A family pays for boarding school with ETH in mind. Your website shows the school’s average, and the average does not answer the question.

Picture this: a family in Dubai compares two Swiss boarding schools. Their daughter wants to study engineering at ETH Zurich. Both websites highlight their International Baccalaureate average, and both averages are good. Neither says which Higher Level subjects can be combined in the timetable, or how many students passed the minimum ETH requires without counting bonus points. The family writes to both admissions offices. The first to reply is the one that had the answer ready.

The IB Diploma opens Swiss universities. But it does not open them equally for everyone, and the figure schools usually publish is not the one that decides.

What the numbers say.

In the May 2026 session, the global average Diploma score was 30.88 points out of a maximum of 45, up from 30.58 in 2025, according to Tes. The pass rate was 82.61%. Of nearly 210,000 students, 10,526 scored over 40 points. That maximum of 45 includes 3 bonus points for the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge.

The University of Basel admits IB Diploma holders to all its bachelor’s programmes if they obtain at least 32 out of 42 points, without bonus points, in six subjects from set categories, with one experimental science or mathematics subject at Higher Level. It does not accept “Math Studies”. And programmes with restricted places, such as medicine, have their own rules.

For the 2025/26 academic year, ETH Zurich asked for considerably more: 38 out of 42 points without bonus points, and at Higher Level mathematics, one of physics, chemistry or biology, and one Language A, plus three set subjects at Standard Level. Otherwise, a reduced entrance examination applies. ETH itself warns that requirements are published every year and apply only to that application period.

What I do not know.

I do not know what ETH or Basel will require for the next application round, because the requirements change every year. I have not compared every Swiss university, and each one decides for itself. I do not know whether the averages schools publish include bonus points, or how many students they are based on. And I am not a university counsellor: what each student needs is for the university and the school’s guidance team to confirm.

The blind spot: the decision is made at 16.

Diploma subjects are chosen at the start of the last two years. Under the 2025/26 requirements, if a 16-year-old student chooses mathematics at Standard Level, the door to ETH without an exam has already closed, even if nobody says so out loud and even if the final grade is excellent. And there is a detail almost no family sees: if Higher Level physics and mathematics fall in the same timetable block, the combination does not exist, however complete the subject list looks. That last point is my own inference, not a published rule, but it is the first question I would ask.

The average sells the school. The subject combination decides the university.

Where I stand.

I believe a Swiss boarding school that attracts families with university ambitions should have a page on its website that almost none have: which subject combinations it offers, which Swiss universities they open and with what minimum, with the academic year they refer to and a link to the official requirements. And instead of an average, the distribution: how many students passed 32 and 38 without bonus points, out of how many who sat. A family spending what a Swiss boarding school costs is not looking for a brilliant average. It wants to know whether the path it imagines for its daughter or son exists at that school.

What I would check.

• The figure you publish. Whether the average includes bonus points, which year it is from and how many students it covers.
• The possible combinations. Which Higher Level subjects fit together in the real timetable.
• Target universities. Which official requirements each combination meets, with the link and the academic year.
• The moment of choice. Whether the website explains at 15 what is decided at 16.
• Languages. Whether this information is in each family’s language, not only in English.

Where to start.

1. This week

   Read the requirements

   Those of Basel, ETH and the universities your students choose most, in their current version.

2. This month

   Cross-check the timetable

   Which real combinations the school offers and which universities each one opens.

3. This quarter

   Publish the page

   Combinations, requirements, reference year and results by band, reviewed by the guidance team.

4. Every year

   Update

   When requirements change and when the July results arrive.

Think of a sixteen-year-old pupil at your school who dreams of ETH. This year she is choosing subjects based on what she enjoys. Two years from now, someone in Zurich will check whether she chose the ones that were needed.

Who told her in time: her counsellor, your website, or nobody? And if her mother searches on her phone tonight for what ETH asks of an IB pupil, will she find the answer on your school’s website or on another school’s?

If you would like me to review what your website tells the family thinking about a Swiss university today, and how it could answer before anyone else does, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Which requirements apply to each pupil is for the university and your counselling team to confirm, not a designer.