Which path would generally look better on college applications?
Path 1:
Freshman Year: Honors Geometry
Sophomore Year: Honors Advanced Algebra
Junior Year: IB Pre-Calc
Senior Year: IB Calc
Path 2:
Freshman Year: Honors Geometry
Sophomore Year: Honors Advanced Algebra
Junior Year: AP Stats
Senior Year: IB Math Studies
Thanks so much for your help!
Those would be for different kinds of students aiming for different majors. Path 1 would be for students aiming for business or engineering (assuming you mean respectively math sl or math hl) who this have lower rigor in their humanities. Path 2 would be for students aiming for art, humanities, communication, social sciences, and would thus have higher rigor in humanities and social science classes.
Note that there’s no such thing as IB pre-calculus and IB calculus, and and IB Math Studies typically lasts two years and includes pre-calculus and statistics.
Oh okay thank you so much! Would it be beneficial for someone with a focus on the humanities to take path 1 and maintain high marks in both their math classes and the humanities or would such just be a waste of time? Thanks again.
Sure, but Math HL is one of the hardest math classes out there (harder than Calc BC), so you’d really need to be strong in math… and it’d cut one of your possible HL’s. If you took Math SL you’d still be fine. However for the IB Diploma you can only take 3 HL’s, and 2 of those should be Humanities/Foreign Language/arts, so that you could have SL Math rather than Math Studies (take the Calculus AB and Statistics AP exams). In all cases, you would need to have mostly 6’s, and for top 25 LACs/national U’s preferably all 6’s except for at least one 7, depending on the college you’d be aiming for.
Our school does have courses by named IB Pre-Cal and IB Cal SL. Also, you can take 4 HLs if you want. My kid will take 4.
Just because that’s what your school calls it doesn’t mean that’s what IB calls it. The IB diploma or certificate will list.as Math SL
I assume you are right, since I’ve never seen a IB Cert/Diploma but you can’t tell a kid that there is no such thing as IB Pre-Calc if their school offers it by that name and it is listed on their transcript by that name.
I would advise any student whose school is using non-standard names like IB Calc and IB pre-Calc to clarify with their school which IB Math test they are going to take as HL and SL are wildly different. I can only assume they use those names because they are worried US Colleges might not realize the kid is in a Calculus level class when they review transcripts.
It would be like a kid posting on the AP board that they are taking AP Trig. You can bet 15 people will tell him there’s no such thing. Even if his school has a class called that.
I would be most worried about a kid being in math studies without understanding the implications, less than any chance of accidental HL sign up LOL. Kids here have to be savvy to the pathway as freshman really, so they can be in accelerated core curric math to have the SL/HL math option at all.
Parents have to be savvy in sixth grade here to get the kid in pre-algebra.
Yeah, IB kids here usually come from the magnet schools.Core curriculum really muddies those waters though. Dunno how they are doing that downstream now.
At our school, there is no danger of misunderstanding. IB Pre-Calc can lead into IB Calc SL or IB Calc HL, you get the SL/HL part in senior year. Math Studies is just called Math Studies.