Across the May and November sessions, published IB student registrations increased from 191,948 in 2022 to 225,109 in 2025. Over the same period, the combined number of DP second-year candidates rose from 102,590 to 120,061.
This article combines the official May and November statistical bulletins for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. It lets you compare the two sessions, hover over chart points for exact values and read the complete data in HTML tables. The emphasis is not one headline percentage; it is how participation, Diploma outcomes, mean scores, result bands and retake-category records moved together.
The bulletins contain several different populations. Treating them as interchangeable is the easiest way to produce a convincing but incorrect chart.
All students listed in the session overview, including DP, course, anticipated, retake and, where reported, CP categories. Adding May and November gives annual activity, not a deduplicated headcount.
The population used in the Diploma awarded/not-awarded results series and the denominator for the published pass rate.
A registration category within DP. It is not the same as “everyone who has ever repeated something,” and it should not be divided by all candidates as if it were a failure rate.
Our annual estimate weights the rounded May and November pass rates by their candidate counts. Because source rates are rounded to one decimal, the result is approximate.
A person may appear in more than one session or category over time. Therefore, “May + November registrations” means the sum of two session snapshots. It must not be described as the number of unique IB students in the world that year.
Summed May and November session registrations rose by 33,161 between 2022 and 2025, a 17.3% increase. Most of the volume is in May, but both sessions grew. May registrations increased 16.2% over the period; November registrations increased 27.3%.
All published student categories in each session. Hover or keyboard-focus a bar for its exact count.
| Year | May registrations | November registrations | Summed session registrations | Annual change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 173,880 | 18,068 | 191,948 | Baseline |
| 2023 | 179,922 | 20,266 | 200,188 | +4.3% |
| 2024 | 192,866 | 21,806 | 214,672 | +7.2% |
| 2025 | 202,103 | 23,006 | 225,109 | +4.9% |
The combined total passed 200,000 session registrations in 2023 and 225,000 in 2025. May represented about nine in ten of the summed registrations each year. That scale difference is why the combined annual pass rate sits much closer to the May rate than the November rate.
| Year | May schools | November schools | Simple sum* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 3,090 | 1,124 | 4,214 |
| 2023 | 3,189 | 1,340 | 4,529 |
| 2024 | 3,323 | 1,427 | 4,750 |
| 2025 | 3,401 | 1,501 | 4,902 |
*Do not interpret this sum as unique schools. A school offering both sessions is present twice, and the public bulletins do not provide a cross-session school identifier for deduplication.
The combined DP second-year candidate population rose from 102,590 in 2022 to 120,061 in 2025. May added 12,744 candidates; November added 4,727. November remained much smaller, but its share of the combined cohort rose from 13.5% to 15.5%.
This is the relevant population for the published Diploma pass-rate series.
| Year | May | November | Combined session count | Change from prior year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 88,766 | 13,824 | 102,590 | Baseline |
| 2023 | 91,442 | 16,187 | 107,629 | +4.9% |
| 2024 | 96,726 | 17,514 | 114,240 | +6.1% |
| 2025 | 101,510 | 18,551 | 120,061 | +5.1% |
The May pass rate fell from 86.1% in 2022 to 80.0% in 2023, then rose to 80.5% in 2024 and 81.3% in 2025. November fell from 82.0% to 72.4% in 2023, then rose to 73.1% and 74.3%.
These are separate cohorts. The gap does not prove that one examination session is easier.
| Year | May rate | November rate | Gap | Approx. candidate-weighted annual rate* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 86.1% | 82.0% | 4.1 points | 85.5% |
| 2023 | 80.0% | 72.4% | 7.6 points | 78.9% |
| 2024 | 80.5% | 73.1% | 7.4 points | 79.4% |
| 2025 | 81.3% | 74.3% | 7.0 points | 80.2% |
*IBretake calculation: (May candidates × published May rate + November candidates × published November rate) ÷ combined candidates. It is approximate because both source rates are rounded to one decimal.
