I’m currently a sophomore and I had a hard time adjusting to high school first trimester (I went to a junior high from grades 7-9). I got a B- in HP Algebra 2, a B- in HP Chemistry and a C+ in Spanish 2. Would it be worth retaking these three courses junior year to improve my GPA and class rank? Also, would Ivy League colleges look down upon retaking these courses rather than persuing the IB diploma. I have to register for classes really soon and I don’t know what to do.
NO, it wouldn’t be worth it, especially notusing time slots from junior year. You need to move forward, not get stuck in place.
The only class that may be worth retaking is Spanish2 and ONLY if you do so over the summer so that you can take Spanish 3 with a solid foundation.
Take Precalculus (regular), Spanish 3, Physics, plus a social science/history and English, plus some classes you’re interested in and are likely to do well in.
Junior year, I intend on taking
- HL IB math year 1
- HL IB history year 1
- HL IB English year 1
- HL IB biology year 1
- SL IB Spanish year 1
- SL IB physics
- DP Theory of Knowledge
Should I take full IB courses or retake the classes listed above in the previous post? Would retaking these courses as a junior look bad on my transcript in the eyes of college admission at the top universities rather than taking full IB?
“Also, would Ivy League colleges look down upon retaking these courses rather than persuing the IB diploma”
Why the focus on Ivy League schools and how they would judge you. You have struggled in high school classes and earned some low grades. And you envision yourself in one of the 8 most competitive schools in the the country? Why in the world would you think that one of those 8 schools would be an appropriate fit for you. Do you think you should be studying with the students who are mostly at the very top of the high school that they attended? I am not intending this post to be mean or unkind. But I am struck by how many students with Bs and sometimes Cs somehow view themselves as being qualified anyway for the most competitive schools in the country. They are setting themselves up for big disappointments and they are ignoring the hundreds of schools that are more appropriate for them.
Consider it this way. There are 13,899 1st year Ivy League slots (that is the number of students in their first year of one of 8 Ivy League schools). There are 26,407 public high schools and 10,693 private high schools for a total of approximately 37,100 high schools-and that is just in the US. That does not include the high schools where potential international applicants are enrolled. That means there is a slot in an Ivy League school for a top student from about one third of the schools. But it is actually fewer due to slots going to International students as well. Is it realistic to think that you would be the one out of all of the graduates from 3 high schools who has the credentials, aptitude and accomplishments to be selected to attend an Ivy League school. Are there any students at your school and at two others in your area that might be stronger students than you? If so, why would you be the one selected? It is probably better to start thinking about the hundreds of other possibilities out there. There are plenty of schools that you’d probably love. Don’t get your hopes up for a narrow choice that is unrealistic.
My advice would be to go talk with your guidence counselor and discuss which course plan would be the best fit for you. I would not worry about what looks good or bad to Ivy League schools. instead, what courses will you benefit most from? That should be your focus.
Considering you got aB- in HP Algebra 2, do NOT take Math HL, this is insane - Math HL is one of the hardest math courses in the world. Take either SL (if your current teacher thinks you can get a B or higher) or Math Studies.
Please read post number 2: NO it wouldn’t be worth it to retake those classes, except for Spanish 2 OVER THE SUMMER. You got the grades you got.
To be objective, with these grades, you can look at your flagship (unless you live in CA, VA, MI), as well as universities/LACs ranked 50-125, but unless you were selected for the Olympics no university in the top 10 will admit you, and they don’t count “retakes” (if you need retakes, you don’t belong at their college, essentially).
So
1° Don’t set yourself up for failure withMath HL, register for Maths SL or Math Studies
2° Don’t choose classes because you think they will impress certain colleges. Choose classes that will interest you. With the IB diploma, you already got the “most rigorous” designation, automatically. That gives you a lot of leewayo choose classes that interest you.
3°Take Spanish 2 during summer school.
4° Buy The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges, Fiske Guide, or Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, and start reading. Put post its next to each college that “sounds like you”.
Nope.
For the record, I had several reasons for why I got the grades listed above and if I become nationally ranked for cross country, then I would be recruited.
Still nope.
People from my school have gotten accepted into several Ivy League schools with a 3.5 GPA, average EC’s and ACT scores. If I do the full IB diploma and manage to get straight A’s along with an ACT score of 35, academically I would be qualified. For my EC’s, varsity cross country and captain (nationally ranked), varsity track, club soccer, MUN, mock trial, math team and tech crew. Also, I am going to India to shadow doctors and learn more about the medical field. I want to be a surgeon and I need to go to a really prestigious college to get into a good medical school. Although it is unlikely that I will get accepted into the top Ivy League schools, do I even have the slightest chance of getting accepted into Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Brown, Dartmouth or Cornell?
You don’t need straight A’s on the IB diploma, but you will need a projected score of 38+.
If you want to go to med school, your best bet is actually NOT to attend a prestigious college, since med schools do not look at prestige, they look at ranking within your class. You need to be in the top 10% of admits (top 25% for top colleges) or you risk being weeded out. Med schools want you to be in the top 10-20% of all your classes plus have very high scores on the MCAT. The more competitive your class, the lower the odds of getting into med school.
So, you need to balance a university where you rank in the top 25% or top 10% and that has good premed advising resources. Your state flagship or a good LAC would be better than an Ivy.
Understand that ANY of the colleges you list are unpredictable. You can freely apply to some but you should NOT focus on those. Buy a Fiske Guide or Princeton Review’s Best Colleges, and start reading, looking for matches (colleges with 30%+ acceptance rates) and safeties (schools with 40-50% acceptance rates - you need a minimum of 2 of them). Everyone has dream schools and that’s okay (although listing all Ivies + JHU and Northwestern, if you were a senior, would betray a characteristic that’d make it less likely for you to get in. Do you know that the easiest cut for Columbia adcoms is when an applicant say “I’m interested in Columbia because it’s an Ivy and it’s in NYC”… think about what it means and how it applies to the list you made above.)