<p>Hi!
Currently, I'm a Junior taking the IB Diploma program, and I was wondering if it would look poorly on my college application if I were to drop it next year. The main reason for this is because of my schedule. I have to either:</p>
<ul>
<li>Drop BC Calculus next year to take Digital Art (I need a fine arts credit to graduate; IB Film, I found out, is not a fine arts credit), or:</li>
<li>Drop the program and take BC Calc & Digital Art next year</li>
</ul>
<p>If I drop the program, I was planning on dropping IB Theory of Knowledge and IB Spanish to take AP Psychology and AP Literature.</p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Honestly I don’t think will hurt you that much, IB is great but many schools don’t even accept it and the ones that do mostly go on scores on individual tests more so than the diploma as a whole. TOK won’t really get you any credit, and Spanish may not either. AP courses are a safe bet for college credit. I did IB and missed my diploma by 1 point. I still got credit for the tests I did well on, along with credit for all my AP’s, so a mix of IB and AP is a good route to go.</p>
<p>Any other feedback?</p>
<p>I really need to know if colleges would prefer it if I continued taking math, or continued pursing the diploma.</p>
<p>I was thinking of dropping too. Lots of colleges don’t even take IB credits unless if they are HL courses.</p>
<p>Just curious what colleges you are looking at that don’t give credit for IB - I haven’t seen a single one that didn’t give it the same weight as AP. Now, even seeing that as the case - is the workload and GPA drop worth it? The colleges you apply to won’t know you dropped the diploma program, they’ll just think you took IB classes instead of AP. There are many students who prefer the IB Lit/Lang/History courses over their AP counterparts because of the structure and depth of involvement in the classes. I’ve seen a number drop out at son’s school and start smiling again.</p>
<p>I have heard though that dropping the program before applying looks bad because it shows that you can’t do all the extra work that seniors get. Like you look lazy or something. But colleges weigh AP the same as IB just the scores you just have to get high scores for both.</p>
<p>I did exactly what you’re planning on doing. Dropped the diploma and dropped IB art since I wasn’t that into it. Also, the only IB math we had was Math SL (who had a horrible teacher and over half the class failed) or Math Studies SL (not even precal). So i took normal precal instead. </p>
<p>Anyways, one thing to think about: if all you’re other stuff is up to par, you’ll be fine. There are many students who don’t do the full diploma for many reasons, and still get into top schools all the time. If grades haven’t been that great, it may help you though. And one thing I’ve learned so far from in college: most people still don’t know exactly what IB is, even a lot of my professors. So you’re self worth isn’t tarnished from dropping the full diploma.</p>