Are my IB courses considered rigorous?

Applying to College
1

Hi, I currently take:

English Literature HL
History HL
Economics HL
Math SL
Chinese Language&lit SL
Bio SL
TOK

I’m a full DP student.

2

Colleges evaluate course rigor based on the context of your high school. Your counselor will fill out a school report, which lets admissions officers know what classes are available at your high school. Your counselor recommendation will also include a list where your counselor will check off one of these options: took most rigorous courses, took challenging courses, took average courses, took below average courses (this isn’t the exact wording, but you get the idea).

Therefore, being an IB diploma candidate, your counselor will most likely tell colleges that you took the most rigorous courses available.

TLDR:
Yes.

3

The IB Diploma is always considered rigorous regardless of what courses you choose to take. That said, the rigor of your individual courses in the eyes of admissions officers depends on what you intend to study in College. If you’re intending to study a social science then your courses will be seen in a better light that if you’re aiming for engineering. As for the difficulty of your courses relative to IB’s offerings, It would have helped to have taken 4 HLs instead of 3 but overall I’d say that your chose courses on the more difficult side.

4

Your courses definitely look rigorous. An IB student myself, English, History, and Economics HL are known for their rigor. Its good you chose Math SL over Studies but it depends on your major in the end if you needed to take math HL or not.Bio SL though is known to be the easiest science there is, so I guess that may be the only thing that doesnt look rigorous overall

5

They’ll definitely think your courses were rigorous. The only thing is, I agree with @Liveitlight that HL bio might’ve been a better choice but that won’t be the reason you don’t get in somewhere.

@addmatz 4 HL’s make it extremely difficult to fit time in for ECs, volunteering, entering competitions, etc so I’m not sure if i agree with you. it would’ve made the classes more rigorous but probably wouldve detracted from other areas