Does IB worth another year in high school?

[hamsterpower7]

hey

i hope this is the right place to post questions =)

I am grade 10 student from canada ontario, semestered school

I am attending IB school

but i am not a IB student. However i wish to go to IVY-leagues in US or England, like Havard, oxford, yale, mit, cornell ...you get the idea.

But looking back at my resume, i have nothing really special to grab attention, i have been doing extracurriculars in music and sports, but thats about it...i didnt really started on my volunteering (even though i love to, i didnt keep a record of my hours =S)

then, i heard about this program and that you could get a diploma, and by the sound of it, it actually fits me, i like to challenge myself and get ahead on studies, not wasting time and ...yea

but the problem is i am not prepared yet, i mean for my school to be in ib you need to either have taken pre-ib (which i didnt) or take a test. The test is basically on French and math and little bit of english. I quit french since grade 6 ( dont ask,, i am regretting already)

so i was thinking maybe i should redo grade 10 and catch up on french and get ahead on science( i heard you can only take 2 science and i need 3 cuz i am going for either marine bio or vet school ..so i have to take them early...i guess)

i dont mind doing another year,,, its just that ...i dunno...i might feel behind, and ...i dont know does IB really worth one more year??

so my point is incase you are confused (its pretty long sorry)

grade 9, grade 10 , grade 10 again, grade 11 ib , grade 12 ib, ---> IVY LEAGUE university

i really want to prove myself, get the best out of me,,,if ib is the way i would take it

btw do you know any good university in America that specialize in marine biology?(field biology)

i know cornell is well known for vet school

[masochist]

University of Monterey should be good for marine biology - though I am unsure about its ranking, its definitely not an ivy.

The things that you were talking about - yes there is no problem in reedoing grade 10 and yes it will benefit you in terms of grades for applying to university... but is worth it? I hate high school so much and I genuinely cannot wait to get out of here. You'd be subjecting yourself to ANOTHER year of this mind numbing torture.

This is more of a personal decision than one that would affect you academically. If YOU don't mind being the oldest in the year group, if YOU don't mind spending yet another year in high school, if YOU don't mind waiting before you can go away to college then sure, stay where you are and do another year. But just remember, the purpose of your life should not be to get into an ivy, it should be to be happy. And honestly, there are so many amazing schools other than ivy schools and anyway, not taking IB does not mean you wouldn't get into one.

[sweetnsimple786]

Don't repeat 10th grade again.. it'd look bad to admissions officers. You'd have to explain it with something fantastic. People take gap years, which can be explained when they really do something with it, but I don't think you'd be able to explain repeating a year. You shouldn't really say that you did it to be a more attractive applicant And don't underestimate your activities and yourself. I'll say that you're much better off if you can show passion for one activity. A real enthusiam. Don't do things just if you think it'll look good. Please trust me on this. I'm looking at everything now, and I'm too busy to do the things I enjoy most. It's not a good feeling. IB isn't the key to gaining acceptance. I don't know much about the circumstance, but it wouldn't hurt to take that exam and if you get in, you get in. Just go with the results. Can you take college classes in the next couple of years? That might help you stand apart, if there's really a subject you're interested in and good at.

[hamsterpower7]

Don't repeat 10th grade again.. it'd look bad to admissions officers. You'd have to explain it with something fantastic. People take gap years, which can be explained when they really do something with it, but I don't think you'd be able to explain repeating a year. You shouldn't really say that you did it to be a more attractive applicant And don't underestimate your activities and yourself. I'll say that you're much better off if you can show passion for one activity. A real enthusiam. Don't do things just if you think it'll look good. Please trust me on this. I'm looking at everything now, and I'm too busy to do the things I enjoy most. It's not a good feeling. IB isn't the key to gaining acceptance. I don't know much about the circumstance, but it wouldn't hurt to take that exam and if you get in, you get in. Just go with the results. Can you take college classes in the next couple of years? That might help you stand apart, if there's really a subject you're interested in and good at.

thank you for answering =)

its just that i have been in outside canada for a long time (3 years) and missed grade 7,8,9 and first semester of grade 10

i had to quit french and it was hard to catch up in other classes too like sicence and english history (i was good in math ^^ ahahahh....)

so i thought repeating grade 10 might give me some time to catch up

i was even going to lower my grade to grade 9 when i came back..

Would it still look bad to repeat a year?

i mean some people repeat grade 12,

i will still be grade 11 taking grade 10 stuff and some grade 9 and 11...

