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Course Selection Advice


kevin8715

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Hi,

I am a sophomore at GHCHS, Granda Hills Charters High School. I am already decided on doing IB, and mostly set on what classes I am taking for Ib next year, mostly. So far:

  • HL Math
  • HL History of Americas
  • HL Biology
  • HL English
  • HL Spanish B or SL Italian B
  • 6th option, don't know

Haven't really decided on my 6th option yet. I was considering a visual arts which I still need for my A-G college requirements, but only one year so probably over the summer. Though not this summer since I am already going to take geometry and half of PE (long story about). 

 

About the language. I am a native Spanish speaker, and am taking Spanish 3 right now. However, I honestly wanted to take Italian originally but in my freshmen year, schedule conflicts didn't allow me to. I made a deal with my parents, take the AP Spanish Language test this year by self studying and if I pass it I can switch to Italian. Considering I have no previous experience in Italian, I have taken the initiative to prepare for next year by self studying Italian for the past week by using Rosetta Stone, duolingo app, and listening to Italian music. There is an Italian singer who sings in both Spanish and Italian, so I been going back and forth between the language versions of her songs. 

 

So yeah. That's is my situation. What do you guys think? Doable, especially the language one? I currently am taking two APs this year, World History and Chem. Also, half an AP, H Math analysis/ AP Calc A.  Last semester I got A's in all my classes except H English. If I take HL Spanish, I will drop one my other HL, probably history if they don't allow me to take 5 HLs.

 

Is 5 HL's possible?

Sorry for the long post.

-Kevin

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Yeah, apparently you can take 7 courses and a max of 4 HLs but 5 HLs would actually not allow you to sleep or eat. So it's not possible. 

Maybe choose SL Italian and switch History to SL? So it's a little more balanced?

 

Oh and I must ask out of curiousity, why HL Math? You have no other courses that link to it, so why not SL math?

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Pardon. Looks like I left out some important details. I am currently undecided on what career path I want to take asides from something in math/science: I know right, so specific (sarcastic tone). So I am taking for sure both math and science at HL. I already did honors physics and ap chem currently, and don't want to repeat myself in the sciences. I love history and foresee no problem doing it at HL considering I will enjoy doing the work. AP World History hasn't exactly been a breeze but manageable. 

 

To give you a good idea on how I handle my current workload. The time period is when robotics had its extended times.

Time period of January through mid-February

  • three days out of the week stayed till 6 o'clock
  • got out at 2:30 the other two days 
  • Saturdays: 8:00 through 5:00
  • on three days have zero period (7:25 am) because of extra time for AP chem

Currently I have only a B in Chem

 

Reasoning for four HL's: The UC system here in California on top of the "blanket" credits given for getting the IB diploma with a min. of 30 give extra credits for a score of 5 or above on HL exams, so I can jump ahead in to focus in on my future major in math/science.

 

Another rather longish post. Luckily without that special robotics schedule I actually have free time...

-Kevin

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I believe last year we had someone on this forum who did 7 HLs and 2 SLs and she managed to get a perfect score in every single subject, it's definitely doable, especially if you're self-motivated.

 

If you're not interested in doing the full IB Diploma, then you should definitely go ahead with your current subject choices. The beauty about HLs is that, more often than not, it's very easy to drop down to SL if you're having trouble balancing your schedule.

 

I can tell you now that the first 6-7 months are going to be quite a breeze for the most part. It's usually when all the internal assessments begin to pile up that things usually begin to get crazy. As long as you remember that and stay on to of your work, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to handle this.

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