Full IB diploma scheduling issues & rigor for college

lightsgoout
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 17:34:37 +0000

Hi everyone!
I’m a sophomore doing full ib next year
So far I’ve taken 3 AP’s (definitely the most rigorous my school offers and I’m one of 3/500 sophomores taking AP Lang and APUSH sophomore year. We had to apply to get in).
I’m in honors algebra 2 right now because that’s what I placed into in middle school, so I’ll have IB math SL senior year. My HL’s are English, history, and Biology.
I’m taking an AP as my elective junior year because I’m close with the teacher who teaches it (he’s my debate coach) and I want him to write me a college recommendation.
This precluded me from taking Newspaper and getting an editorial position, which was really sad for me as writing is one of my passions and ECs. i also love the Newspaper teacher. One of my friends is on the track to become EIC and I’m just a little jealous but that’s totally tangential and unhealthy.
ANYWAY, I want to take Newspaper again as my elective senior year so I can at least have SOME editorial position.

If I did that, these would be the “holes” in my schedule:

1. IB math sl senior year (NOT math studies, that’s definitely not rigorous) covers some calculus topics but I don’t know if colleges consider it as calc. It was the highest math I could have taken without doing an extra math over the summer or something.

2. I’ve taken science for four years----honors chem, honors bio, IB bio 2 years. I’ll have no physics. But is this a problem? IB bio is a really, really rigorous class, probably just as rigorous as IB physics, but I’m really spatially challenged so physics wasn’t going to be good. I’m not going into STEM.

3. I’ll have taken Spanish to a very high level (IB Spanish 5 in junior Year), but I’ll have to drop it senior year if I choose to do Newspaper. My school offers up to Spanish 7, but again, my middle school precluded me from going past level 6. But if I did Newspaper I’d only go up to 5. I actually really like Spanish but I feel like the editor position might be more of a priority for me.
I’m pretty sure my counselor would check most rigorous just by virtue of me taking Full ib + 4 AP’s in high school, but even if he does, I’m worried it’s just not rigorous enough. What do I do?
I’m targeting competitive colleges like a brown, Yale, Wesleyan, Pomona, etc, and I fully understand that course rigor is just one of many aspects that go into these colleges’ holistic processes. Nonetheless, i need some advice.
Thoughts? Personal experience?