I just recently made a large move from a small Catholic high school in Iowa to Santa Barbara, California and I just started my junior year. Over email and looking online, IB seemed like the perfect choice. After school began I quickly realized I did not have the need or intention to take IB French, so I dropped it, which cost me my IB diploma. I only dropped French, however, replacing it with AP Psych and keeping all of my other classes the same. Now, too far into the semester to change my schedule, I feel like I have made a terrible mistake in taking IB. For instance, I am stuck in IB Environmental Science, which I now cannot receive college credit for, when I would much rather be in AP Chem. I also am planning on taking AP Economics courses and AP government courses next year so I will not be able to receive college credit for my IB History class. Effectively, I will only be eligible for college credit for AP Psych and IB English this year. Keep in mind my previous high school did not offer AP classes to freshmen and sophomores, so all I have taken so far are honors classes. I am planning on filling up my schedule with AP classes next year.
My question is, did I make a mistake? I am restricted to California State Universities at this point due to the price of private schools, so I am mostly looking at Cal Poly SLO, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Will these universities think I cannot handle academic rigor because I dropped IB? I would appreciate any response, I am very anxious about my decision.
Really, the mistake was dropping french, was it too difficult? Could you have not done an Ab initio? the diploma is the real value, I am not even sure I would encourage my kids to do HLs outside of the diploma let alone SLs. But the weeping and moaning about the IBD is pretty common. do you really have any recourse anyway, other than make the best of it?
Credit in college isn’t really the issue here, what about your GPA? And sure, dropping the IBD is going to be seen as a rigour issue. In my kids IB school only the IBD gets max rigour.
WHo is helping you through this, your parents? Why did you move?
I dropped French because my previous school’s french 3, which I passed with an A, did not prepare me for a French class taught 100% in French, and the only way I would have been able to retake French 3 was as an independent study. Without I teacher I would not be able to learn the subject I have most trouble with: listening. Universities can’t even see that I dropped the class though, so does it not look to them like I am just taking a mix of IB and AP classes? You are right about the fact that all I can do now is make the best of it, and do things like try to take AP exams for my SL classes. My GPA is fine, 4.0 unweighted, coming out of sophomore and I’m not worried about it. I guess this post was written out of angst and I just needed confirmation that I didn’t ruin my future.
Cal Poly SLO will only care about your weighted GPA not the rigor box. Go to the CPSLO forum and calculate your MCA score. It is the ONLY thing that matters.
In terms of credit- Can you take the AP Environmental Science exam? What about APUSH exam, as I assume your history class is covering US and AP Lang or Lit, take the other senior year, should be easy with IB English.
This was my older daughter’s schedule (she got the full diploma)
11th grade:
SL Spanish/AP Spanish Lang
SL Math
TOK
HL English yr 1/AP Lang
HL History Year 1/APUSH
AP Art History
12th grade:
SL Econ/both AP exams
HL English yr 1/AP Lit
HL History Year 2
HL Chem years 1/2 double period/AP Chem
So you can see she took 4 AP tests both years while getting IBD
For math, it is best to complete at least to precalculus; calculus if available to you.
For science, it is best to have all three of biology, chemistry, and physics.
Pay attention to the art requirement.