<p>According to CollegeBoard, AP Physics B will be broken into 2 separate full year classes (Physics 1 and 2) next year AP</a> Physics 1 and AP Physics 2 | Advances in AP but it looks like AP Physics C will remain the same. Anyone know how this will affect potential credit for college classes/placement?</p>
<p>A lot of colleges don’t give credit for Physics B as it is, they sure aren’t going to give credit for half of it.</p>
<p>Thats my thought. At first I thought it was going to be 2 semester classes- but realize these are now two separate year long classes</p>
<p>And many of the top schools are taking less AP credit for placement and instead just allowing it for credit (ie they have to retake the class)</p>
<p>Sounds to me like a grab for cash by the college board. More and more AP classes getting watered down (like with the CS AP) and also taken by younger and younger students is just making the whole AP program less and less like actual college-level material. Without calculus, I don’t think it’s very useful to study physics beyond a single introductory year at the high school level.</p>
<p>Oh, and the one year Physics B class isn’t that hard anyhow. My daughter is in it, and she says she regrets having taken high school physics beforehand (it was required and we didn’t think to try to petition out of it, not sure that would have been allowed anyhow), because she doesn’t see two years of material between the two classes. It may help that she is lucky to have a very good physics teacher.</p>
<p>Exactly - our school eliminated honors physics with Physics B because for all practical purposes they were the same course.</p>
<p>Seems like they are really just turning AP physics B into two easier courses/tests. It is not like AP physics B was really worth much in college anyway. As noted above, some high schools just use the AP physics B syllabus for their honors physics course.</p>
<p>I was told by the physics teacher in my D’s school, the idea is - if a student want to major in physics/engineering, s/he needs to take Physics C for two years. If s/he wants to major in premed, bio, chem, etc. it would be better for her/him to take physics B for two years. This is for students with good academic expectations. For regular students, they don’t need to take AP physics. Honors physics will be eliminated.</p>
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<p>I.e. they are making both B and C versions into slow-paced “AP lite” courses.</p>
<p>Also, making C a two year sequence seems to assume that students take calculus as a high school sophomore or (at latest) a junior. Being top students in math to be that advanced, do they really need to be slow-paced in a math-based subject like physics?</p>
<p>Good grief - they want to make Physics C a two year course too?! Even my non-math kid did fine in Physics C (some sort of B the end, and a 4/3 on an exam he didn’t study for because he knew he already had all the AP credit Tufts was going to give him.)</p>
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<p>Could there be a typo in there? </p>
<p>Anyhow, if it is indeed true that colleges are using the AP for credit and not to so much for … placement, it would mean that the program has officially lost all its marbles. The AP (as the name indicates) should be forced to revert to its originally intended purposes and be used for advanced placement. </p>
<p>Since the College Board is not about to abandon its cash cow, the onus in on its members (and true customers.) The colleges should start abandoning the insane level of credits and refocus on providing a useful education to its college students. Of course, without generous credits, it would be harder for the academic factories that masquerade as research universities to graduate their students in 4 to 6 years.</p>
<p>I wonder when TCB will announce an AP Typing course.</p>
<p>AP for credit units appears to be more likely at public universities than private universities, due to the financial motivations involved. Public universities don’t want students hanging around an extra semester because they are a few credit units short, due to the tuition subsidy for in-state students, while private universities certainly wouldn’t mind an extra semester of tuition.</p>
<p>For subject credit and advanced placement, the apparent trend is that AP (particularly the “lite” ones) becomes less useful at more selective schools, whether public or private, probably because they can make their frosh level courses cover more stuff and/or cover stuff more in-depth than the AP syllabi.</p>
<p>I could see one option for colleges is to give credit for an algebra based physics I class for AP Physics B I and credit for an algebra based physics II for AP Physics B II. </p>
<p>CollegeBoard knows their time is a ticking away.</p>