Is the Bilingual IB Diploma much of an advantage in Top University Admissions?

[angelb]

Would the Bilingual IB Diploma be much of an advantage in Top University Admissions?

I'm moving to a new school with IB as their curriculum so I'm rather unfamiliar with this.

I'm half French so I know how to use French for daily conversations.

I would be taking English Lang Lit and the other language being either Spanish or French. My teacher is yet to decide if I'm capable of French A. If I choose Spanish, I'd have to take it as Spanish Ab Initio. 

I want to study a new language as I'm somewhat familiar with French, thus I wanted to choose Spanish (Ab Initio), but the Bilingual Diploma sounds intriguing if I manage to do French A. 
However, I'm taking Chinese courses outside of school and will be taking German courses outside of school too so I'm worried if Spanish will be too harsh on me as I have no knowledge on it. 

What would be best? Taking Spanish AB, or attempting French A?  

[ZBSA]

On 7/7/2021 at 1:38 PM, angelb said:

What would be best? Taking Spanish AB, or attempting French A?  

What about French B HL? Because learning Spanish when you speak French is a tough job. Spanish ab initio wants the accent and the spellings and everything. I'd suggest that you listen to someone speaking in Spanish, just to be prepared to move your mouth to the language. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htr_DmuYZhw)

Why don't you ask your school about taking French B HL? At the B HL level, you'll be writing longer essays and stuff- In French A, you'll have a lot more analytical stuff in formal academic language, which generally isn't the type of language you learn as conversational. 

Let me know what you choose, and good luck!

Edited July 8, 2021 by ZBSA

[angelb]

On 7/8/2021 at 5:53 PM, ZBSA said:

What about French B HL? Because learning Spanish when you speak French is a tough job. Spanish ab initio wants the accent and the spellings and everything. I'd suggest that you listen to someone speaking in Spanish, just to be prepared to move your mouth to the language. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htr_DmuYZhw)

Why don't you ask your school about taking French B HL? At the B HL level, you'll be writing longer essays and stuff- In French A, you'll have a lot more analytical stuff in formal academic language, which generally isn't the type of language you learn as conversational. 

Let me know what you choose, and good luck!

Thank you for your opinion and suggestion. I have a question, with French B HL, will it reward me a Bilingual Diploma? 
And in addition to that, how useful/advantageous is the Bilingual Diploma compared to the ordinary Diploma? 
I'm also not sure about taking it as an HL, as these are the subjects I was planning to take. 
 

English A
French/Spanish
Geography
Chemistry 
Math 
Computer Science 

As I'll be taking the computer science major in University, I was planning to take CS HL, Chem HL, Math HL, and if possible English HL too. 

Please give me your opinion on these subject choices as well as I'm also really confused which ones to select as the HL subjects and which for SL subjects. 

I really appreciate your help and thank you!

[ZBSA]

On 7/9/2021 at 7:20 PM, angelb said:

Thank you for your opinion and suggestion. I have a question, with French B HL, will it reward me a Bilingual Diploma? 
And in addition to that, how useful/advantageous is the Bilingual Diploma compared to the ordinary Diploma? 
I'm also not sure about taking it as an HL, as these are the subjects I was planning to take. 
 

English A
French/Spanish
Geography
Chemistry 
Math 
Computer Science 

As I'll be taking the computer science major in University, I was planning to take CS HL, Chem HL, Math HL, and if possible English HL too. 

Please give me your opinion on these subject choices as well as I'm also really confused which ones to select as the HL subjects and which for SL subjects. 

I really appreciate your help and thank you!

I don't know too much about the bilingual diploma, or about the universities that you're planning to go to. I'll be doing uni in India, and here the bilingual diploma doesn't matter much unless you're pursuing language. It's obviously different in other countries. 

Those are great HL choices! I agree- you shouldn't take French B HL then. 

Hmm... Is there someone at your new school, like a career counsellor or someone you can get in touch with? They'll be most in touch with university requirements and such. 

[angelb]

On 7/13/2021 at 3:54 PM, ZBSA said:

I don't know too much about the bilingual diploma, or about the universities that you're planning to go to. I'll be doing uni in India, and here the bilingual diploma doesn't matter much unless you're pursuing language. It's obviously different in other countries. 

Those are great HL choices! I agree- you shouldn't take French B HL then. 

Hmm... Is there someone at your new school, like a career counsellor or someone you can get in touch with? They'll be most in touch with university requirements and such. 

Thank you so much for your response! 
I talked about it with the principal and counsellor and they said it could be a great appeal to many university, but after doing my personal research, I found that many had the same instance with your response - that its not so beneficial (unless pursuing language). 

The problem is, our country is currently under intensive lockdown, and I broke my phone and can't fix it yet so I don't currently am not able to have communication with them. 
But truly, thank you so much for your suggestions and support! I appreciate it a lot