<p>I am going to put this as straightforwardly as possible:</p>
<p>If you haven't done anything art-related whatsoever in high school, and you don't plan on majoring in anything art-related in college, will taking HL Art look bad to colleges?</p>
<p>If you're only okay at science and you have a hard time memorizing stuff, is taking HL Computer Science a bad idea? </p>
<p>If you struggled in IB-Prep Biology, I'm pretty sure that taking HL Biology is a bad idea...but any input on this would be lovely</p>
<p>Thank you!!</p>
<p>For art, I don’t think the issue would be what colleges think of it. I don’t see how colleges could see this as a bad thing. But if you haven’t taken any art classes in high school, I think IB Art, especially higher level, would be a poor choice because of the difficulty and the expectations.
Can you talk to a guidance counselor at your school about what choices they think would be best for you and your academic profile?</p>
<p>Typically students take their HLs in subjects in which they have already excelled and take SLs in subjects that they find more challenging or in which they have less interest.</p>
<p>There aren’t very many HL options at my school, unfortunately. My language is only offered as an SL course, and I’m not really a math and science person. I’m required to take HL English and History of the Americas, which is good because those are my best subjects. I was thinking that I would be okay at Art, just because I really like themes and motifs and hidden messages, and I feel like I could incorporate that into my pieces.</p>
<p>In that case, I wouldn’t worry about it. I think the arts are pretty flexible with past experience. My son even has students in HL music who have never played an instrument before. According to the IBO website, the main difference between SL and HL visual arts is the depth, not the quality of the work. You have more class hours so they expect you to explore things further but that doesn’t mean they are expecting evidence of exceptional talent. It sounds like you’ll enjoy the course. That’s what’s most important.</p>