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IB choices help

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(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 1
IB biology is not exactly hard, but just there's a lot of it to remember and some bits you have to really understand. But if you don't want to do biology its a bit pointless having so much biology fill your brain ahahah ! I guess you could do chemistry HL (A friend os mine who wants to do economics is doing HL Maths Chemistry and Economics standard psychology, etc.) which is suprisingly mathsy and is well regarded I think since it's more of the challenging variety? :smile: And I'd assume that the Ivy League schools would be looking for points from 38 and above? :smile: World average I believe is 28?
Reply 2
Original post by aldamario
Hi. I am in year 11 and am going to do IB.

I want to do:

HL: Maths- History- Economics
SL: Biology- French (B)- English

I am predicted a A* in all these subjects and I plan on doing IGCSE additional maths. My only concern is HL maths. If I did not do HL maths then I would do HL biology. Is HL biology hard? I would like to have a career in economics so HL biology seems a bit pointless.

As an american going to school in England, I would like to go to uni in the US. (I am looking at Ivy's, Stamford and Georgetown). What are these schools looking for in terms of IB scores?

Help?

Thanks


I currently am doing higher level biology. It honestly isn't conceptually hard (unlike maths) but the sheer amount of content you have to learn for the final IB exam is crazy. Therefore, the difficulty lies within remembering everything for the exam. In case you're wondering there isn't much difference between SL/HL biology in terms of content but SL students do quite literally learn half the content HL students do. However, with maths there is a significant difference in the level of difficulty between SL/HL maths. I did IGCSE additional maths (just took the class, never took the exam) and can tell you that adds maths will form the basis for higher level maths. So make sure you pay a lot of attention if you want to stand a good chance of doing well in higher level maths. I agree, HL maths is more important when it comes to your intended major but you shouldn't feel pressured to do it if you're not very confident in your maths skills. Reason being, American universities don't really care about your IB subject combination and don't really take your intended major into account if you aren't applying for certain schools (e.g. nursing, business, engineering). I had to make the same decision last year. I'm strong at maths but felt that maximising my overall score would be more advantageous so I opted for higher level biology instead. I have absolutely no regrets. I advice you to talk to your maths teaches so you can make the most logical decision.

Weirdly enough, I also want to study something a long the lines of economics/finance and am also planning to apply to top american universities (ivy's, georgetown, duke etc). I did actually talk to a georgetown admission officer that visited our school a couple of weeks ago regarding the SAT/IB score they're looking for. The rep said that anything above 38+ points is substantial, they do also place significant importance on SAT/extracurriculars/essays/recommendations as they take a holistic approach when reviewing applications. One thing you should also keep in mind is that the rep said they review your transcript. I go a British school myself, although they don't provide transcripts as American schools do, American universities will require your school send in your internal grades. So make sure you're getting 6's & 7's throughout to stand a chance. With HYPS a higher IB score in the range of 38-42/42 points is preferable if you want to stand a chance, and your SAT scores must be on par. In other words, a sub par SAT score and high IB score will not do.

Hope I helped!
(edited 9 years ago)

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