<p>The division of physics B (sometimes used as a high school’s honors physics course) into physics 1 and 2 makes no sense, as mathyone noted. Physics B, 1, or 2 are also not much value for subject credit in college; they are intended to emulate a non-calculus physics course for biology majors, but (a) some colleges teach such a course with calculus, and (b) many biology majors are pre-meds who have to take physics in college anyway since many medical schools do not allow AP credit to substitute for pre-med courses.</p>
<p>Top colleges will be more interested in the fact that she has a genuine interest in a subject sufficient to motivate her to take those two economics classes at CC. She has met the requirements already. Getting into selective schools is not all about robotic accumulation of AP’s and test scores. They are very holistic and like to see kids take the kind of initiative she is taking.</p>
<p>Do not worry. She has a rigorous schedule lined up and a solid academic record to date. No reason to delete a course she wants just to suffer through physics (I hate it and was a chemistry major who needed it in college, physical chemistry was also not my favorite). Let her enjoy her senior year. I presume she likes the French- taking 4 years is good and 5th year for added literature/interest as 4 years will likely meet college foreign language requirements anywhere. That 5 on the AP Chemistry may or may not count depending on her college- some elites don’t count any AP’s for college credits. She is better off taking a science subject not offered in HS than trying to get out of college courses with more physics. I would also remind you that those CC college classes will be nowhere near the courses she can take at a flagship U or elite college. Only take them if she needs something academic to help fill her time or to discover if she likes the subject.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the comments! very helpful. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They could still be a valuable experience. She could test her interest in economics and pick up some background that will relate to the fields she wants to study in college. It’s no great loss if she has to take the courses over as a freshman in college. </p>
<p>@Marian, that’s what I think too - she may take it again in the college she goes to, but second time round she might be a more active learner. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Introductory economics in college is not generally a difficult course, so CC courses (which often have to be transferable to the state flagship and therefore meet the state flagship’s standards) may be plenty sufficient to allow the student to fulfill the economics prerequisites for intermediate economics courses (which also typically have math prerequisites).</p>
<p>The point here is she identified a humanities major. AP calc and AP chem will show she didn’t back off on those challenges. The 5 will be sweet. Adcoms look for what makes sense and what represents a little extra stretch. Looks to me like she met that. Then it becomes “the rest of the story.” </p>
<p>Taking the two CC classes in a subject pertaining to her area of academic interest will make much more sense to adcoms than taking AP Physics 1 (which covers half of Honors Physics - but this way, CollegeBoard takes on the Honors Physics classes AND provides 2 years of science for curricula that require 4, or used to, like TX.) In the first case it’ll show academic curiosity and willingness to take on a challenge and the second case well, doing whatever everyone’s doing without thinking it through and taking the easy way out. 
She already has 4 credits of science, she plans on a non STEM major, and she’s identified classes that will be useful background for her major: she should definitely go for it.
And congratulations for having a thoughtful, successful daughter who can handle 4 sciences and Calculus while also looking for a challenge in the social sciences and humanities :)</p>
<p>Thank you MYOS!</p>
<p>Not taking a single science class (especially during senior year) won’t affect your college chances in any significant way. Don’t stress the small stuff :)</p>
<p>Read “overspecialization in high school”.The blog mentions how there is a new trend of high school students taking courses related to their career interests. The blog mentions the importance of having a strong core foundation in high school which includes science, math, english, history, and foreign language. Thought this blog gave an interesting insight into what admission officers are looking for.
<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/”>http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>That was one of our concerns in the first place. But we decided it’s okay for her not to take science. In fact she will take a college speech class and micro econ, and probably macro econ too, for her interest. She’s done 4 science courses in high school, including some quite challenging ones. she has also done some summer science programs, because … her parents are physicists so she was expected to be good at sciences no matter what she does in the future. But 4 good science courses with A in all of them and 5 in AP chem and hopefully enviro show she is not too lopsided. Thanks for the link and I like professor mcgonagall’s disaproval. </p>