My son loved our visit to Wesleyan. Although it is early in his college search (he is starting junior year), it is now a serious consideration for future application.
He loves the social sciences. Although he always gets high grades in natural sciences as in all his courses, he would rather take more social science courses in high school. In earlier years he took the same courses all top students at his school took: honors earth science, then honors biology, then honors chemistry. Starting this year, there is a choice of AP subjects. As a junior, he has picked AP Biology, as the science that is most interesting to him. Looking ahead to senior year, his intention was to take AP Environmental Science. He really is not interested in physics, and AP Physics in his school occupies a full two periods of the day.
The problem? Reading The Gatekeepers and looking at Wesleyan’s posted statistic that 82% of entering freshmen took the trio of bio, chem and physics…
Will he be at a disadvantage if he follows his heart and takes Environmental Science instead of Physics?
Has anyone here gotten into Wesleyan with AP’s in other sciences but no course in physics? (Without any ‘hooks’…)
Yes, he will be at a disadvantage. You quoted Wes’ own stat that 82% of the entering Freshman took physics. APES is considered the easiest AP Science. At any of the elite schools, that is going to be an indication that he was choosing an easier path avoiding physics.
I know a kid who wanted to go to major in Environmental Science. After taking AP Physics Jr year, he took AP Bio (instead of APES) Senior year because that was the more rigorous schedule.
For what it is worth, my S took APES not AP physics (although he did take honors AND AP Chem – which was so rigorous it is why he refused to subject himself to ap physics), senior year and he did get into Wes (he just graduated). while he could not be persuaded to take physics, he did hang in there with the 4th year of language solely because of the Wes stats on that. When I talked to his classmates, it appeared to me that most of them hit 2 out of 3 of those requirements – i.e., calculus, physics, 4th year of language – but very often not all three. Still, this is only antidotal so of limited value. Stats don’t lie (much) and all colleges like to see a “rigorous” currirculm.
All of these schools look at applicants in a holistic way. So if you S does not have Calc or AP Physics then he needs to have other stuff that is outstanding. My D is at Wesleyan and she did not take Calc nor AP Physics. She is not a math or science person, although she got very high grades in those subjects anyhow. But she had very strong extra curricular activities was a student leader and trendsetter in a number of ways at her high school. Moreover, she had strong test scores and was a decent athlete, although she is not planning on doing varsity sports at Wes. So the simple answer is if your S has cookie-cutter like activities and grades then he will need to play the part and have the requisite math/science/languages that Wes expects… but if he does some exceptional things outside of academics or has particular strengths in some other subjects, play to that. The key is really to make him unique and desirable as a candidate for any of these caliber schools.
I had this same question. I did e-mail admissions last year when I was deciding on courses and they said that they like very much to see Physics, but it is just one aspect of many that they look at. They also stressed the importance of a rigorous courseload.
For my part, I took Bio Honors 9th, Chem Honors 10th, AP Chem 11th and am now taking AP Environmental Science. I love science and it fascinates me, but it is by no means my academic focus. I honestly did not think I could swing AP Physics 1 with my extracurricular and course load, and I HATE TO SAY IT, but the honors credit would really hurt my ranking. I have never been someone to take an easy class for the sake of an A and I have never tried to game the system when it comes to grades, but I really need to end strong with an upward trend and I am much more intrinsically motivated by APES over Physics. I also have Calc and 4 years of language, so I do hit those targets. Anyway, that’s just me, but I wanted to let you know the official word from admissions on the matter. 
The Gatekeepers is sooo old now.
^Actually, the only thing that’s really changed is that Wesleyan is (nearly) twice as hard to get into today than it was in 2002.