International Baccalaureate testing during 2022 worlds

Chit-Chat / Rumor Mill
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In 2021 I posted a thread about AP testing. AP testing during worlds

The 2022 season dates cleared the AP hurdles, but it turns out the week before VRC worlds is the International Baccalaureate testing. I have some seniors that are IB students and they won’t be able to go if the win at the regional.

I know in the past that students signed up for an AP testing location at Worlds in the past as a way to get around the date issues.

Do any of you that are in an IB program have a plan to make it to 2022 worlds?

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Similar situations have been described in previous threads, although I think those were regarding the UK national championships. In my opinion, the entire season should be advanced by a month or so to avoid interference with end of school year events. I don’t know, however, if those changes might be troublesome for teams in other countries.

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The school’s IB Coordinator would have to request an examination reschedule from the IB.

The IB testing window is bigger because there are more exams and multiple papers.

See dp-and-cp-may-examination-session-schedule-2022-en.pdf (ibo.org)

This is a good question to ask at the Mid-Season town hall.

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I wasn’t able to be at the Town Hall. I had submitted a question, does anyone know if it got answered?

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Yes, was the first one. But, more of an apology for the inconvenience than a solution. They try to avoid the conflicts, but it is what it is.

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I am in the IB Diploma program at my school, and my plan is to close my eyes and hope that it magically works out.

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One of my favorite phrases is “Hope is not an engineering strategy.” I know you are kidding… Let me know what your actual results are. Current plan here is for the team to talk to the local IB coordination person to see what can easily be done.

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I am not sure anything can be done.
My school is a IB World School, and from my understanding, the IB exam schedule is fixed for the entire time zone, i.e. all schools in the same zone will be following the same schedule.

I know to us (i.e the “VEX-ers”) worlds is a big deal, but IBO is much bigger. Don’t think IBO will bulge for a competition.

And unlike AP, the IB exams can only be conducted in a certified IB World School and invigilate by certified IB teachers.
Some possible options that i can think of will be maybe to find a nearby IB school to take exam in?
Or maybe is there a different timezone exam schedule that might fit better?

My frustrations over this matter is that this issue was raised since last year!
As mentioned by @Foster , lots of scheduling issues were already raised in the much earlier thread.
Think most of us will agree that the original end Apr worlds schedule will work better.
But nothing was done about it.

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From my years as an IB student, yeah the schedule is fixed.

For seniors it’s really unfortunate. I guess for juniors they could ask to take exams in the November examination window.

They didn’t really answer it so yeah it’s unfortunate,

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So my rule has always been “Unless you ask, the answer is No.” The schedule is fixed, but I’m sure there has been exceptions before. And when they go “No”, ask, “So what is my Plan B?” In the case of the standardized testing students found a close by school and took the test there.

I get that there are only 365 days in the year and there will be schedule overlaps. Taking a 90 min test shouldn’t be a tough thing to move. They move rocket launches all the time :slight_smile:

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Foster, this is like saying “if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can put a man on the sun”. These are two very different problems which should not be compared in such a glib manner.

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In defense of RECF, their schedule for Worlds is somewhat at the mercy of the venue’s availability. The type of venue that can handle an event the size of VEX Worlds is likely to have a large number of other groups fighting for space and dates as well. We don’t know how the Dallas Exhibition Center schedules events, but I would think that the preferred dates for Worlds were not available. Under ideal circumstances, I would think that RECF would like there to be NO other conflicts with Worlds. That is unrealistic, in my opinion. Attached is the link to the schedule for the Dallas Exhibitions Center.
Kay Bailey Exhibition Center Schedule of Events

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Dan even mentioned on the Town Hall that their 3 finalists for Worlds had conflicts for the end of April for Worlds.

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Sadly, I missed yesterday’s session ( I had to decide between teams that have events this weekends a chance to get their robots and code DONE vs that.) So I’m on a delayed tape response, I’ll see it on Saturday.

More like “Hey IB, we can put a man on the moon, a rover on Mars, we should be able to find some way to accommodate NNN of the best roboteers and get a schedule move or a second slot for them to take the test” I wrote “Taking a 90 min test shouldn’t be a tough thing to move.”

I wasn’t asking to move Worlds, it was more of a general two part question “Hey, do you look at this RECF” and a "Has the RECF helped with getting accommodations in the past. " Remember they have contacts with all the teams, this may have come up some place else, they did this, etc. etc. etc.

But more to your point “surely we can put a man on the sun”, that’s easy-peasy. It’s the getting them home part that’s hard :slight_smile: Yea, I know, more glib.

Ok, that’s good to know. Better would be the “and here is what they/we are doing to help fix it.” There are a lot of us out here, we are not the only one with that problem, maybe someone else has the same problem and this was / is their fix.

Like in a few weeks I expect to get calls “Good news, we are going to Worlds, bad news, we don’t have money for Worlds” and I’ll try to direct them to groups that have donation capability. A problem that I and other Mentors have seen before.

Yep, I get that. Big venues took hits in 2020, are back in 2021 and oversubscribed for 2022 on. The Philly Convention Center is saying they are at 90% for next year. There are only 365 days a year, there are going to be collisions.

Looking for workarounds. Presently searching for IB schools near the Convention center to have people take the test there if they can’t do it early here.

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Remember, the move to Dallas was supposed to happen in 2021 and the contract was signed before the announcement in 2019. Somewhere in the past Dan had said that they always knew 2022 was going to be a problem with the preferred April dates.