<p>I’m for dropping physics this year and not taking AP stats next year. Why run into the same problem next year? With Calc BC next year, why take on another math class?</p>
<p>As a student who had a miserable physics class that made my life really bad with a much less demanding schedule otherwise, I say drop it for the emotional health reasons.</p>
<p>And from the college admissions standpoint a) as long as the GC still checks the “most rigorous courseload” box (which it seems like they will) the study hall won’t be looked down on and b) either way, in most cases being on a national team/continuing to excel in general, even in a sport that won’t get you recruited is going to be more impressive to adcoms than taking 7 accelerated classes one year instead of 6 (esp. if he keeps his grades in the other classes up).</p>
<p>Disclaimer: My kids did not take IB, they were AP students. </p>
<p>As your son is taking an advanced science this year and next, I do not see a problem. My daughter never took AP Bio and applied to Harvard as a molecular biology major. She was accepted there as well as to other top-flight schools.</p>
<p>I believe that adcoms know what a strenuous load is. They also want students to have a life, and they certainly want them to enjoy their ECs as well. </p>
<p>If your son has no time for anything else, adcoms will see him as a bright one-dimensional guy.</p>
<p>I suspect your son is very worried about his grades because he thinks that is what will keep him out of certain schools.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees about admission - no matter what you think or do. </p>
<p>It’s only October. Does your son want to go on this way for seven or eight more months?</p>
<p>Think about how stressed he will be by year’s end. And then there’s next year’s senior grades to “maintain.”</p>
<p>Let him know that you support him dropping physics. Just getting rid of that one course will be a huge release.</p>
<p>And if he’s not Val or Sal, that’s fine too.</p>
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<p>It’s a difficult transition. Almost everyone got a couple of Bs the first quarter. By the end of the year, most of the former A students had turned those into As. The workload doesn’t get easier, but doing things like taking writing tests, etc, does. Based on the way your school structures the diploma program, senior year may be worse - our extended essay was due, right in the middle of application time, on top of everything else. I would plan for this in the senior year schedule. Applications, along with requisite visits and workshops and resumes, can be time consuming. Obviously, so is the extended essay. If his school doesn’t finish them by the end of junior year, I would be wary of his workload first semester senior year. By then he may have adjusted better to the demands of the program, though. </p>
<p>If study hall isn’t on the transcript, then they will notice he has six classes, but considering he is on the national team for a sport, I think they will probably assume he needed the extra time. It’s not too unusual for athletes to take late arrival or early dismissal, or a study hall.</p>
<p>Agree with many of the comments. It is interesting to hear how different schools approach these kind of issues and course selection/offerings. In our school a student would not typically take Calc AB and then Calc BC. It would be Pre-Calc usually as a junior and then AB or BC as a senior. </p>
<p>Does your son have a lunch period? We run into that because we have 1/2 year senior health requirement and all grades have a PE requirement. If a student wants to be in a music ensemble that eats up another period. Difficult choices. That does bring up another question: for an IB diploma isn’t there an art or music class requirement?</p>
<p>there is no art or music requirement for the iB Diploma. It is essentially science/language/language/history/math/free choice. With the last one, you can choose art or music, if your school offers those choices.</p>
<p>If he can still get the diploma without Physics, I don’t think it would be a problem to drop it. A sport on a national level is worth much more than Physics, IMO.</p>
<p>And I don’t know if this will help, but I assure you there are IB students around the world getting not enough sleeping and stressing way too much about their requirements.</p>
<p>I also find it hard to believe that AP’s by graduation for MIT applicants is 4-6… that seems very low to me, but I will assume it’s true, and guess it goes to show that from school to school things can vary a lot.</p>
<p>And I would fully encourage AP Stats next year. I expect it will be ridiculously easy and he might even get college credit, which he won’t get for IB Calc (Math Methods) SL at a top school.</p>
<p>Thanks for the headsup, Princedog re: senior year, EE etc. They are starting the EE this year, but it is only due next November. My son plans to do most of it over the summer, so hopefully the impact won’t be too huge first semester next year. </p>
<p>The thing that gets me about the transition to junior year is that the vast majority of the juniors came up through the MYP (IB Middle Years Program) that is resident in our school. (Our school covers 7th through 12) I would have thought that the transition would have been smoother given that progression.</p>
