The typical IB math track for strong math students at my children’s school is:
9th: Algebra II
10th: PreCalc
11th: IB Standard Level
12th: IB High Level
A very small percentage of the IB students take HL as it’s considered a very difficult course plus many of the very strong math students choose to take AP classes and concurrent enrollment instead of the IB program. My daughter is currently taking AP Calc BC as a 10th grader. If she wasn’t planning on the IB track, she would go the local university next year for math. As she is very interested in the full IB diploma, she is considering taking both AP stats and IB SL next year and than IB HL her senior year. She realizes that there’s going to be a fair a mount of overlap with IB SL and Calc BC. I’m wondering just how much overlap is there? A few previous students chose to go the local university their junior year and than come back senior year and take IB SL just for the diploma. That’s been widely regarded as a throw away class, but they were more interested in progressing further than CalcBC which they could do at the local university. Any thoughts?
Our school uses the same progression as @VickiSoCal 's. It’s only about 10% of the students who do that HL (including a couple who go beyond that), though. Considered to be very difficult.
Yes unfortunately she cannot go directly into HL as a junior, they’re insisting that she needs SL even though it mostly overlaps with CalcBC. I think they might teach the IB SL class more as IB HL Yr 1 in the above example. I may need to get some more clarification from the school.
I’m not sure why your school requires SL. My son is taking Calc 2/3 his junior year and HL next year. For your situation taking a university class next year and HL after this seems to be the obvious choice.
I’ll have a follow up meeting with the school. Unfortunately they see HL as a two year course with the first year also being SL. Therefore the previous students who took university courses and still wanted the diploma were forced to take SL their senior year, which seems like an utter waste. I think they’re hung up on the number of hours for an HL course and therefore won’t let you just take it your senior year.
From a content perspective, IB math HL overlaps considerably with AP calculus BC, though it has some additional topics. If she is interested in continuing on in math, taking the succeeding courses (e.g. multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, discrete math, calculus-based statistics) at a nearby college would allow her to learn more instead of repeating what she already knows.
The question is, how valuable is the IB diploma, compared to taking all of the IB courses needed except for the useless (to her) math courses? Seems like checking the boxes for the IB diploma would be of negative value in terms of her course selection, so it may be better for her to take the more advanced math courses at the nearby college and just get the regular high school diploma, with all of the other IB courses. If she does this, will the high school counselors mark her choices as “most demanding” on counselor recommendations for colleges?
SL Overlaps with AB. It doesn’t cover anything in BC other than the AB components. My kid took SL and is starting the calculus series form scratch in college. Too many gaps.
For reference, my kid took BC and HL and started college in multivariable. If not for IB she would have taken Calc 3 and Diffy Q’s senior year. So, IB does take you out of the traditional hs to college sequence, but it is not boring or repetitive. You will grow and be challenged mathematically.
At her college, even students with a Calc 3 background end up in Multivariable because you have to test out it and very few pass the test, so it sort of evened out.
Thanks for the additional thoughts. I don’t believe she has to be in the IB program for the counselor to check most demanding - there is a completely separate AP track that many kids pursue and still are designated as most demanding. But it’s certainly something she should verify before making any final decisions. Unfortunately she is VERY interested in the IB diploma and in her school if you’re not pursuing the IB diploma, the other IB courses are not available. She could take the courses junior year and enroll in math classes at the local university with the understanding that she would come back for an IB math course her senior year, but I do not believe they would let her enroll in the IB courses her senior year if she wasn’t taking an IB math course.
Am I correct that even if I could convince her school to allow her into the IB HL class next year as a junior, she wouldn’t be allowed to take the HL exam as you can only take HL exams your senior year? There are many aspects of the IB program I like, the lack of flexibility isn’t one of them!
What attracts her to the IB program, versus taking AP and college courses in areas where she is advanced and has interest in (both math where she is more advanced than IB HL would put her, and the other subjects that she would take IB HL courses in)? Seems like the IB program is a poor fit for her due to its curricular inflexibility.