<p>Hey guys, I was looking through admission requirements for Cornell's college of engineering and Carnegie Mellon's school of computer science and got a little worried. I saw a requirement of "one unit" of physics for Cornell, and "one year" for cmu. I have never taken physics as a course at school, but I've scored a 5 on the physics b and c: mechanics exams, as well as an 800 on the subject test. Could I still apply? Would I be barred from consideration/admission because of this? thank you!</p>
<p>Tomorrow, call both schools’ admissions offices and ask if your scores will stand in place of actual courses. They truly are the only people to give you a definitive answer.</p>
<p>That is really amazing you got a 5 on the AP exam and 800 without taking the course. However that might not substitute the one year. I would call the office.</p>
<p>Are you a senior right now? Is it to late for you to change your course and have physics? </p>
<p>Thanks :), and thank you sdgal for the suggestion. </p>
<p>yeah I’m a senior right now so its too late to change courses. I’ve sent them an email and if I don’t get a response I’ll definitely call them. My application is almost 100% geared towards the whole physics/computer science shebang, so I’ll be pretty disappointed if they say no, but it totally makes sense (i shouldve paid more attention). </p>
<p>If (after you ask the two admissions offices this question - ASAP) the answer is that you must take Physics, ironically you could choose (at least for Cornell) to apply to the college of arts and sciences (which seems to have less strict requirements for sciences in HS) and then change colleges within Cornell (verify this) after a semester.</p>
<p>If it is too late for high school course changes, what about dual registering in Physics at the local community college, or asking your high school if you can do an online one for independent study credit? With stats like these, hard to imagine that an introductory physics course would present any challenge. If you did the AP prep at school, would your HS allow you to claim independent study physics for last year?</p>
<p>And - congratulations on the hard work. Great test scores! Hope this works out well for you - even if for some reason CMU is out, there are a lot of great schools that would love to see someone passionate about science and successful in challenging HS courses.</p>
<p>thank you! I’ll look into the option of changing colleges, still not too sure on how that works. Unfortunately, my school is adamant against independent credit, but thanks again for well wishes. </p>
<p>Since this technically does not stop me from applying, should I go ahead and apply anyways if I feel the rest of my application is strong enough? Perhaps theres a (minuscule) chance that theyll be willing to overlook it, at least for the time being? </p>
<p>If you do a class at a community college or online, school will consider this part of your workload regardless of whether your HS will accept the credit. It just means that you may have to pay for the course yourself. You would have a separate transcript from the college or online school which isn’t a problem. Your school can’t prevent you from taking additional classes else where, just won’t give you high school credit.</p>
<p>How did you learn all that physics? Presumably you took a class outside of school, online, or had a “home-school” template/study guide to direct self-study.<br>
I presume Cornell has a part on the application where you can write any “extenuating circumstances” or “other information we should know”. You could use that space to explain how you acquired the physics knowledge and why you did not take physics at your HS.</p>
<p>I don’t see any reason to avoid applying to any school simply because of the missing year of High School physics. As others noted, there is space on the application to explain how you were able to excel in physics, doing well in your physics tests without actually taking physics. Seems more likely that a place like CMU would allow an exception especially as many of their peer institutions (including Rice e.g.) are flexible in how the recommended 4 years of science are achieved.</p>