A summary measure calculated from the two published session rates and candidate counts.
The combined estimate fell 6.7 percentage points in 2023, then recovered by about 1.4 points over the next two years. It remained below 2022. This is descriptive, not causal: the bulletins do not isolate whether changes came from assessment, subject mix, candidate composition, policy, curriculum transitions or another factor.
May mean points moved from 32.0 in 2022 to 30.2 in 2023, then increased to 30.5 by 2025. November moved from 31.0 to 29.1 and then to 29.4. In each of these four years, the November mean was below the May mean, with a gap ranging from 1.0 to 1.2 points.
Published mean total points for second-year Diploma results.
| Year | May mean grade | November mean grade | May mean points | November mean points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 5.1 | 4.9 | 32.0 | 31.0 |
| 2023 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 30.2 | 29.1 |
| 2024 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 30.3 | 29.3 |
| 2025 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 30.5 | 29.4 |
The mean is only one number. Score bands show where the distribution moved. In May, the 0-23 share increased sharply in 2023, then declined in 2024 and 2025. The 40-45 share followed the opposite pattern. November shows a similar 2023 break and modest recovery, although its lower bands remained larger than May's.
| May points band | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-23 | 10.9% | 16.1% | 15.5% | 14.7% |
| 24-29 | 23.1% | 28.3% | 28.8% | 27.7% |
| 30-34 | 27.8% | 26.9% | 26.9% | 27.8% |
| 35-39 | 23.5% | 19.8% | 19.5% | 20.5% |
| 40-45 | 14.7% | 8.9% | 9.3% | 9.3% |
| November points band | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-23 | 14.7% | 23.2% | 22.0% | 20.7% |
| 24-29 | 30.4% | 33.0% | 33.8% | 34.0% |
| 30-34 | 23.2% | 19.5% | 19.7% | 20.2% |
| 35-39 | 16.2% | 14.1% | 13.9% | 14.3% |
| 40-45 | 15.5% | 10.2% | 10.6% | 10.9% |
One surprising detail is that November's 40-45 share was slightly higher than May's in every year shown, even while November had a lower mean and pass rate. That is possible because distributions can have both a larger high-scoring tail and a larger low-scoring group. It is a useful warning against describing a cohort from its average alone.
The DP retake category grew in both sessions. November contains a much larger retake share than May, which is one plausible contributor to cohort differences, but the public aggregate data cannot establish how much of the pass-rate gap it explains.
Counts recorded in the DP qualification category tables, not unique people.
| Year | May DP total | May anticipated | May Diploma | May retake | Nov DP total | Nov anticipated | Nov Diploma | Nov retake |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 107,804 | 19,024 | 87,725 | 1,055 | 14,704 | 864 | 11,743 | 2,097 |
| 2023 | 110,663 | 19,188 | 90,373 | 1,102 | 17,151 | 946 | 13,201 | 3,004 |
| 2024 | 116,447 | 19,689 | 94,486 | 2,272 | 18,616 | 1,087 | 13,956 | 3,573 |
| 2025 | 128,401 | 26,118 | 99,957 | 2,326 | 19,727 | 1,152 | 14,971 | 3,604 |
Summed session registrations increased 17.3%, and the combined DP second-year result population increased 17.0%.
Both sessions show lower pass rates and mean points in 2023 than in 2022, with larger 0-23 shares.
Pass rates and mean points rose in both sessions, while the lowest score band contracted.
November is smaller and has a much larger retake-category share. Direct comparisons describe cohorts; they do not measure paper difficulty.
The most defensible conclusion is therefore modest: participation expanded, the published outcome distribution weakened in 2023 relative to 2022, and several measures improved gradually through 2025 without returning fully to the 2022 result profile. Anything stronger would require student-level data and controls that the public bulletins do not provide.
Looking specifically for the newest May session?
Read the May 2026 bulletin analysis