<p>Most American colleges only ask for three years of social studies. Your son’s two years of history and one year of economics fulfill the requirement.</p>
<p>Taking 4 HL subjects is extremely demanding. The U.S. IB school my daughter attended strongly recommended that students take only 3 HLs. I think the guidance counselor is correct to recommend against the 7th course. </p>
<p>In my opinion, a greater concern for your son is the SAT Subject Tests. Highly selective U.S. universities often require students to take at least two of these (a few universities require three). Engineering schools sometimes require that one test be in math and one in a physical science (chemistry or physics). If your son hasn’t taken any SAT Subject Tests yet, he should be making plans to take them in the fall and should be selecting them carefully, based on his school’s strengths, his own strengths, and any specific requirements for the programs he is applying for.</p>
<p>A student who’s in HL math shouldn’t have any difficulty with the Math Level II test (as long as he is willing to review some precalculus topics a bit), but if your son wants to take the SAT Subject Test in physics, he should get some test-preparation books and see whether the material they cover matches what he has learned in the first year of his HL Physics course. He might even want to take a practice test. Depending on exactly what physics topics he has learned so far and how well they match (or don’t match) what he’s expected to know for the exam, he might have to do some studying on his own over the summer.</p>