IB HL AA or IB SL AA - T10 Admission (Indian)

In my experience, rigor is going to trump the LORs. And frankly having higher rigor will likely make your counselor’s LOR stronger.

1 Like

I do not see what is varied about this. It sounds like all schools marked rigor as either equally important, or more important than recommendations?

2 Likes

Have you already taken a class from this math teacher, or do you just know the teacher from your club involvement? I’m wondering if you can still use her for a recommendation, as it’s best to have at least one recommender who knows you well, and it looks like you will already have one rec from a senior class teacher. If you do well in HL math the grades will speak for themselves to some extent, and the other teacher can speak to your character, personality and class participation, assuming you’ve already known this teacher from a recent class.

I have a somewhat different way to look at this compared to other people who have responded. However, I expect that it might produce the same result.

I think that you should forget about university admissions, and take the class that is right for you.

Do you like math? Are you good at it? Do you want to take the more advanced math class?

My other thought is that sometimes we need to go with the class that is right for us even if this means taking a class from a new teacher or professor that we do not know yet.

2 Likes

I hope you have a range of reach, match and likely schools that you truly LIKE, and that you are not counting too much on an Ivy admission…it’s truly a lottery situation for all applicants with top stats, ECs and recs. NOT getting into an Ivy is no reflection on you, and many schools may have stronger programs that fit a given student’s criteria and major better than any given Ivy. I hope you (or your parents and peers) are not pressuring you to feel that Ivies are, by definition, the best. If you have any doubt, co sider that students in prestigious graduate programs are admitted from a huge swath of undergraduate schools.

2 Likes

Yes, I have had her in 10th grade before. I noticed that colleges recommend to ask teachers who have has you junior or senior year, so I was not sure if having a 10th grade teacher write a rec letter is good. Additionally, I thought taking SL Math with her maybe would build our relationship even more leading to a stronger LOR.

But honestly, I never thought of it like that in which chem can talk about my class and then the other teacher can talk about my leadership. I think this is probably the best solution, so I will definitely keep that in mind. Thank you!

Of course, I defintely have a good list I believe, but the goal I guess is a top school and really want to just put my best foot forward and its so confusing when it comes down to college admissions.

But would a college admission reader think, “if this student is such a strong math student based on the LoR and 5 on AP calculus BC previously, why did they take SL rather than HL”?

Why not take HL, do well in it, and get a good LoR from that teacher?

1 Like

Why do you have tech, community college and Indiana tagged in your subject?

Not sure, I am not in indiana or community college. I don’t think I saw the full tag when I put it in, but I am from florida public high school if that makes anything different.

Yeaa for sure, I think that is definitely a big role in choosing which class. Honestly, I think from all the responses HL would be the best route to take in this situation. Thank you everyone so much for your help, it actually means so much because I was very conflicted before.

I removed the tag for you.

2 Likes