AP Physics C Vs College Physics equivalent class??

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hi,
I’m trying to figure out what I’m taking next year. I know for a fact I’m taking Calc AB, but I’m not sure if I should take AP Physics C or Honors Physics. The Honors Physics class at my school is taught from a college text book and basically doesn’t have calc but uses trig/precalc instead. I may be able to get college credit from this course, but I’m not 100% sure.

I need to make a list for this, honestly:

Pros AP Physics:
-rigorous, good prep for college
-can opt out of ap credit
-looks realllllly good
-goes hand in hand with calculus
-i will make my family proud, etc.
-can get out of taking computer science iii (long story short made a deal with my mom)
-i can apply to engineering programs/maybe take the sat subject test??
-I have friends who are taking the same class so i can get help from them

Cons AP Physics:
-is really hard
-I’m not a super great math student. I worked my butt off for the B average I have in precalc (that class at our school is the nightmare™ class so a B isn’t bad but still…)
-I probably won’t be able to take a lot of APs bc my time will be focused on this and calc
-if I fail it’ll bring down my GPA

Pros Honors Physics
-less suffering
-more time to take other rigorous humanities classes im interested in (ap psych! biopsych! ap lang!)

  • I will probably preform better in this class
    -one less ap exam to hold me back during internship

Cons
-Not as rigorous as ap physics
-parental disappointment probably
won’t be able to apply to some STEM programs
-will probably have to take computer science, which will reduce the amount of space for classes I actually want to take
-classmates may not be as dedicated as in AP, which may be really annoying…I took AP envisci this year and it was full of kids who didn’t want to take a hard AP science/try at all. I don’t want honors physics to be the same experience

Any advice? I can list off some stats if necessary. Also if you read through all of this thanks because this is a wall of text!!

2

If you aren’t going to be pursuing a STEM career ,Physics C probably doesn’t matter that much. Most people I know take it because the teacher is fun and while they enjoy the class, they are dying. It’s not going to be easy if you don’t have a solid math foundation.

The college course sounds more introductory. It isn’t going to score you many points with colleges. It basically means you did a little better than regular high school physics. If this was calculus based, I’d shove you towards C, but it’s not, so it will probably be easier.

In the end, trust your gut instinct on which course you’ll enjoy. Look up the teachers and make sure that you can work well with them. Perhaps even schedule a meeting with them to discuss your apprehensions.

3

Thanks @PulseStar! The teachers are the same for both physics classes, and they’re both fantastic. They think I’ll be fine taking ap physics, though I’m not so sure. The only thing is I’m worried about my courseload (ap lit, ap spanish + ab calc + ap physics?+other honors classes) so I’ll have to give some thought to that.

4

I guess the better question to ask is what are you considering majoring in and where do you want to go to college. If the teachers think you’ll be fine in AP physics I’d trust their judgement and not have to take the comp sci class. Considering your AP load, I’d suggest that you only take 3 AP tests. That decision would be a wise to make next year when you have a better idea what you want to do with your life and how skilled you are in the subject.
Otherwise, I know students with schedules like yours and they do well. Time management will be key though. Of course, at our school people avoid AP Spanish and French because the teacher is terrible.

5

AP Physics C requires Calculus, it looks like you haven’t had that yet, you could do AP Physics 1 but I would not suggest AP Physics C without Calc AB and maybe BC under your belt.