This may not be a good advice about AP Physics 1. AP Physics 1 covers more materials than AP Physics C Mechanics. Although calculus is not required, students are expected to understand and explain physics phenomena in AP Physics 1 instead of plugging and chugging numbers. Only 4% of students scored 5 on AP Physics 1 while 27% of students scored 5 on AP Physics C Mechanics. And more than 60% of students received scores of 2 & 1 in AP Physics 1. Only 23% of students received scores of 2 & 1 in AP Physics C Mechanics.
I guess students received low scores in AP Physics 1 because of wrong teacher expectation.
Part of it is that Physics C is a second-year Physics class taken only by gifted/hardcore stem students. Physics1 has in many high schools replaced Honors Physics, and thus is taken without preparation and often by a population that just needs one physics class and it’s the only one offered.
This explains the difference in scores - NOT the difficulty in material.
Physics C should NOT be taken as a 1st physics course. Physics 1 doesn’t cover a lot of material - half of what Physics B used to cover. Honors Physics is actually a better preparation for the SAT Physics test since it covers more topics. But AP Physics 1 IS an AP class and shouldn’t be confused with an “easy” class.
“The only option I can see is that he drop Italian senior year. He’s not especially good at language. He is, however, excelling in science and is thinking of going premed. BUT…he doesn’t want to drop Italian because most selective schools like to see four years of a language.”
Pretty much irrelevant concerns in regard to premed. Premed can graduate from ANY college his heart desires, medical schools do NOT pay much attention to the name of the college of the applicant. The best is to choose the cheapest option that kid still likes a lot and do the best anywhere that he attends. The number of APs in HS is also irrelevant, some classes are recommended to start in college at the intro level for premeds.
Why do I know some facts? I am a parent of the first year resident, who took very relaxed approach to her academic career. The results were beyond expectations. So, relax, enjoy the ride, create great memories of fun process. Do not get me wrong, EVERYTHING will be on the student’s shoulders, no matter who is around him and where he attends. However, great opportunities to excel and participate in all kind of medical ECs are absolutely everywhere. I recommend to pay attention to one important aspect - quality of the pre-med committee and the college name will not guarantee anything in this respect. Ask current pre-meds at colleges under consideration. We missed this point and D. just got very lucky with her pre-med committee, but not everybody can say that.
Can’t comment on the necessity of taking double AP Science junior year but will say that four years of language not essential. Have personal knowledge of two excellent students - accepted into many “top 20” schools - one applied with 2 yrs language and one with 3.
Most kids around here can take dual enrollment, so he couldn’t sign up for an arts course at a community college or something similar?
Could he take Italian online?
Sounds like he is targeting super selective schools if he is worried about the 4th year of language.
Make sure that you run net price calculators on some of the schools’ websites to see how much you would have to pay if he was accepted and wanted to go there.
Families are shocked when they find out they make too much for financial aid, but don’t want to pay full price of $50,000 or more a year and then student feels like all hard work in hs was wasted if they get into reach school and it’s not affordable.
If he is interested in STEM, engineering, the fact that the school is ABET accredited and has good opportunities for research and internships is more important than the name.
So depending on the number the NPC spits out it is important to apply to schools where he will reach his educational goals and that are affordable.
Thanks, all. At this point he is interested in the following schools: Vassar, Brandeis, Rochester, Emory, Wash U. That’s the level of selectivity I think he’ll be looking at. NOT anything with acceptance rates under 15-20%. He’s going to meet with his GC today and hammer out next year’s schedule. I appreciate the advice from everybody!!!
Those schools still rate as reaches. He’d indeed need Italian 4 and one science AP (2ok) etc, as much as possible - OT has to fit with his interests, personality, etc. If he has no strong interests (demonstrated out of school through community involvement for example) then the basic formula (5 core classes :english, math, social science, science, foreign language + 1-2 personal picks) works.
Vassar specifically looks at the rigor of senior year- you don’t want it to be less than junior year. Double APs is NOT going to be what puts him over the line there. Agree with @MYOS1634 that the basic 5 will be fine. Strong marks and ECs that make sense for what his story is will matter much more.
Vassar is where the D2 I mentioned above ended up- with no science APs at all (4 Senior year: Calc BC, Lit and double history- US + Euro). She is now a physics major planning to do PhD apps this fall. I know students from her year (and her sisters years) at Emory and WashU, all of whom had the basic 5, with an average of 4-6 APs (combined) over junior and senior year / none had a double core science.
Agree that I wish posters would be more specific, but there are actually 4 classes: 1, 2, C:Mech, and C:E&M. Usually, but not always, the C: Mech and C: E&M are combined and offered as a single course. And I assume that if one is asking about taking AP Physics that it’s not AP Physics 2. But clarity helps.
There are many reasons for this, several of which @MYOS1634 mentions above. Additionally, some teachers may have taught AP Physics 1 assuming it was just AP Physics B cut in half. It’s not. AP Physics 1 is more theoretical and less plug-n-chug than Physics B was.
Agreed. Too many schools, IMO, drank the Kool-Aid that the CB was serving, and eliminated Honors Physics to add AP Physics 1. This is a disservice to students in many respects.
While rigor certainly counts for senior year, the comment above assumes facts not in evidence. One AP science + Italian IV, if the balance of the schedule is sufficiently rigorous, is more than adequate from a rigor standpoint. But since it’s the GC that quantifies rigor, it’s another question the OP’s son can ask when he meets him/her.
I would just like to add some perspective as a student to this discussion. I have taken 4 AP science courses: Biology, Chemistry, Physics 1 and Physics C. I dropped Spanish for my senior year as I already had 5 other APs. During this past application season I have got into JHU, Cornell, and multiple BS/MD programs and am planning to attend a BS/MD program this fall. Basically what I’m trying to say is that foreign language is not a make or break for highly ranked schools or any of the schools your son is going to apply to.
Colleges want to see that you have gotten to the 4th level of the language, not necessarily 4 years in HS.
So if you do some FL in middle school, and start SPanish 2 as a freshman, as long as you get to SPan 4 that is good enough.
U Rochester might give some merit, most of the others mainly need based aid I think, not sure about Brandeis.
You might want to add some instate/OOS public schools where he would get substantial merit to keep undergraduate costs down if he is thinking of being premed.
undecided,
While "foreign language is not a make or break for highly ranked schools or any of the schools your son is going to apply to. ", I would advise any pre-med to focus on Spanish, if possible. It was one of D’s best college classes and absolutely one of the most useful ones. As a first year resident, she is using her Spanish with good number of Spanish speaking patients and had an opportunity to travel to Peru with the medical team while in medical school because of her Spanish, the applicants far exceeded the number of spots on this trip. She had only one semester of college Spanish, but she placed in 3rd year because of her superior Spanish classes in HS. After college, she was able to place into intermediate level of Medical Spanish, that she took outside of the medical school. Incidentally, my D. was also in bs/md program at college.
