<p>I'm an incoming high school senior planning on applying for an Engineering Physics major at UC Berkeley/Stanford; however, I have not taken AP Physics yet. My science/engineering course load in the past has included honors math 9th-11th grade, regular Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and AP Biology (A's in all of them). I'm currently planning to take AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC senior year. I have an 800 SAT II Math, 800 SAT II Bio, and I'm planning on taking the SAT II Physics.</p>
<p>Here's the dilemma. I don't have any more room in my schedule to spare for AP Physics C, which is the only AP Physics class that my school offers, unless I switch AP Chem for AP Physics C. So the obvious answer would be to replace AP Chem with AP Physics, since I'm going into a physics-related major. There are a couple of problems, however. Firstly, the AP Physics teacher dislikes me (long story), and the teacher is notorious for allowing only one or two students to get A's. Secondly, I'm already taking 5 other AP courses next year. </p>
<p>To make things short, will a lack of AP Physics hurt me in my application for an Engineering Physics major at UC Berkeley/Stanford?</p>
<p>At Berkeley, AP Physics C credit may not be that useful anyway – the Physics Department does not want physics majors to skip any physics courses with it (although they suggest taking the available honors physics courses), and the College of Engineering allows skipping only the first semester course with mechanics if you get a 5 on the mechanics portion of the AP Physics C test. The College of Engineering allows you to fulfill the first semester of chemistry with a score of 3 on the AP Chemistry test, but suggests that if your major requires the second semester chemistry course (which is true of engineering physics but not physics) that you may want to retake the first semester course.</p>
<p>Stanford allows AP Physics C to skip one quarter of physics for each section (mechanics or E&M) with scores of 4, but the Physics Department does not recommend the physics or engineering physics majors do so, but suggests a more rigorous version of the freshman physics courses. Stanford allows skipping one or two quarters of chemistry with an AP Chemistry score of 5.</p>
<p>Thank you for the reply! But I should probably clarify. College credit is a secondary concern for me at the moment. I’m not planning on skipping any courses in college based off AP credit anyways, since I’ve heard that college courses are generally much harder than AP classes. </p>
<p>What I was worrying about was if colleges would find it strange that I’m applying for a physics-related major without taking any advanced physics courses in high school, and if my lack of AP Physics C would hurt my chances of getting into that major.</p>
<p>Regarding skipping courses with AP credit… check the recommendations of the school and your major department. If the AP credit covers a peripheral requirement that you are not planning to take more advanced courses in, then accept the AP credit and take a free elective in place of the requirement. If it is something that you want to take more advanced courses in (e.g. math), check the college and department recommendations. To be extra sure, see if old final exams in the courses that you can skip are available and use them to check your knowledge of the subject matter from the college’s point of view.</p>
<p>It is very common to skip freshman calculus with AP credit, and many students who scored 5 on the AP calculus BC test do fine doing so. Repeating freshman calculus is often a waste of time for such students, though it may be more worthwhile to take an honors freshman calculus if one wants more theory. But check the old freshman calculus final exams to be sure.</p>
<p>Regarding how admissions committees will look at choosing AP chemistry instead of AP physics, no idea how much of a difference that will make.</p>
<p>You usually don’t go directly into a major like engineering (even engineering physics), even if you are accepted into the university or into the university’s college of engineering. Typically you are a “pre-major” of some kind or another, taking a year of calculus and some other prelims. For you this would be a good place to either start the calc-based physics sequence or take a simpler survey class to learn the basics of force, momentum, electrostatic charges, gravity, etc., without using any calc or trig.</p>
<p>Both of those are top-tier schools and are very hard to get into, especially Berkely where just about every STEM major is impacted. So even with full physics AP under your belt you may not get accepted into those programs, so don’t feel bad. Try anyway.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, most freshmen engineering students apply to and are admitted directly to their engineering major. A few apply to and are admitted to engineering undeclared (which is different from undeclared in a non-engineering division). Engineering undeclared students have about a year to declare the engineering major of their choice; non-engineering students must apply to change into an engineering division (this is a very competitive admissions process). Declared engineering majors who want to change to another engineering major must apply to do so.</p>
