Changing IB School Mid-Year: What to Confirm Before Accepting a Place
By Renzo Diaz·3 min read
An IB Diploma student can transfer schools, but each authorized school sets its own admissions policy and may not teach the same six subjects. The IB itself advises families to contact the prospective school directly — get a written answer on subjects, assessment status and predicted grades before accepting a place, not after.
Do not assume that every subject, IA arrangement, or predicted grade will transfer automatically just because both schools teach the Diploma Programme. The Diploma itself is standardised; a given school's subject offering, teaching sequence and admissions policy are not. The IB's own assessment FAQ is explicit that families need to confirm the details with the receiving school directly.
1. Get a written comparison of the two programmes
The IB confirms that a candidate can transfer between DP or CP schools, but that subject choices vary and each school is independently responsible for its own admissions decisions. A short, written comparison — confirmed by the receiving school's own DP coordinator, not assumed from the prospectus — is worth building before any decision is made.
The IB says an online subject may be potentially possible if the new school supports it and that specific subject is available online — worth asking about directly, but not something to treat as a guaranteed fallback.
Layer 1 — Place available, start date and acceptance conditions
Being an IB World School does not guarantee a mid-year place.
Layer 2 — Each of the six subjects — exact name, level and language
Schools may not offer the same subject combination.
Layer 3 — Examination session and syllabus version
A difference can affect the teaching sequence or the assessment itself.
Layer 4 — Topics already taught, and what's still to come
The student can have real content gaps even where subject names match exactly.
Layer 5 — Status of each IA, Extended Essay, TOK and CAS component
The new school has to state clearly how it will supervise, assess and submit each one.
Layer 6 — Predicted grades and the recommendation process
The receiving school's own policy for setting predicted grades may differ.
Layer 7 — Timetable and any supported online subject
Feasibility depends entirely on the new school's approval and availability.
2. Speak with both coordinators before the move
Ask the current school for a record of the student's exact courses, topics covered, assessment progress, current teacher feedback, and upcoming deadlines. Ask the prospective school how it would actually handle each one — not whether it can "probably accommodate" the student in general terms. Neither an automatic IA transfer nor an automatic guarantee of the same six subjects at the same levels is something the IB's own public FAQ promises; the real, operational answer has to be confirmed for this specific student and this specific school.
For a student with university ambitions, it's worth asking how the receiving school would produce predicted grades and references after a limited period observing the student, and confirming whether any target degree carries a specific subject requirement. A move that resolves one school problem can quietly create an admissions problem if a required course turns out to be unavailable at the new school.
3. Assess academic fit with one concrete test
Where two schools teach topics in a different order, a student can be genuinely "up to date" in the old school's sequence while still unfamiliar with several units the new school has already covered. Requesting the new teacher's actual topic sequence and a sample of recent work is a fast way to find out which — then to distinguish a real gap in instruction from an underlying difficulty applying a method the student has technically seen before. A useful repair plan names a specific topic, a starting exercise, and the date by which the student is expected to attempt a new problem independently.
It's worth keeping the student inside this conversation directly — what they expect to change academically and socially, what support they already use, and who their point of contact will be at the new school. Their own view is evidence for the plan; it isn't something an assumption that the move will be easy, or disastrous, can safely replace.