I DUNNO *sigh*....it is so hard to make decision on my own (my parents are still abroad...they dont understand these stuff)

[Mahuta ♥]

Do you have to do pre-IB in order to do the IBD in your school?!

We had no such thing as pre-IB, I went straight into you IB from IGCSE and I still did fine.

[sweetnsimple786]

its just that i have been in outside canada for a long time (3 years) and missed grade 7,8,9 and first semester of grade 10

i had to quit french and it was hard to catch up in other classes too like sicence and english history (i was good in math ^^ ahahahh....)

so i thought repeating grade 10 might give me some time to catch up

i was even going to lower my grade to grade 9 when i came back..

Would it still look bad to repeat a year?

i mean some people repeat grade 12,

i will still be grade 11 taking grade 10 stuff and some grade 9 and 11...

I DUNNO *sigh*....it is so hard to make decision on my own (my parents are still abroad...they dont understand these stuff)

That's a hard call. Have you talked with your school counselor to look at your options? If I was in your situation, I'm not sure what I'd do. What masochist said earlier is necessary to take into account. I just talked about the uni aspect, but you have a good reason for repeating 10th grade. Hmm does your school offer summer classes [summer school]? What I'd do at my school is take summer school every summer, take an extra class [we have the option to take an additional class every school day], and forget about IB. I'd take as many APs as I could [colleges see both IB and AP as intellectually stimulating and challenging, so it wouldn't really be a problem] and find something outside of school that I could really devote my time to and help make it bigger and/or better.

There's a good chance your school doesn't have something like that. If IB is the only challenging thing at your school, then it's viable to repeat a year to do IB. Can you tell me about the options you have?

[hamsterpower7]

its just that i have been in outside canada for a long time (3 years) and missed grade 7,8,9 and first semester of grade 10

i had to quit french and it was hard to catch up in other classes too like sicence and english history (i was good in math ^^ ahahahh....)

so i thought repeating grade 10 might give me some time to catch up

i was even going to lower my grade to grade 9 when i came back..

Would it still look bad to repeat a year?

i mean some people repeat grade 12,

i will still be grade 11 taking grade 10 stuff and some grade 9 and 11...

I DUNNO *sigh*....it is so hard to make decision on my own (my parents are still abroad...they dont understand these stuff)

That's a hard call. Have you talked with your school counselor to look at your options? If I was in your situation, I'm not sure what I'd do. What masochist said earlier is necessary to take into account. I just talked about the uni aspect, but you have a good reason for repeating 10th grade. Hmm does your school offer summer classes [summer school]? What I'd do at my school is take summer school every summer, take an extra class [we have the option to take an additional class every school day], and forget about IB. I'd take as many APs as I could [colleges see both IB and AP as intellectually stimulating and challenging, so it wouldn't really be a problem] and find something outside of school that I could really devote my time to and help make it bigger and/or better.

There's a good chance your school doesn't have something like that. If IB is the only challenging thing at your school, then it's viable to repeat a year to do IB. Can you tell me about the options you have?

well IB is all they have

and ap.. can you do that over the online courses? because our school doesnt have one

and is it something i could study by myself?

if there is a certain book and a way of doing i am sure i could try it

and Thanks again for your answers, hope you have a GREAT day!!!!

[sweetnsimple786]

I might be mistaken, but I thought a few Canadian schools had AP, although it's mostly in the US.

You could study it by yourself. The thing is there are exams, and I don't know where you'd take the exam. I don't know if it'd be worth it. If you're willing to study for AP classes by yourself, maybe you could work on studying some of the 9th and 10th grade classes by yourself and/or with a tutor. Here's what I'm thinking: if you can catch up and get good grades in your classes [without taking IB], and if you can get good teacher recommendations, and if you can find one or two extracurricular activities that you're really passionate about, and you get good SAT/ACT scores, then they'll be impressed. The counselor and/or you will tell them about the obstacles you faced and how hard you worked and how you chose to face them by not repeating but taking a risk and going after what you want.

It's a lot, I know. But if you can do it, you don't need IB. If you really want to do IB because you want to do IB [and not because of colleges, really], then I guess repeat a year?

What do you think?

& no problem. Merci =)

Edit: I meant to explain that you could study those classes by yourself and ask your school to give you an exam to prove that you really did it and that you don't need to take the exam. The teachers/principal might not go for that, but it's worth asking.