S22 is working on course selection and planning for his next 2 years. He is doing the IB DP and our school only has a few options. He’s asking around, but I figured I’d ask here, too - should non-IB electives be in 11th or 12th? Or does it not matter. I want him to balance workload well so he has time to continue his ECs. He’s in marching band and robotics. Band is pretty busy in the fall and robotics is intense in the winter/spring. I don’t want him to have to give those things up because he’s too busy with school.
He has 7 classes each semester. Here is what he has so far:
11th -
HL in English, History, Math AA, and Physics
Chinese SL
TOK/core
Music SL or elective
12th -
HL in English, History, Math AA, and Physics
TOK/core
Music SL or elective (opposite of 11th grade)
elective
So 2 electives total. Either 2 in 12th or 1 each year. He’s currently interested in pursuing computer science or math. So far he’s done well in school. He has had a handful of AP classes and some take more work than others.
Any suggestions for what electives? He has a few ideas, but none that stand out as must take. He’s done robotics engineering and AP stats for electives so far.
For a lot of kids, the SL classes junior year are the ones in which they have the least interest and/or aptitude so they take a lot of energy to do decently (even though others may not characterize them as “hard”. ) And those grades will be on the transcript colleges see. So leave bandwidth for that.
I’m not sure I agree with @gardenstategal about balancing junior workload. Fall semester senior year for IB was intense with finishing the extended essay, wrapping up CAS, TOK essay, and then you layer in college applications. It was a lot.
@gardenstategal There isn’t a lot of choice and English, History, and Physics are only offered HL. He could do psychology SL, but has heard it is a ton of work and very time consuming, so was turned off. Math is a choice and he likes math a lot, so would like that to be HL. I’m sure he could switch to Math SL if needed, but does not want to plan that.
He did struggle to pick the Group 6. He could do psychology SL instead, but though Music might be more interesting a little, and again is worried about the work level in psychology when he doesn’t have a big interest in it.
You are right, @Darcy123 , but if a kid ends up with GPA issues from junior year, it’s going to be almost impossible to address senior year.
Some application work can be done over the summer.
I think it matters how much a student struggles with their weaker subjects. Perhaps the question OP should be considering. It doesn’t sound like there is a lot of flexibility though.
@gardenstategal
I think IB Music will be his weakest. Or psychology, if he changes his mind and picks that.
He’s in AP English Lang now and is doing well. It’s a lot of work, but so far so good. He excels at math. He had APUSH in 9th and is in WHAP in 10th, so I think the history will be fine. He’s had a lot of years of Chinese and enjoys it for the most part. I hope that he’ll be well prepared at this point. He has not had any physics yet, but I think his experience on the robotics team shows that he will understand it and enjoy it. So I think Music or Psychology are the biggest unknowns.
He is considering taking AP Computer Science A as an elective. He isn’t sure if applying for a CS degree needs to show taking AP CSA or not. He programs already, so doesn’t necessarily need the class to learn to program. But, if having it on his transcript helps applications, it would make sense to take it in 11th, right?
Currently, he has a 4.0 unweighted with 1 AP in 9th and 3 in 10th. The school is pretty average, I think. Lots of kids who don’t want to be there and are distractions at times. No honors classes at all, so he’s taking AP to be with his friend group and the kids who are more interested in doing well and learning. I wish there were honors classes. Of 450-500 kids per grade, 10-20 choose IB Diploma.
It sounds like cs makes the most sense for junior year since he likes it.
It also sounds like he’s a good student.
FWIW, HL math can be really hard, especially if the foundation isn’t strong (which may be the case based on how you describe your school). SL is AP calc plus some other stuff. HL is BC plus a lot of other stuff. It may come very naturally to him, but he should keep an open mind on that since he has 1 extra HL. It is often hard to do the IBD in a school that isn’t 100% behind it. On the flip side, it’s great to be held to high standards!
He likely needs a foreign language for the IBD.
4 HLs is a lot but if your school is part of a program where graduation requirements mandate them both being at HL, he should be ok since it’s likely to be taught appropriately rather than extensively.
@bopper because there aren’t a lot of choices. Here is what is offered:
Group 1 - English HL
Group 2 - Spanish SL and Chinese SL
Group 3 - History HL and Psychology SL
Group 4 - Biology HL and Physics HL
Group 5 - Math AA SL or HL or Math AI SL or HL
Group 6 - Music SL and Visual Art SL
He wants to do math AA at the HL. He thinks he prefers history over pyschology, and so ends up with 4 HL classes, but then he has to take music for group 6.
He talked with the music teacher today and found out kids don’t often do well on the test portion and the average is 3 or so on the test. This worries me because I do not see this as his strong subject at all, so a 3 is probably likely. Psychology tends to be more work, but the average is about 5 for the school. He doesn’t have a big interest in either psychology or music, really.
He’s had AP US history and is in AP World, so figures more history won’t be too difficult.