A remark is officially an Enquiry Upon Results, or EUR. The school submits it; the candidate cannot send a Category 1 request directly to the IB.
For 2026 Category 1 requests, the published IB window is 5 July to 15 September for the May session and 16 December to 15 March for the November session. Your school can set an earlier internal deadline, so ask the coordinator now rather than treating the final IB date as your personal cutoff.
The IB examiner instructions give the outer Category 1 request window. A school may close sooner because it needs candidate consent, payment, component checks and time to submit the request through IB systems.
If a university decision is pending, add that deadline to the same email. A remark completed after an admissions cutoff can still change the IB result, but it may arrive too late to protect the original offer.
Do not decide from the final grade alone. Ask for the scaled total mark, the lower and upper grade boundaries, the number of marks needed for the next grade and, where available, the externally assessed component marks.
A candidate one mark below the next boundary has a different decision from a candidate sitting close to the lower boundary. Category 1 work is re-marked against the same standard; it is not a search for spare marks.
The 2026 examiner instructions ask an allocated examiner to complete a Category 1 re-mark within two days. That is not a guaranteed two-day result for the student: school processing, allocation, quality checks and communication add time around the marking step.
Plan in ranges, not promises. Tell the coordinator the date by which a university needs evidence, ask when the request was actually submitted, and keep a retake plan moving if the outcome is time-critical.
Category 1 is the familiar re-mark of externally assessed material. Category 3 is a school-level remoderation route for an internal assessment sample; it is not an individual candidate asking the IB to re-mark one IA because the final grade was disappointing.
The final subject grade can rise, remain unchanged or fall after a Category 1 review. Confirm the risk and the consent process with the coordinator before paying.
A remark is most defensible when the result is close to a boundary, the externally assessed work was genuinely stronger than the mark suggests, and the timing still helps. A retake is usually the sturdier route when several marks are needed, the university deadline allows another session, or the weak result reflects knowledge gaps rather than a marking anomaly.
The two plans can overlap. You can investigate a remark while checking November or May host-school availability, then stop the retake search if the changed result solves the problem.
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