Do CPS Schools Switch Students to IB DP Classes Against Their Requested Course Choices? What Parents Need to Know
Last May, I found my 11th grader Lila leaning over our kitchen table, a half-eaten bowl of goldfish crackers going stale beside her, staring at her new junior year schedule on her laptop. She’d stayed up late the night before mapping out how her classes would fit around her after-school art studio time, so I expected excitement, not the furrowed brow she had when I walked in with a load of laundry. “Mom,” she said, turning the screen toward me, “this isn’t what I picked. I’m in full IB DP.”
We’d spent three nights back in February going through the CPS course selection portal together. Lila had always liked school, but she’d set her heart on a BFA program for painting, which meant she needed two open periods a week for independent studio work and to build her portfolio. She didn’t want the full International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme—she just wanted to take two IB certificate classes for art and history, plus AP Spanish and an extra art elective. We checked every box, marked “partial IB enrollment only” in the comments section, and hit submit. It felt done.
I called her counselor that afternoon, got a full voicemail box, left a message, and waited three days for a call back. When I finally connected, the secretary said it was just a common scheduling error, nothing to worry about. But when we got a face-to-face meeting a week later, the counselor said something that stuck with me: “We usually auto-place students with a 3.8 or higher into full DP. It looks better for the school’s IB authorization, and colleges like to see the full diploma.” It wasn’t an error. It was intentional.
Over the next two weeks, I texted the parent group chat for Lila’s North Side high school, and three other parents replied with the exact same story. One kid wanted to do dual enrollment at Harold Washington College to get a head start on nursing prerequisites, got switched to full DP instead. Another 10th grader had an IEP for social anxiety, requested a lighter course load, got placed into full DP because his test scores were in the 90th percentile. It wasn’t a one-off mistake. It was a pattern I’d never heard anyone talk about before.
It makes sense, in a messy system kind of way. CPS high schools that offer IB DP have to keep a certain number of students enrolled in the full program to keep their authorization and the extra funding that comes with it. Counselors are already handling 300 to 400 students each, so auto-placing high-achieving kids into full DP saves time, even if it ignores what the kid actually wants. It’s not that anyone is trying to mess up your kid’s junior year. It’s just that institutional goals end up taking priority over individual student choices more often than anyone admits.
What we learned through this process works, and it’s not hard to do, even if you’re working full time and don’t have hours to spend fighting the school. First, as soon as schedules are released, pull it up and check every line, don’t wait until the first day of school to notice a mistake. Scheduling changes get harder the more the first week goes on, so act fast. When you reach out, don’t just send an email—call the counseling office and ask for a 10-minute in-person meeting with your kid’s counselor. Bring three things: a printed copy of your original submitted course request, a screenshot of the confirmation page you got when you submitted, and a short, 1-paragraph note from a teacher or your kid explaining how their requested schedule fits their post-graduation goals. For Lila, that was a note from her art teacher confirming she needed two extra studio periods to finish her portfolio for BFA applications. That’s way harder for a counselor to brush off than a vague complaint.
If the counselor says the schedule is full and can’t be changed, here’s the exact line I used that worked: “I understand you’re busy, so can you connect me to the IB coordinator and the head of 11th grade counseling to talk through this? I want to make sure we’re all aligned on what my child needs.” That’s polite, it doesn’t start a fight, and it moves the issue up the chain where people have more authority to make changes.
If you’re still going through course selection for next year, you can avoid this mess upfront. After you submit your request online, save a screenshot, print a copy, and send a short email to your counselor that says “Just confirming my student requested partial IB/AP/dual enrollment and does not want to be placed into full IB DP if that’s the automatic default.” It takes 2 minutes, and it gives you a paper trail if something goes wrong.
What happened with us: We got Lila’s schedule changed after two weeks of back and forth, but she missed the first two weeks of her studio class and had to spend spring break catching up on missed demos and assignments. The other parent I mentioned whose kid didn’t push the issue? Their teen stayed in full DP, ended up dropping two classes mid-semester, and the dropped classes pulled down their unweighted GPA more than any extra credit from IB would have helped.
Right now, a small group of parents at Lila’s school are asking the administration to add a clear opt-out checkbox to the course selection form, so automatic placement doesn’t happen without consent. We haven’t gotten a formal answer yet, but more parents know to check their schedules now, and more kids are getting the classes they asked for. It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s something. Some days, that’s all you get when you’re working within a big system.
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