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<p>Math, statistics, computer science, biology, physics, astronomy, and geology are in the College of Letters and Science at Berkeley (where all applicants are admitted undeclared); these majors are not impacted and can be declared after completing the prerequisites. Gaining admission to the College of Letters and Science at Berkeley is still quite competitive, though.</p>
<p>Outside of freeing up space for taking more elective credit, AP credits are not that big of a deal. Almost ALL engineering, math, physics and computer science programs are constructed on the basis that the freshman student has absolutely ZERO AP credits.</p>
<p>On top of that the first two years of ALMOST ALL engineering, math, physics and computer science programs are the same during the first 2 years:</p>
<p>Freshman - Fall Semester
Calculus I
Computer Science I
Chemistry I (if school requires at least 1 Chem course)
English Composition</p>
<p>Freshman - Spring Semester
Calculus II
Computer Science II (if a CS, CompE or Math major)
Physics I (mechanics)</p>
<p>Sophomore - Fall Semester
Linear Algebra
Computer Organization (if a CS or CompE major)
Physics II (electricity & magnetism)
Electric Circuits I (if an EE or CompE major)</p>
<p>Sophomore - Spring Semester
Calculus III (all engineering/physics/math majors…not CS majors)
<p>Well ucbalumnus, I suppose Berkely allows students to have official engineering major status right away because they are a top-tier school and they tend to only admit students who have already proven their worth with AP credit, SATs, etc. At my school, a student with good credentials can be directly admitted <em>into the college of engineering</em> (which by itself comes with perks like ability to take the classes you need and participate in research or the eng honors program), but only as a “pre-engineering” major who must later declare.</p>
<p>As for every major being impacted, a guy from SoCal told me he landed at my school partly because of the enormous cost and difficulty of going to a school in the UC system and the ability to change majors once there (like a lot of engineering physics majors, he initially had his sights on something else).</p>
<p>How difficult is it to declare? Many of the curriculum sheets at The Ohio State University engineering major web pages indicate that one needs only a 2.0 in the prerequisite courses, so if that is true, then that is quite advantageous for the student who is not quite decided or may change majors, unless the student wants one of those whose curriculum sheets indicate competitive admission (e.g. mechanical engineering).</p>
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<p>Every engineering major being impacted is not the same as every STEM major being impacted.</p>
<p>You guys are missing the forest for the trees. The schools very well might care because they are getting top applicants and so use a variety of metrics, including high school course load, to determine which top students and more eligible than other top students. They typically do take into consideration which AP or Honors courses you take in relevant subjects versus how many were offered to you. Because of that and they fact that being exposed to physics before college is highly advantageous in general, if I were the OP I would seriously think about finding a way to add at least physics and preferably AP physics to my senior scheule.</p>
<p>The great thing about physics is that the answers are objective, so a teacher can’t say the answers are wrong just because you don’t get along with them. This isn’t a comparative literature course, it’s a hard, objective science. Just take the class and try to do what you can to perform well and mend the relationship with that teacher. The benefits of physics for you (the OP) go beyond what admissions committees think.</p>
<p>Since I have not been a freshman in over 20 years, maybe things have changed, so I will ask the following question…</p>
<p>If a student achieves a good-to-great GPA in the following pre-engineering/pre-math/pre-physics major courses in:</p>
<p>Calculus I, II, III
Linear Algebra
Differential Equations
Physics I, II, III</p>
<p>…that they can therefore be admitted to the last 2 years of the program of interest?..REGARDLESS of AP credits. I mean has quotas and limited enrollment gotten that strict since I was in school?</p>
<p>AP credits won’t likely matter, but top schools like kids who challenge themselves, so when they look at applicants in high school they often look at whether they took a tough schedule or if they skated through on an easy one.</p>
<p>True, but there is an advantage to being able to skip first semester freshman calculus. Starting a semester advanced in math, and starting physics a semester early does increase your schedule freedom later, in that you will have effectively reduced the prerequisite sequence length by a semester. So if there was a 7 semester long sequence starting with first semester freshman calculus, you would only have a 6 semester long sequence, meaning that it is less critical if you later have scheduling issues or a semester off in a co-op job that may cause you to miss a once per year chance to take a course.</p>