I’m extremely conflicted over the decision of whether or not I should drop the IB diploma. I’m currently a junior (11th grade) and although I know this is the most stressful year of high school, I think I’m going insane. It’s gotten so bad that my school counselor called my parents and had them put me in therapy for my stress and anxiety surrounding academics. If I do drop I’m still going to take the same classes except for IB Spanish II and I won’t do CAS, TOK, and the EE. Right now my schedule looks like this:
Journalism 3
IB Business I SL
IB Spanish I SL
Pre-Calc
Physics
IB HOA HL
IB English I HL
Next year (assuming I continue with the diploma) I’m going to be taking the following:
Journalism 4
IB Business II HL
IB Spanish II SL
IB Math Studies SL
IB ESS SL
IB Topics HL
IB English II HL
My biggest concern is that if I drop the diploma I won’t get into my number one college which is Syracuse. I want to apply as a Sports Management major and they only accept 50 students a year. I’m planning on applying EDI but I’m worried that dropping the diploma will completely screw over all my chances of getting accepted. Is dropping the diploma worth it?
I would say that your health is more important than academics. Consider Woodrow Wilson. Regardless of what you think of the man, his nationwide tour for the League of Nations despite the warning of friends and physicians led him to becoming bed-ridden for seven months. At my school, we don’t start TOK and EE and CAS until second semester. How would dropping out of IB help your anxiety if the extras haven’t even appeared yet?
TOK and EE are what stresses you more than anything - fall of senior year before the EE is due I think was the most stressful for my son. IB is just very, very, very time consuming - bed at midnight up at 4:00 a.m. and you still have to make decision on what to complete and what to do at 80%. IB is just hard. If you are not going for the diploma why don’t you just do AP, much less stressful, still difficult, some classes more so but not the work volume of IB.
I would say to drop the diploma. Just like ChericHarmony, I believe that health is more important than academics. Also, the TOK essay, EE, and CAS is not the only thing you must complete for the IB diploma. You will also have to do an Internal Assessment for each of your IB classes: this is painful. These Internal Assessments can range from research papers to hands-on projects.