So… University of Pennsylvania states that it is looking for strong background in physics and math(calculus) for applicants to their engineering schools but ny schedule did NOT allow me to take AP Physics… will that be ok?
There are plenty of people in engineering that never took AP Physics. The operative question is why didn’t you take it? Was it offered? If so, why didn’t you take that opportunity? What classes did you take instead? Those are the sorts of things an admissions committee might care about. If you didn’t take it so that you could take a second semester of home economics, that would likely be a red flag, for example.
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2014/STUDENT-SCORE-DISTRIBUTIONS-2014.pdf has the number of students taking each test, Physics C, Mechanics has only about 47K people taking it, which is only 50% of CalcBC students or 25% of Calc AB. Since you would need a 5, possibly a 4, to insure credit or impress the school, those numbers are even smaller.
I don’t know specifically about UPenn, but I would think they are interested in your academic difficulty in all your classes, so taking AP Lit or AP in Social Studies or something else would probably be somewhat equivalent. Or some techy ECs (robotics, prizes, research) and comp sci prowess, etc.
You should be getting a “most rigorous curriculum” from your guidance counsellor to be competitive.
Yes it was offered but I go to a magnet school every other day so they offered it when I had to go to the magnet school… Therefore, I could not take it and when I tried to change my subject to AP Physics at the magnet school, it was already full so I have to take AP Environmental Science instead (already took AP Chemistry in junior year and going to take AP Biology this year at home high school). Would that reason be ok enough? (Oh and additional info, I am taking AP Lit, AP Bio, AP French, AP Environmental, & Multivariable Calc this year)
Have you at least taken a high school physics course, which is often a prerequiste for college physics?
yup! (well it was integrated science for us but that had physics honors in it)
Then you should be fine as far as preparation for college physics courses.