Hello Everyone!
It has just occurred to me that I will not be taking any physics for the last two years of high school (I did take it for the first two years). I do not plan on taking the SAT physics test either (I will be taking SAT Math 2 and Chemistry). I just wanted to know whether this will hinder my chances of admission to a school of engineering (ideally those in the top tier).
If any of you have any knowledge in this area, feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Do you intend to apply to a school that only offers engineering majors? If not, I don’t think it will have any impact on admissions because you typically do not have to declare a major before entering college. Plus most high schools I know about don’t offer more than two years of instruction specifically in physics.
Stuff your head with physics knowledge until your cranium collapses into a black hole. But yes, definitely take a physics class. The Subject test isn’t mandatory, but you should have some physics experience if you can.
Depending on the area of engineering you major in you may need 3 semesters of college physics. If you take AP Physics in HS and pass the AP Tests then you may be able to bypass the first 2 semesters. I especially recommend taking AP Chem and taking the AP test so you can bypass Chem unless you plan to be a Chem Eng then you may want to take the College class.
This is really a question within a question. Will it hinder your admission and not written, but implied, will it impact your success? The answer to the first is it’s completely dependent on the school. Some will ding you for that, some won’t. You have to research their admissions methodology to know. As to the second part, it won’t hurt. You’ll just start in Physics I. Good luck.
If possible, I would try to go beyond the minimum physics required for your high school graduation, however colleges do understand that it may not always be possible. Even if you don’t take physics courses at the AP level, taking additional physics courses can always help, but not taking them shouldn’t hurt. If you don’t get AP credit for physics, you just take the introductory physics sequence once you actually get to college.
In college, most engineering programs only require you to take their university’s introductory physics sequence. That is physics 1 (mechanics) and physics 2 (electricity and magnetism). This means that if your school offers both AP physics C’s, that will likely be all you would need to take to satisfy an engineering program’s physics requirement. Some students who are really interested go on to take upper level courses and get a physics minor. Some engineering courses may require knowledge of material from upper level physics courses, but if you need that additional physics background, they will teach you what you need to know.
This is not always true. At some colleges, the first two semesters of physics includes additional topics like thermodynamics that are not covered in AP physics C. In addition, college physics E&M courses commonly assume at least concurrent enrollment in multivariable calculus, while AP physics C E&M does not, so the AP score is less likely to be accepted in place of the college physics E&M course than for mechanics.
@ucbalumnus I did not say all engineering programs. It is true that they may require additional courses with physics content, like you brought up thermodynamics, but engineering students would usually be required to take them through the engineering departments themselves rather than through the university’s physics department. In terms of what an engineering student would be required to take through the university’s physics department, the calculus based introductory physics sequence will be it in most cases.
All Engineering curriculums assume that you will start with Physics 1.
When you said you took Physics for the first 2 years…what courses did you take? Were one of them AP?
If you are applying to “top tier” colleges, you never want to do the minimum. And if you want to be an engineer, you should be steering *towards *the science classes (especially physics!), not away!
Most engineering colleges do not expect you to have had college-level physics before college, but they sure like to see it, and depending on which branch if engineering you follow it may be a really good idea to get an early start.
Is there a reason you aren’t taking more physics? What are you doing instead?