First off, sorry if this is the wrong place, I haven’t been on here for a while.
So more or less, I’m wondering what’s the difference in college admissions between 5 IB Certificates and a full IB Diploma. I’m not taking IB French V because we got a new teacher this year that honestly doesn’t know how to teach, and my grade is plummeting. It looks pretty bad when I have As in challenging courses like Math HL and Chem HL but am barely passing French V. I’ve already tried working with the teacher, but it didn’t make a difference. So, I dropped French V because it was severely hurting my GPA and class rank. I know, I know the IB Diploma is awesome. And if our teacher from last year had stayed, I would have totally been down for it. But, French is becoming harder than my maths and sciences combined, and I don’t want to stress myself out over a course I know I won’t get better at.
Anyways, sorry for the rant
My question is, how will this negatively affect my college admissions? For reference, I’m top 10, 34 ACT, National French Honor Society Member (for now lol), National Honor Society Member, and have gotten all 4s and 5s on my APs. My 5 IB classes I’m still taking and have all As in are: Chem HL, Math HL, English HL, History HL, Physics SL
I’m thinking of applying to a mix of public schools who auto-admit top 10 (in TX) and offer great scholarships, and also more selective and prestigious schools, like Rice, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and maybe (though I don’t think I’ll get in) Stanford
I think that you should ask your guidance counselor if this dropped class will affect whether or not they check off the “Most Rigorous Curriculum” box in their report. If it will, then that might be a problem for the selective schools on your list. But overall, I don’t think that taking IB Certificates with AP Classes will negatively affect your application.
Another point to consider is that most selective schools will only give you college credit for IB classes if you have a Diploma & they are at a Higher Level (HL).
At the beginning of last year, I was also seriously considering moving to the IB Certificates (and, like you, dropping French!) My guidance counsellor had said that there would be little to no negative implications, especially because I’m physically disabled and have “special circumstances”. However, I decided to e-mail universities directly, and their replies were quite negative.
I didn’t email the schools you are looking at, but UCLA, Claremont McKenna, and University of Virginia implied (or said directly) that candidates with the IB Certificates would not be considered competitive. Which is fair enough, considering they’re top schools. On the other hand, schools like University of Oregon said there would be no problem.
I would suggest trying to do the IB Diploma again if you’re aiming for top schools. French V is actually quite easy to self-study despite a lousy teacher - believe me, it comes from experience. On the other hand, unlike me, you’re doing 4 HL’s as opposed to 3, and you did AP’s (I did GCSEs) so you seem better off than I had been.
The best advice I can give you is to e-mail your schools directly and in the meantime see if you can get back into the IB Diploma, just in case.
Best of luck!
(P.S. I was getting low 5’s at the beginning of the course in French and now might be predicted a 6 or 7. Might be worth not giving up?)
What you CAN do to prove proficiency, since you won’t be taking the IB French exam, is to prepare and take the SAT Subject test (with an extra section for listening comprehension if you’re good at that: November; if you’d rather take reading/grammar/vocab:December.) It’s just a 1-hour multiple choice exam but of course, review and prepare a bit.
Score high and you’ll be okay.
Second question: what did you replace this class with?
If you didn’t replace it with anything, plan to take a “fun” class in the Spring. it’ll look like you had a free period in the Fall ( … with application season and all, can be an understandable choice even if not the best choice) and then went back to a full schedule in the Spring (ie., you make choices of efficiency but aren’t lazy nor lack intellectual curiosity.) That class could be sociology, current events, photography…
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