<p>So far, my son has done well this year. Our gripe is not the grades (he has straight A’s for the first quarter), but the workload and the mental and physical toll it is taking on him. </p>
<p>Will adcomms actually notice that he has only six classes and penalize him for that? I’m just wondering because many of the high schools in our county have only six periods on their schedule. Our school added the seventh period two years ago because of some of the requirements for the MYP program.</p>
<p>He has a 30 minute lunch period. He had band as one of his electives for the past four years, but dropped it this year to take the two sciences. </p>
<p>He will get the IB Diploma without the Physics, since he will still be writing six IB exams. I appreciate that there are lots of IB students all over that are stressing about school and not enough sleep (I would say everyone in the program at his school is in this boat!), but his situation is at a level that to us as parents, seems excessive. He is giving up so much e.g. social life, a sport that he loves and excels at, relaxation time, that we thought some action was necessary, particularly since there seems to be very little upside to continuing with such a heavy schedule this year.</p>
<p>Soccerguy315, thanks for the encouragment re: AP Stats. Other students have also told my son that AP Stats is not very difficult. He is also planning to take AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>resonance, my D is an IB senior with a “not so great” ahem, teacher. D and several others have taken it upon themselves to self study. If your son decides to stay in the class, consider the book “physics for the IB diploma” by Tim Kirk. Good luck to your son, tell him senior year is much much easier, according to my daughter</p>
<p>Resonance - condolences from a fellow parent of an over-achieving IB athlete (now graduated).</p>
<p>I agree that dropping physics would be a good move. Depending on what he’s interested in studing in college, he may have to retake it anyway. Ivy engineering prof told my son not to bother with HS physicis unless it was calc-based (need to have completed calc before starting). </p>
<p>Having a free period really helps with the IB program work load. My son needed that time for homework since he was training everyday after school. Having a happy well-balanced kid who gets to bed at a reasonable time keeps everyone sane.</p>
<p>My son started AP on-line physics class on top of his IB program in a ill-advised attempt to stay #1 in his class. He dropped the class, finished somewhere in the top 10, got into the colleges he wanted and is living happily everafter. </p>
<p>Another piece of advice - have your son take responsiblity for his own schedule. It gets much more complicated in college and they kind of expect the students to figure it out themselves. Starting that process as early as possible in HS make the transition in college much easier.</p>
<p>I am a parent of a now college freshman who had a very similar IB class load and problem. He did take a semester of study hall and it had no effect on the “rigorous courseload” question as the adcoms are smart enough to know a full IB courseload when they see one. I agree with other posters that saving some energy for his sport, for the EE and for SLEEP is not only a good idea, but a necessity.</p>
<p>I have a soph pre-IB student athlete. All classes are taught in IB format so they do really well on the exams jr and senior year and they get a taste for the workload. A lot of the kids also double on APs so they can get credit for their SL coursework, since very few colleges give credit for SL. DS is also taking a couple of APs because he likes the subject area and won’t get them through IB. For DS, he focuses better when he’s playing his sport. (Unfortunately, he is now out w/a serious injury, which well and truly sucks.) But the workload is intense – no two ways about that. He works much harder than his older brother.</p>
<p>Given that your S is a top-flight athlete, that will be sufficiently interesting to colleges that they won’t care about dropping Physics – and he’s still in line for a full IB diploma. (I am assuming he’s had physics prior to the IB course – if he’s looking at top engineering schools, not having any physics would be a problem.) Just make sure dropping it doesn’t show as a WDR on the transcript. I vote for sleep and sanity, too.</p>
<p>Drop some of the classes. Keep the athletics. Get good recommendations. Keep the GPA up. Get good SATs. </p>
<p>Some top flight schools do not give much credit for APs or IB scores. DS was taught by HS teacher of the year for Physics, and who had won USAToday Teacher of-the-year. -DS still had to take college physics 1,11, although he slept thru the classes and pulled out an A. </p>
<p>Get some rest before burn out. Its important to have some fun now because it may not be fun later on.</p>
<p>My daughter is a recent graduate of the same IB school where Counting Down’s son is a sophomore. (Sorry to hear about the injury – how terribly frustrated he must be!)</p>
