The "Which IB subjects should I choose" Thread

"I'm pretty sure" is a useless statement. So is claiming to know what universities know or want in a definitive manner. Yes, generally speaking History is preferable to B&M but it is wrong of you to claim something as a fact when, in fact, you don't know it that well, especially not if you're a current student.

http://www.ibo.org/facts/statbulletin/dpstats/index.cfm

"I'm pretty sure" means I've checked the statistics, which are 3% in History SL, 4% in B&M HL. I'm also not talking in a definitive or factual matter; for me, the majority of my Uni. friends and my school's two university advisers, the skills that you get with History SL (and hence the course itself) are/is much more relevant and wanted by universities than the skills you get in B&M HL (and the course). According to some reports Oxbridge even gives '- points' to an applicant who takes B&M HL.

Right now go check up May 2010 where they are both 3%: http://www.ibo.org/facts/statbulletin/dpstats/documents/May2010Statisticalbulletin.pdf

Statistics vary from year to year and the difference between 3 and 4% is pretty negligible in any case.

Yup, I'll concede that historically History is considered a more "traditional" option - I was merely pointing out that your statement on the relative difficulty of two subjects, which you have no way of determining, is quite flawed.

With regards to that anecdote about Oxbridge, don't believe any of those stories. To begin with people don't realise that undergrad admissions actually take place at a college level and a tutor at one college does not weight different aspects of your UCAS application in the same way (my tutor for instance openly admits to have never read a personal statement in his life). And for the record, I did B&M and Econ HL at IB and was accepted for E&M at Oxford. I have friends here studying PPE, Medicine and even Maths who took B&M at HL or SL level.

It's worth pointing out that the "Business Studies" course taught at A-Level has a very different structure and content to B&M and hence, whilst the former is quite often frowned upon, the latter is not nearly as soft.

Hi im thinking About going to a university in Australia in Economics/financial or Engineering
my subjects are
Maths SL
Spanish A SL (Self Thought)
Physics SL
B & M HL
Geography HL
English B HL

My question is if a really need Physics if decide to go to engineering? a
Because is really hard for my that would lower my grades.
Is it true that i can do a bridge course or something.
I would change for BIO HL and my Geo would be SL

Does your school have an option of Film? Because that would help with media.

Nice subjects and admirable considering you're doing 2 languages.

Hi everyone
I'm looking for some advice on subjects as a GCSE student (haven't taken the exams yet but the decisions are being made based on mocks right now). I'm predicted at 9 A*s in my 10 subjects (I hate that english lit exam), and I'm thinking to eventually apply to uni for Natural Sciences or a pure science (fingers crossed on Oxbridge).

Currently, these are my thoughts for HL and SL:

HL -
Maths
Physics
Chemistry

SL -
English A
French B
Economics

My questions are on whether these options good for me, how these options are perceived by unis, how you'd consider them, possibly what future careers does this combination hold for me and whether IB itself is as taxing as people make it out to be.
Thanks so much in advance!

Hi!
I've just started IB and at uni I want to do International Relations or Theology or something similar. At the moment I'm doing:
HL English
HL French
HL History
SL Chemistry
SL Maths
Ab initio Italian

Do you think that these are suitable subjects to take for doing International Relations? At the moment Italian is way too easy for me, because I've already been doing it for three years (I can't switch to B SL because there aren't enough students for it), so I'm considering switching to either Geography or Economics, but this would mean that I'd probably get less overall on the IB because I wouldn't have the advantage of doing a language that I'm already quite good at.

What do you think? Should I change my group 6 subject?

I'm in year eleven right now and I was thinking of doing the Ib. The problem is that the college I want to go to offers only very limited courses. I was thinking of doing economics or law at university.
So here are my subjects so far:
HL maths, HL literature, HL economics
SL chem, SL business/SL bio, SL French B
Should I do business or bio at SL?
And will HL maths be easier if I've already done add maths at igcse?


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Additional maths will be helpful for HL Maths, and will also give you a much better idea of your aptitude for it (even A* candidates at normal maths GCSE will often struggle). I would advise against SL Business because many think it has too much of an overlap with economics: I think this may come from the equivalent A Levels, but it's still best to avoid it. Then again, Biology wouldn't be spectacularly useful for your courses either, but if it has to be one or the other it's probably a better bet.