<p>@FAFSA Parent, your son should have at least three higher level courses and three standard level courses to obtain the Diploma from the International Baccalaureate Organization. There is a maximum of four courses that can be taken at the HL. Your child is not considered to be a Diploma Candidate until at least one exam has been taken and is registered for the second examination session, or untill he has reached the 12th grade and is taking all six exams. However, you should encourage him to take all his standard level courses which are one year and register for the exams during the 11th grade year inorder to avoid overload during the exam session in 12th grade. The Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge will both need to be passed inorder to attain the diploma for the class who’s first examinations are in 2010 and beyond, and having too many HL courses is not a good idea since especially in Chemistry it will require that you spend at least 150 hours on the Internal Assessments for HL Chemistry I and II. I get 150 hours from my form 4/PSOW for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Chemistry Internal Assessment Score Summary and Predicted Score. My IB Coordinator advised all of us to not double science (HL Biology and HL Chemsitry only) since it is very difficult and has shown that people do not meet the necessary points to get the IB Diploma. You can visit [The</a> International Baccalaureate offers high quality programmes of international education to a worldwide community of schools](<a href=“http://www.ibo.org%5DThe”>http://www.ibo.org) for more information and to validate my statements. Should you require anyfurther assitance regarding the IB diploma program.</p>