<p>IB students in the United States need to realize that they are going to be judged on the same basis as other U.S. applicants when applying to colleges – the rigor of their course selections, their GPA, their SAT and SAT II scores, their extracurricular activities, and their essays. They are NOT going to be judged on the basis of their IB test scores (at most, they will have taken two of their six tests by the time they apply, and both of those will be standard level and therefore of little interest to colleges) or the quality of their extended essays. (At most, a savvy college interviewer might ask the student about the EE topic.) To the best of my knowledge, U.S. colleges don’t even ask the high schools for predicted IB scores.</p>
<p>Taking a full IB diploma program is plenty rigorous enough. Taking more IB or AP courses on top of a full IB diploma program makes sense only if it doesn’t interfere with the other criteria for admission mentioned above. If it’s going to mean that the student’s GPA goes down or that the student will have to drop out of a lot of ECs in order to keep up with the academic work, it isn’t worth it. This goes for choices within the IB program as well. It isn’t necessarily a good idea to always take the hardest options (such as four HLs instead of three). </p>
<p>In my experience, except for a few people of extraordinary ability and dedication (and I mean extraordinary beyond what you would normally see in an IB magnet program), those who were moderate in their course choices – sometimes choosing the harder options, sometimes the easier ones – ended up with better GPAs and better college admissions results than those who overloaded their schedules with HLs and extra APs and had their grades drop as a result.</p>
<p>One caveat: I am not talking about taking AP tests on the basis of IB courses in order to increase one’s chances of getting college credit and/or placement in higher-level college courses. This often makes sense, and (unless the teachers tell you that the IB course has left out some topics that will be covered on the AP test and therefore you will have to do additional studying on your own) requires no effort except for forking over the money and sitting through one more three-hour exam.</p>
<p>Special note to Counting Down: At your S2’s school, most of the work on the EE is done junior year. The school sets its deadlines for the EE (and other things, such as internal and external assessments and CAS hours) much earlier than the IB program requires. If he can keep his course choices junior year as easy as possible (easy being a relative term here), he will be grateful when he hits April and May of junior year and is swamped with tests and deadlines.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your advice and support. My S is going to drop Physics and feels a lot better about doing it after reading the responses here.</p>
<p>In particular, it was so helpful to get the perspective of IB grads and parents who have been through this all before.</p>
<p>Skier-mom: We are trying to give S more responsibility in decision-making with schedule (amongst other things!). That’s how he ended up with 7 academic classes! We felt we had to intervene at this point to prevent burnout which seemed to be inevitable if this pace kept up. We think that the remaining courseload is still very heavy (there seems to be an enormous amount of “busywork” but that’s a topic for another thread !!) but I think it is doable along with his EC’s and time for sleep and relaxation. </p>
<p>S said that many of his peers are coping by opting not to do the work (e.g. skippping homework, less effort on essays, not studying for quizzes etc.) and that’s why they’re making B’s and C’s instead of A’s. That’s not acceptable to my S who takes a great deal of pride in his work.</p>
<p>I completely agree with CountingDown on the value of sport on concentration. My S is definitely a much happier focused person when he can train regularly. He really needs that physical outlet. He is competing this weekend so we’ll see how he does given that he hasn’t been training to the extent that he normally does and has been getting less sleep than he needs to stay in top competitive form.</p>
<p>Marian: I think you have captured it in a nutshell when you reminded us that there is a limit to what is worthwhile academically which I think is easy to forget when you get “caught up” in the IB world. I was starting to get that sense (little upside, lots of downside in taking on the extra IB exam), but I think you really nailed it.</p>
<p>DS2 is doing 3 HLs, 3 SLs. Is taking the easier math track this year, as he struggled mightily last year having to learn Alg I and Alg II simultaneously (thanks to the lousy MS Alg I class). The math took so much time last year that his other grades suffered in the process – on things he should have nailed easily. This year is MUCH better. So he’ll take AP AB Calc junior year, the SL Math exam, and probably AP Stat senior year (because he wants to)… He also does some other ECs in the forensics/writing realm, and does a lot of community service hours. He is very much the broad-spectrum kid, and he thrives when all those pieces work together. My goal right now is to keep him from falling apart during the last week of the quarter.</p>
