<p>Haha pomelinacs, wish I knew. Almost nothing can “guarantee” admission to Harvard, really. I know that Oxford expects 7s on all your Highers (after the conditional acceptance, of course – lol) so Harvard is probably looking for students with similar credentials.</p>
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<p>As jav2010 said, your scores are predicted by your teachers or IB coordinator or someone like that. IB requires predicted scores because if your actual exam score is more than 2 points higher or lower than your predicted score, they know something probably went wrong (i.e. either you cheated or your moderator graded funky) because a difference of 2 points from your predicted is quite a lot.</p>
<p>IB exams are completely driven by essays and student-generated answers. The only exams (that I am aware of) that have any multiple choice section at all are the science exams. But all exams (science included) have a major essay or explanation section. So they want to make sure everything is being objectively graded.</p>
<p>Also, anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of your IB exam grade is already determined before you walk into the actual exam room in May or November. All IB subjects have “internal assessments” (recently the bane of my existence) such as oral commentaries, extended investigations into problems, replication of a psychology experiment, etc. These are graded by your teacher and moderated by the IB. This is done so your exam score won’t be entirely ruined by a bad exam day or anything like that. So your predicted score can be partly based on how strong your IA is, so they’re usually quite accurate. Acceptances to European universities usually hinge entirely on one’s IB scores, so they are extermely important for those applicants.</p>
<p>Yeah. I’m sure that was a much longer answer than you even wanted to read, haha. Sorry. :)</p>