Thinking about dropping to SL bio? Advice?

[thirdculturekid]

I'm currently doing 4 HLs: Bio, English, Art, and Geography. After doing loads of research however, I've began to understand how useless it is to do 4 HLs and put myself through all the time and effort it takes to get good grades.

Since I'm not planning on doing anything related to science (hoping to study Int. Relations at LSE), I've been thinking about dropping HL bio (also because I'm not getting the best grades at the moment). Plus, I know that if I go to standard, I'll easily be able to get 6's and 7's.

However, I know that LSE and loads of other universities have Art on their list of 'non preferred' subjects, putting me in a bit of a corner. If I do drop Bio, there's a chance that my grades in other classes since I'll have more time, but it might also put me as a disadvantage considering that LSE gets loads of really strong applications.

Any thoughts?

[CrazyDreamer]

This might be a really bad idea, but maybe you could do Art as an SL and keep biology as an HL. That way, even if you don't get into international relations at LSE (knock on wood), you at least have a background in another subject that you can work with.

All I'm saying is, maybe you should keep your options open.

Hope it all works out for you!

[Sandwich]

One thing to consider is that even at SL I've been led to believe that Art is quite a time and effort intensive subject. I didn't take Art so perhaps somebody who did can back this up (or tell me I'm speaking rubbish ) but you might find that switching from HL --> SL art doesn't make much of a difference to the amount of work you put into it. HL --> SL Biology is definitely a much bigger jump.

Anyway. Personally, I find the whole 'non-preferred/soft' subject lists totally confusing and annoying because it's very difficult to know how seriously to take them. It's never quite clear how much the Universities really care at the end of the day because offers have such a random seeming nature in any case and you never know what you fellow candidates had going for them or how much other stuff about you influenced the decision. It depends on how serious you are about LSE specifically, I suppose, and also how much HL Biology is dragging you down and how big an impact you feel it's really having. To play it safe, I would keep Biology at HL... but on the other hand, for the sake of several extra points and a guaranteed 7 (assuming a very large impact from you giving up Bio) it might be worth it the other way. In short: I have no answer for your dilemma, I don't think you can really go either way with any definite knowledge that you're doing the right thing! You need to think long and hard about how much it would realistically add for you to give up HL Biology or whether the gains would be less than you think.