family in Switzerland the table below usually includes ETH. Its row is a whole-Diploma condition — the points total, the Maths level and a science at HL together — which is why the course choice is made against the full subject combination, not Maths alone. The wider picture is in Math AA vs AI: what universities require. ETH's and EPFL's full conditions are set out in the Swiss and German rules.
| University | Requirement | Note |
|---|---|---|
| University of Oxford | 38, 39 or 40 points including core, by course; Engineering Science asks for 40 with 776 at HL | Every course that requires Mathematics accepts AA or AI at HL, Chemistry apart; Computer Science states no preference between them. |
| University of Cambridge | 41-42 points, 7-7-6 at Higher Level | Engineering asks for Maths AA and Physics at HL; a student whose school does not offer AA should contact a College. Colleges often ask for a 7 in Physics or another science. |
| Imperial College London | Mechanical Engineering: minimum 40 points with 6 in HL Maths and HL Physics; typical offer 40 with 7s in both | AA is preferred over AI, though both are formally accepted. |
| ETH Zurich | 38 out of 42 points, excluding Core bonus points | For the 2026/27 intake: HL Mathematics (AA or AI), HL Physics, Chemistry or Biology, and HL Language A; otherwise a reduced entrance exam. |
What does ETH Zurich ask of IB applicants?
Can you help us choose between AA and AI before the school deadline?
My child thinks and studies across more than one language. Does that change the approach?
What results can we realistically expect?
How do we start?
Does ChatGPT recommend an IB Math tutor in Europe?
Related pages
Ready to see if this is the right fit for your child?
The strategy call is free and commits you to nothing. If I don't think the system will move your child meaningfully, I will tell you directly — I'd rather lose a client than take on a case I can't help.