<p>DS has a stress fracture in his lower lumbar. There goes his fall sport, as well as the sport he’d hoped to try in the spring, plus his outside sport. No contact for 6-8 weeks, then he starts rehab. I told him that by the time he gets through PT, he’ll have six-pack abs, which got a big laugh. I think he’s now learning the value of conditioning in addition to what constitutes fitness for a sport. He has been handling it with amazing maturity, but I know it hurts (and I’m not talking about his back). </p>
<p>Marian, thanks for the info about the EE timing, etc. That’s the part he’s really looking forward to – he’s a big history buff, and it inevitably will be something in that realm.</p>
<p>Resonance: A couple of specific, nitpicking details for your son.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If he has not yet taken all of the SAT Subject Tests that he will need, he should take the SAT U.S. History Subject Test at the end of this year. The AP U.S. History course provides good preparation for this test. In fact, students often say that the SAT U.S. History Subject Test is essentially the same test as the multiple choice portion of the AP U.S. History test.</p></li>
<li><p>He may want to talk to his IB SL Economics teacher about the advisability of taking the AP Macroeconomics and/or Microeconomics tests on the basis of the IB course. If the teacher is teaching the straight IB curriculum, with no extra topics, he will not be ready for the micro test because the IB curriculum does not include certain topics that are a standard part of microeconomics as taught in the United States. But he might be ready to take the macro test.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Marian: Thanks for the headsup on the History and Econ. We didn’t even think about doing the SATII US History Test at the end of this year. That makes total sense. He wants to write the SAT Math II too this year.</p>
<p>He took and wrote the AP Microecon last year. I’ll ask S to ask the Econ teacher about doing the AP Macro based on this year’s econ. S loves Econ and would have taken it HL, but the teacher is leaving to go to law school next year and there’s no other Econ teacher at the school presently. </p>
<p>CountingDown: sorry to hear about your son’s injury. It sounds like he’s handling it well given how frustrating it must be for him.</p>
<p>Marian is spot-on about the subject tests. Take Math Level II immediately after Pre-Calc and USH after the course (esp if taking AP). DS’s BIo teacher didn’t mention until it was too late to sign up that she was teaching to the level of the SATIIs (and he had her 2nd semester only). He’s taking AP Enviro this year (can’t take the IB because he’s doing HL Bio, and enviro/bio is his big interest besides history), so he’ll take SAT-II Bio E or M (depending how he feels) in the spring. We hope that those three in the spring (spread out on more than one test date) will be IT for SAT-II tests.</p>
<p>Interesting about the Econs, Marian…the IB and AP aren’t taught together, I take it? DS is intending to take SL Econ as his sixth course. DS’s AP Enviro is also the SL course – those taking IB have to keep an extra journal, but that seems the only difference so far.</p>
<p>CountingDown: At your son’s school, which was also my daughter’s school, IB SL Economics and AP Economics ARE taught together as the same course. All of the AP material for both the Macroeconomics and Microeconomics tests is included. The students who want to take the IB test are given some additional material to study (the IB curriculum includes some international topics that are not in the AP curriculum) and have to do a few additional assignments (internal assessments).</p>
<p>My daughter took that course as an AP elective outside the IB program and got 5’s on both the Macro and Micro AP tests. She did not take the IB SL economics test. She is a prospective economics major now as a college freshman. She chose not to retake the introductory courses, is now taking Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory in a class that consists largely of sophomores and juniors, and does not consider herself inadequately prepared. (The last I heard, she had an A minus average in the course.)</p>
<p>But it’s important to note that this combined AP/IB course, as taught at this particular high school, is NOT typical of IB SL Economics. The official curriculum for the IB SL Economics course does not include a microeconomics topic called “the theory of the firm” that is considered an essential part of U.S. microeconomics curricula. So we shouldn’t judge IB SL economics in general by what is taught at this particular school. (All of this information comes from the AP/IB economics teacher at your son’s school.)</p>
<p>CountingDown, your son also ought to know that econ is very math intensive. One of the reasons why my daughter likes econ is that it is a math-y subject and she is a math-y person. Since your son does not like math all that much, maybe he would prefer IB psychology?</p>