Hi, I am a senior in a US public high school, and I am currently in the IB Diploma program. I have been at school for 3 days, and I am seriously considering dropping two IB classes. If I do drop these classes, I won’t be able to get the IB diploma, but I may still be a course candidate. This is my current schedule:
Global Politics/ History of the Americas HL2
Psychology HL2
English 4 HL2 (only English honors class my school offers)
Ap Chemistry
Theory of Knowledge
Math SL
I am really interested in science, and I want to do another science, but my schedule doesn’t allow it. I am truly not interested in Psychology and Theory of Knowledge, both classes I need to take this year to get the diploma.
Last year, I took two dedicated IB classes: Biology SL and Spanish 4 SL. (I also did English 3 HL1, but that’s the only honors English class offered at our school, so even non-IB kids took it). I scored a 7 in Bio and a 6 in Spanish. Although I was originally interested in IB, I have since grown tired of the program. Only History of the Americas and Math SL interest me (which I will continue to take), and I have heard from sources that US schools don’t value the IB diploma extremely highly. I am only aiming for the University of California public schools. College apps are due in November, but CAS and my EE aren’t finished until long after that. Because of this, I am unsure if doing the full diploma is really worth it. I am unmotivated to do the EE, and what I do for CAS I do anyway, with or without IB. I know I sound lazy, but I want to take AP Environmental Science, which I am interested in, over Psych and TOK, which I am not.
Is it a good idea to drop those two classes and just be a course candidate? I wouldn’t have to do the EE and CAS, which would allow me to focus better on each class individually. Some have said dropping out of IB looks bad on apps, but if I don’t mention that the diploma was a goal, maybe they’ll see that I took classes that I was interested in, that just happened to be IB. Will my Bio and Spanish scores still be usable and valuable to colleges?
By the way, I took AP Calculus AB junior year, so I didn’t bank everything on IB.