Plans

Motivating yourself throughout high school must be one of the most challenging aspects of achieving success, and significant number of students possess the will to complete the IB Diploma at a high level but do not have the will to persevere in tough times. In the short term, rewards you give yourself can help you to push through obstacles here and there, but two years of consistent effort necessitates a long range plan.

5- and 10-year plans are a method for dreaming up goals that are realistically achieved but require significant investment. In the next 5 years, most high school students attempting the full IB Diploma will be in a university (e.g. studying a major in Economics), a trade school (e.g. learning the techniques used in Plumbing), or an apprenticeship (e.g. shadowing a General Contractor). When you imagine yourself in the next 5 years, where will you be? Will you be studying for a career in medicine, law, or engineering?

When you design your 5-year plan, start with your goal to be achieved within those 5 years and work backwards to set smaller goals for achieving the requirements. An example would be an engineering program that could lead to specialization in electrical engineering: what courses are required to be accepted into an engineering or technology program?

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recommends that international applicants have exposure to Physics, Chemistry and Biology in high school and have studied Mathematics through the level of Calculus.

Subject selection is one aspect of acceptance into your chosen field, but taking the right courses may only be one part of your 5-year plan. Some students will be required to take special tests in order to demonstrate their aptitude in their chosen field. When developing your 5-year plan, you will want to be certain that you are planning to be highly knowledgeable in each of your courses: what assessments are required to be accepted into my chosen program?

Students seeking admission to the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University must take an SAT Subject Test in Math I or Math II and in Physics or Chemistry.

Beyond taking the right courses and scoring highly on the right tests, many programs require you do well overall in the IB Diploma to gain admission. These schools may choose to accept students who have a combined score at or above a particular threshold: what IB Diploma score is required to be accepted into my chosen program?

The University of Winchester requires that students who apply to their programs having completed the IB Diploma have a combined score of 28-32.

Knowing the required courses, tests, and IB Diploma score should help you to formulate a 5-year plan to help you achieve your goals. The 5-year plan should also incorporate the timely completion of your next stage of education to keep you on track for your career aspirations.

So what, you may ask, is a 10-year plan? The further you plan into the future the more challenging it gets to stay on course. Our interests often change, and as we have new experiences our goals can change as well. A 10-year plan is a flexible timeline that lays out each of the steps required for a career that requires significant investment. A career in medicine is a good example of this, where a student will need multiple degrees, internships, and assessments to reach their goal. For these students, a 10-year plan helps them to set their sights clearly on the finish line.