During November 2015 approximately two and a half thousand Australasian IB Diploma candidates sat for their final Diploma exams. Student results will be released to schools on January 4, 2016 and to students via the IB candidates' website on January 7. These students are excluded from merit ranks created by media organisations based on State or National senior secondary courses such as the NSW HSC, Victorian VCE, South Australian SACE, Queensland OP and New Zealand NCEA. As a result such merit ranks are inaccurate reflections of academic performance of school cohorts.
For an accurate academic comparison between schools offering the IB Diploma and those that do not, such rankings should not be published until IB Diploma results are released in January 2016.
The breakdown of candidates across Australasia in 2015 was Victoria 570, Queensland 480, New South Wales 411, South Australia 273, ACT 80, Western Australia 45, Tasmania 17 and Northern Territory 16. 313 Candidatessat for exams in New Zealand. Additional candidates sat for Diploma exams in Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
