Question for my little Cousin who goes to my school which is small. She will be a junior and will be applying to competitive colleges as a senior. She may be interested in STEM but is good but not amazing, her grades are sometimes excellent, sometimes eh in honors chemistry. Which should she take the regular physics class with the amazing teacher or the honors section with the awful teacher? AP is not available.
I have had both teachers. The teacher who will be teaching the regular class is amazing, he taught honors my junior year. The teacher that will be teaching the honors class is absolutely awful. I was one of the only ones I think who did not need a tutor to get through AP Chemistry with this teacher (senior year). She is one of those brilliant people who cannot teach but runs the department.
Cousin is taking a bunch of other tough courses including more APs than most people in her grade but this may be critical if she applies STEM
I’d vote for the amazing teacher because you have written that your cousin “may be interested in STEM but is good but not amazing, her grades are sometimes excellent, sometimes eh” In this case, working with the amazing teacher outweighs the honors factor. If you cousin does decide to go on in STEM, it is more likely that she will have a solid base for her future classes than she will if she had to struggle through the honors section.
I agree. She should take from the good teacher. We had the same situation in our high school. My older son took the honors class - what a disaster! The teacher was liked by a lot of parents because he was “tough.” Well, yeah, he was tough because he was so disorganized and taught the material poorly! I had my younger kids take from other teachers.
I’ll take a contrary position on this. If your cousin is interested in competitive colleges then she needs to show she is taking the hardest classes offered. It will especially look bad for someone applying as a STEM major not to have taken the honors physics class, whereas taking the regular instead of honors English class might be more understandable. And trying to “explain” why in an essay is just going to look like whining, even if it is true this teacher is terrible.
Maybe 20 years ago an expensive tutor was the only option, but since Al Gore invented the internet there are lots of options available to your cousin to augment what she does in class. There is Khan Academy, Coursera, iTunesU, YouTube, etc. all of which present the material found in any HS physics course. As well as websites to get help on topics.
In the end nobody learns physics by listening to someone speak. That introduces the concepts, ans, as I just pointed out, she can get excellent introductions outside of class. The real learning happens when she sits down and starts to work problems, to internalize the concepts and develop the ability to apply them rather than copying answers and changing the numbers (the way far too many students “study”). And she’ll need to do this work with either the amazing or terrible teacher.
I’ll even go out on a limb and say that if, using these outside resources as well as asking specific questions of this “brilliant people who cannot teach but runs the department” your cousin cannot master HS Physics then a STEM major may not be a great fit for her.
The amazing teacher in the regular course. Since your cousin probably can’t self teach, having an excellent teacher will help tremendously.
However, your cousin could plan to take the SAT Subject that matches the class in May or June of her junior year, to show her mastery is excellent.
She should take the Honors course, because, as @mikemac first pointed out, competitive colleges recommend that you take the most rigorous courses available. It would also be a good opportunity to practice some teacher management skills in finding out what the teacher’s strong points are and negotiating her weaknesses.
However, if your cousin does NOT plan on applying to a top college and has little or no faith in her teacher management skills, it would be best to avoid it completely and take the regular Physics class.
Two things come to mind and while minor to grown ups, they can be important to kids.
What kinds of students are in the regular class? Which class are your cousin’s friends taking? No matter which way you advise her, she may just follow her friends’ choices so she won’t end up “alone” in her class.
Is your cousin the type to ask questions in class? D had an awful teacher in AP Physics I spring semester (she tried to switch back to her fall semester teacher). He didn’t present or explain the new material although he was clearly knowledgeable. So D asked questions. A lot of questions. Every single class. Usually other students complain about her question asking habit. Not in this class.
I agree with @Mikemac that IF your cousin is aiming for highly selective schools, she should take the honors class and be prepared to use supplemental materials like Khan Academy to get an A. The worst possible thing to do, though, is to take the honors class, get a bad grade, and then try to tell the AdCom that it’s the bad teacher’s fault. That does not win you any points and is a red flag that the student can’t take personal responsibility. Also,my D’s high school only offered Honors Physics and not AP Physics. She was good at math (having already finished AP Calc BC and found the Honors Physics class pretty easy because it didn’t require any use of Calculus.
In which course will she learn more physics and learn it better? If the two courses follow broadly similar syllabi, then it looks like she will learn more and better with the better teacher. But if the regular course is much slower paced or shallower, then they may learn less even with the better teacher. This may have additional importance if she will be taking the SAT subject test in physics at the end of junior year.
Consider the appearance of course rigor for college applications. For colleges using a counselor recommendation, will the choice of physics course affect what category of rigor the counselor will mark (she may want to ask the counselor)? If she applies as an engineering major, the choice of physics and math courses may also be looked at specifically.
In general, physics in college often assumes that the student has had high school physics as an overview, though probably not strictly necessary. If she wants to go into the physical sciences or engineering, then she will need to take a calculus-based physics sequence in college. If she wants to go into the biological sciences, then she may be allowed to take a light calculus or non calculus physics sequence.
Your cousin should take the Honors class and self-study using AP books, college level textbooks, and Khan Academy if the teacher is that awful, especially if your cousin is interested in either going into STEM or going to a very selective school. Or both. She needs to maintain that level of rigor she’s had all along.
Tell her to take the Honors course. Colleges look for students who take the most rigorous courses possible. When she attends college, more than half of her time would be self-study. It’s healthy for her to be accustomed to that condition early. There is an insurmountable quantity of studying resources for her to choose from, if she can’t handle a “bad teacher”, rather a difficult course, in STEM, she may need to reevaluate her interests.
I agree with the other posters who recommended taking the course with the amazing teacher.
Always go with amazing teachers. They are far and few in between. It’ll build a better foundation for future study in a subject, a better grade will result, and it may forever determine one’s liking for a subject.
@zapfino Eh, but honors reviews more material, even though she’s going to have to learn it later on in college might as well take the course now and self study through AP books. It’ll be a bonus when applying to big-name schools.
@zapfino So college admissions tend to care less about Honors to Regular courses, I can imagine that but I dunno, I’d take great teacher, score really high than honors and high but not “as high.” You’re right in that case. OP’s sister/friend should take Regular courses. Also given that it might ruin her grade with a bad teacher as she has a good GPA according to OP.
I would take the regular class with the great teacher. She can still have “course rigor” in other subjects. I sincerely doubt that this one decision will change her chances when she applies to college. I don’t see the point of taking a class with a truly awful teacher who can’t teach just for that little H next to the course name.
Thank you for the responses. I have taken this teacher and she is impossible and I get STEM. I had to teach it to myself and ended up doing ok. According to cousin, cousin learns best from being in class, she does not learn as well from books. She is one of those students who REALLY pays attention. Normally this teacher would love her but not if she asks questions that the teacher considers obvious.
I do not know what the guidance couselor will check but I think given her other courses she may be able to say most rigorous.
I think I did not frame my question correctly. If she takes the regular track and gets an A, will that still hurt her? If she gets an A- or B+ in the honors will that hurt her? She will probably be applying to near Ivies, such as Smith, Emory, Wellesley, Michigan with Northwestern a reach. She probably will not be applying to Harvard. However her Freshman PSATs were decent so I am not sure.
another vote for the teacher that is known to be great. i would go even further, based on my experience, and advise students to go with what the best teachers are teaching, even if it’s not their first choice of subject.