<p>Hi, I am currently in Year 11 (10th grade) of Luanda International School. I am about to go to IB Diploma Programme next year and have been making final decisions towards my HL and SL subject choices. I am VERY interested in Biomedical Engineering, aside from medicine that is the only thing I seem to have a passion for. For SL, i am taking Spanish, Economics and Biology. For HL, i chose Chemistry, Maths, and English A. If you know how the IB works you know that you can only take two sciences (which sucks). That's the problem, I have heard from various sources that physics would also be required, which is totally NOT a surprise since it is engineering, but some people say that chemistry, biology, and maths are the most important subjects to take in high school if you want to do BiomedE. But there are also people who said that colleges have high school physics as prerequisites, which worries me. And then there are people who said that you dont have to take physics in high school as long as you do well in physics in college. </p>
<p>What should I do? (I made a solid decision to keep my Chemistry HL, so the choice is really between Biology SL and Physics SL). (Also I am planning to go to college in the US).</p>
<p>Also, I am planning to do a 3-week summer program in Brown University this summer and a Biomedical Engineering summer program in Columbia University next summer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help :)</p>
<p>Hi, I;'m applying for biomedical engineering as well and I think that HL chem bio and math would be the best combination to go into this field. I do not think physics is a must but since this is US, I think you apply under a faculty, therefore in you college essay you should emphasize you wanna go into biomedical engineering. Taking physics and biology is quite rare, due to chemistry being the connecting subject between the two. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>I graduated with an IB Diploma in May and I’m a first year engineering student now. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I started IB so I took HL History (required), HL English (required), HL Chemistry, HL Math, SL Biology, and SL Spanish. </p>
<p>I am taking the mechanics half of physics right now with one year of Pre-AP Physics experience in high school and I am doing fine in the course. I am grateful for the conceptual understanding of forces and kinematics that I began college with because I think it has helped me, but I also believe that I would have succeed without high school physics. I do suspect that colleges might frown on not taking any physics in high school but I really cannot tell you for sure how that would be viewed. I loved my Biology SL class and do not regret taking it at all even though I am no longer using it (I am leaning towards mechanical engineering now). I learned how to design my own labs and write professional lab reports, which really helped me think like a scientist. The course was easy enough for me that I took my own notes from the book, wrote great lab reports, and blatantly goofed off during class lectures and still pulled off a 6 for the class. I believe IB Biology has a reputation for being one of the easier IB courses.</p>
<p>I would opt to take both courses if you could (my physics course didn’t fit into my IB Diploma but I still had to take physics), but if it really comes down to it I believe that Physics SL might be the better choice. I would aim to take the subject that I needed the most help in before college unless you are really concerned about overloading yourself (the IB program at my school was not as rigorous as other programs I’ve heard of). You probably know best whether you are more comfortable with biology or physics.</p>