Spain's Excellence Baccalaureate: Lower Grades, Same Entry Test

The Excellence Baccalaureate that sinks the grade required for Medicine

Can a more demanding school leave a brilliant student out of the degree they want? That is the question hovering over the case of a first-year Excellence Baccalaureate student at a public high school in Madrid, aiming for Medicine or Biotechnology, who went from never dropping below a 7 to getting her first fail: a 4.9 in Chemistry. Her father describes the scene: at one in the morning, crying, with the next day's exam still ahead. "She gives up, she can't take anymore," he summarizes.

It is not an isolated case nor a problem of effort. The girl studies day and night. What has broken is something else: the relationship between what she works on and the grade she gets back.

Why the Baccalaureate grade weighs more than the University Entrance Exam

The system splits the final access grade between 60% Baccalaureate and 40% University Entrance Exam (Selectividad). This split is key to everything. If the school inflates or depresses classroom grades, the effect carries through to the cut-off score, and the Selectividad —which is a common exam, the same for everyone— barely corrects the imbalance.

Hence the contradiction denounced by the father. A student with good study habits can get excellent marks in a laxer, ordinary high school, while another with the same talent stays in the middle range simply because they compete in an environment where the bar is much higher. The result does not reward those who know the most, but those who chose the easiest door.

Some argue, conversely, that a tough school builds habits and better prepares students for the jump to university. It is a reasonable argument until it is applied to someone who already studies without being asked.

The two Math exams that show the gap

To prove that the difference is not psychological, the father posts two Math tests: his daughter's class exam and one from the ordinary Baccalaureate. The conclusion of those comparing both papers is sharp: someone scoring a 5 in the first would likely get an excellent mark in the second. The Excellence exam includes complex numbers and conic sections that do not even appear in the other.

No joke about the distance. It is not that the syllabus is "deeper": it is that the same grades measure different things in each classroom. And in Selectividad, where the test is the same for all, the final picture is unforgiving.

The student who changed schools and ended up with a 13

The most talked-about case is that of a boy who was about to drop out and switch to vocational training (FP) at the same Excellence school. His parents took him out after the first year of Baccalaureate, enrolled him in another high school, and the result was an average of 10 and a 13 in Selectividad, securing a place in one of the country's toughest faculties and top honors in his first year of university. From the edge to a golden record, with the same student.

It is an anecdote, not a study. But it fits with what many families suspect as they pack their bags mid-course.

Repeating a year to boost Selectividad scores?

Another tricky point: the student says that second-year Baccalaureate pupils are sometimes offered the option to repeat the year if teachers do not trust them to get good marks in Selectividad. "Let those who don't make it repeat, not those who are doing fine," some protest.

The tutor herself, in the meeting with the father, was clear: Medicine is "very, very difficult," and it is advisable to have a Plan B —nursing, a private university, another route—. The girl has improved compared to the first term, but with irregular grades: an 8, a 5, a 7. Teachers say she does not study daily, only for exams.

The adjustment of expectations no one wants to make

Here the debate splits. Some defend changing schools immediately: the priority is the grade, and no one will ask where the Baccalaureate was completed. Others urge caution regarding self-demand, because the list of brilliant kids ending up with anxiety or depression in their first year of college is longer than it seems.

And a third current, uncomfortable, argues that if a student needs fifty hours a week to hold their own in an elite center, perhaps they are not suited for that center. Not due to lack of worth, but because excellence also means choosing the battle you can win.

With these elements, the basket weaves itself: less pressure, higher grades, same Selectividad. The miracle would be for someone to explain why no one thought of this before.