<p>I go to an IB school, and I am moving to 12th grade. In 11th grade, I took:</p>
<p>Math HL
History HL
English HL
Physics HL
Economics SL
Spanish SL
TOK</p>
<p>and I plan on taking the same courses in 12th grade, except I am now taking Business SL. I am done with CAS. However, I am struggling with EE, and I am preparing for the final SAT and I feel like I cannot afford to spend time on writing a 4000 word essay. If I take these same rigorous courses but just give up IB Diploma, would it hurt my chances of going into top colleges?? </p>
<p>It looks like you’ve already got 4 HLs and 2 SLs, so why are you also taking Business SL this year? Is it possible you could drop that 1 IB course to have time to focus on the others?
It’s really hard to say whether dropping the Diploma would hurt your chances, because the impact of IB on admissions isn’t entirely clear, at least not to me. When I visited colleges, some of the people in admissions I talked to hadn’t even heard of IB. If you’re looking at very top schools, though, I think it’s more likely to have an impact, but I’m totally guessing on this.</p>
<p>Why don’t you drop an HL to SL? That’ll lessen your workload substantially considering you’re taking the 3 hardest HLs EVER (Physics, Math, English). In my opinion, drop English to SL and still take the diploma. You won’t have to read as many books and less assignments etc. You could also choose not to take Business. You’re just adding to an already very vigorous workload.</p>
<p>Although I don’t know about how colleges view diploma vs non-diploma, I feel that the diploma gives you opportunity to develop your essays. In my essays that i’m submitting this year that ask why I love the subject I intend to major in, I went into a lot of depth talking about my Extended Essay research. </p>
<p>That being said, writing a 4000 word essay would take up less time than taking Business SL AND studying for 4 HLs. It won’t really help you at all taking Business in particular anyways imho. Also the hardest part about writing the EE is finding a topic. Once you find something you like, you won’t even nearly hate it. In fact, I was doing something I hated until a month ago (and i’m in my senior year)… so I dropped the 2000 words I already wrote, started again with my new topic that I actually enjoyed and I came up with a much better essay already 3000 words long. Just putting things into perspective here.</p>
<p>What is your goal? Where do you plan to go to university? If you plan to go in the US, they don’t really care about your diploma at all. I once saw a university that gave 3 elective credits for getting the diploma, but that’s about the extent of it. 3 elective credits is pretty useless IMO. Most of them don’t care about SLs either. They’ll give you college credit only for HLs. Sure, it looks a bit schnazzier to say you’re a full IB diploma candidate, but they accept you before they find out whether you got it or not. They care much more about the rigor of your classes and how you’re performing in them, since that’s what they CAN know before they admit you. I would ask a school or a college admissions counselor about this, but I can’t imagine it would matter much in the US. </p>
<p>Although one thing is, in my school they won’t check “took most challenging courseload” unless you’re full IB. Some people say you <em>needneedneed</em> it for Ivies, but I see little evidence for this, especially since the more common AP is just a bunch of tests. But at some level, maybe they do consider it. </p>
<p>In the end, though, all you get is a crappy piece of paper. Doesn’t that make you feel great about all the hard work and sleepless nights? </p>
<p>Or just hold out until November 1st when you apply early and then drop it. But that would be unethical, right? <em>cough</em></p>
<p>Anyway, if you’re looking to lessen your workload, I agree with the posters above me. Except I don’t think English HL is one of the hardest HLs ever… in my school it receives the best scores of all subjects. Depends on your school and your talents, I suppose. </p>
<p>Good luck! Choices about IB courseload are always hard for me, too.
Man, I feel such camaraderie with you fellow stressed IB students.</p>
<p>I am starting to write my extended essay, and I want to write about the Korean War.
My question would be: “To what extent was the Korean War inevitable?”. I am just unsure as of now, as it’s a speculation, because the Korean War happened. Is this a good question or no?</p>