citizenoftheuniverse Posted September 24, 2011 Report Share Posted September 24, 2011 Ok, I'm probably moving to the US next year, and I already know where we will be moving, and when I look at all the schools there, ALL OF THEM have history HL as mandatory. Why is this? They really have a thing for history there... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arrowhead Posted September 24, 2011 Report Share Posted September 24, 2011 For a lot of schools in the US, the IB Diploma doesn't really count for much, what matters is your American High School Diploma for which there are a required number of credits that you have to achieve. These credits are similar, but vary somewhat from school to school: some schools have PE credits for four years, others have it for two. That way, some school may want you to have 3 social studies credits (like mine did) and some might specify that you have to have a credit in American History. At the boarding school I was at (which was American-based), all the students mandatorily had to take a credit in American History to graduate with the American High School Diploma alongside the IB Diploma. Most of them did it in grade 10 where they had a course on World History that covered American history as one of their three main modules, I did IB History HL and covered the American option for Paper 3, others who joined the school in Year 11, were made to sit for the Year 10 History class or take IB History HL 2 as a stand alone class for the credit.It's all about the "balanced" approach so you have to have 4 English credits, 4 Maths, 3 Social Studies, 3 Second Languages, 3 Sciences, 2 Arts, 2 PE, and so on and so forth. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmi Posted September 24, 2011 Report Share Posted September 24, 2011 Like Arrowhead said in the US the "diploma" isn't as important as the credits you can earn from taking the classes. Also in the US for some reason schools like to think that SL = one year class and HL = two year class. At my school for an "advanced" high school diploma you need 4 years of English, 4 of social studies, and some other classes, and in order to keep people in English or history for all four years they force us into HL. No one at my school has a choice. Even if you just arrived from another country and know a little bit of English but you're not confident speaking it at all, you have to take A1 HL or arrange for your language to be a self-taught SL class. If we were allowed to pick HL or SL history there would only be like 20 kids in it, and I certainly wouldn't be one of them. Same with English. So we all don't love history I think it's very interesting but I'd never take it at HL if I had a choice. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
citizenoftheuniverse Posted September 25, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 25, 2011 Thanks for the answers . The english A1 HL is not really a problem, but I don´t really like history... Hopefully some school will allow me not to take it... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmi Posted September 25, 2011 Report Share Posted September 25, 2011 Not all schools force you to! You might find one near you that won't force you to do HL or maybe even offer economics or something else. Unfortunately mine is not one of them Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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