BISB Graduate Earns Perfect Score on IBDP Exams

Noah Fechtor-Pradines, a 2014 graduate who is now studying mathematics at Harvard, earned a score of 45 points.

A perfect score is an incredibly rare achievement for IB diploma students. In 2014, only 146 students in the world earned a perfect score of 45 points- about 0.11 percent of the 135,534 students who took IB diploma exams in schools around the world.

“To earn 45 points in the IB Diploma Programme requires not only academic ability but sustained motivation, resilience and character,” said BISB Headmaster Paul Wiseman. “Noah has set a challenge to which all our students can aspire. While such a performance is a very individual achievement, we must pay homage to the remarkable teachers and Noah’s family for their important part of this creditable and rare performance.”

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is considered the most rigorous high school diploma program in the world, and is highly-sought after by college admissions representatives in the United States and abroad.

To earn an IB diploma, students must take six subject exams, each graded by subject-area experts on a 1-7 point scale. Students must also complete a Theory of Knowledge course and write a 4,000-word independent primary research paper, for which they can be awarded up to three additional points. 

In order to receive a diploma, students must also participate in creativity, action and service (CAS) activities throughout their two years in the program. The CAS requirement provides a counterbalance to academic studies, helping students to explore creative thinking, develop lifelong healthy habits and understand their capacity to make a meaningful contribution to their community. CAS activities bring learning into the real world and encourage problem-solving, collaboration and responsibility.

The perfect score is a tremendous first for BISB, but is just one highlight in a history of strong performance on the IB diploma exams.

In 2014, BISB students earned an average score of 35.5 points, more than 5 points higher than the global average. Students earned twelve scores of 7 points (the highest score possible in a subject area) across several subjects, including: History, English, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Visual Arts, Spanish and French.

With these successful exam results, the British International School of Boston Class of 2014 joins a community of more than 1.2 million of IBDP graduates in 141 countries around the world.

The British International School of Boston is a co-educational day school located in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The school serves students from the local area and around the world, with more than 78 heritages and more than 25 languages represented in the school community.