Hi everyone. I am relatively new to CC (this is my first post) and I go to a public high school in Texas. Our science courses follow this pattern:
9th- Biology or Biology Pre-AP-IB.
10th- Chemistry,Chemistry Pre-AP-IB, or Chemistry Pre-AP-IB concurrently with AP Biology.
11th- Physics, Physics Pre-AP-IB, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2 concurrently with AP Physics 1, and other advanced elcective science courses.
12th- AP Physics C, other advanced elective science courses.
Currently I am a freshman at my high school and I know a sophomore (he’s in my intramural tennis class) who is in AP Physics 1. He said only five people are in it, and that he personally went to a private school and had taken Bio in 8th grade, and the rest four were homeschooled. So my question is, is there any way I can take AP Physics next school year as well. I am in Bio Pre-AP and my courses for next year are Chem Pre-AP w/ AP Bio. I already asked my counselor to take a CBE for Chemistry without prior instruction, but it turns out at my high school, you can’t test out of core academics. So is there any summer opportunity or thing like that I can do to essentially “skip” chemistry and take AP Physics 1.
P.S. the pre-reqs for AP Physics 1 are chemistry and algebra 2 (may be taken concurrently)
Please give me advice and thank you for reading!
You can decide to take Chem over the summer at an accredited online school, but that’s a waste of a summer. Why do you even want to take AP physics 1 speaking that you can still take Physics C by senior year or something else?
The reason is because I wanted to take all the AP Physics classes during high school, and I don’t want to have two physics in junior year. But can you tell me more about the accredited online school? Also thanks for your advice 
Pre-AP Chem plus AP Bio plus AP Physics 1 is too many sciences for one year. What other classes would you be taking?
Oh no. If I take AP Physics, that would substitute my Chem Pre-AP, so then I would have AP Physics as my core, and AP Bio as the elective. @allyphoe
Okay, so the question is just how you can take Chem over the summer, such that your school will accept credit for it? Have you asked your counselor what they’d accept?
FWIW, I completely agree with taking Chem being a waste of a summer.
Yes, that is the question. Also i’m not sure what they’d accept, but i think if i take a accredited online course or whatever, they would accept that.
There really is no point in doing so, unless your HS is one of the very very few which requires AP Physics 1 and 2 prior to AP Physics C. Few colleges will give credit for more than 2 of the tests (i.e. Physics 1, Physics 2, C: Mech, and C: E&M). Your summer would probably be more productive doing something non-academic, which would also leave you fresher for when the academic year begins.
AP Physics 1 is a pretty normal class for sophomores in Algebra 2, in my experience. However, like the above said, you probably don’t need AP Physics 2 in order to take Physics C, so you would only need to take two physics courses in high school total. Also, having experienced the joys of Honors/Pre-AP Chemistry online, I would not recommend trying to fit it in a summer. It’s also not the best choice to take AP Biology concurrently with another science; it can be very demanding for some students. You have plenty of time left to take all of the courses you want to.