Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to advise my daughter about her Physics courses.
A long-loved and respected AP Physics teacher retired and the new AP physics teacher has a terrible rep among the students who have taken her regular physics class – she is apparently very disorganized and bad at explaining the material. In addition, this would be the teacher’s first time teaching AP physics (teaches just regular physics currently)
So my daughter (rising junior) is thinking about taking General Physics at the local community college this summer. It will be a lot of material compressed into a short amount of time but she says she would prefer that to a year of terrible teaching.
My questions are whether a CC physics course would be as good on her transcript as Physics AP.
She is a smart student – easy As in honors chem and advanced math. In addition, we would be able to tutor her at home on any physics material needed.
Which college physics? (for biology majors with no calculus or light calculus, for physics and engineering majors with more calculus)
If she may later apply to medical school, all college courses and grades count for medical school application purposes. But AP scores may or may not be accepted, and AP physics 1 or 2 scores may be especially problematic since some medical schools may want pre-meds to repeat them in college, but that can mean having “repeat” notations that are often seen as undesirable grade-grubbing by other medical schools.
First off, if your daughter is planning med school, the CC transcript will follow her. How confident is she that she can get through a lot of material in a short time?
How does your HS consider CC courses? Do they go on the high school transcript? Included in GPA calculations? Would it be weighted?
What kind of AP Physics? Is it AP Physics C, both mechanics and E&M? What would the general physics course cover?
What’s her intended major in college? If it’s engineering, I think C would “look better” but not if she can’t get a good grade because of the teacher.
Thanks for the follow-up questions, ucbalumnus and momofsenior 1
The AP Physics is AP Physics 1.
The CC course is called “general physics” covers translational and rotational motion, statics, conservation of momentum and energy, oscillations, mechanical waves and sound, fluid mechanics, heat and thermodynamics. There is a separate one credit lab course that she would take along with it.
The course would appear on her high school transcript. I don’t know about GPA calculations - but that’s a great question and I will call and ask tomorrow. In any event, if she didn’t take AP Physics, she would take AP Enviro instead and get a grade bump regardless. Though that is a “softer” lab science, the teacher is fabulous, the workload easier and would make her Junior year load (otherwise quite onerous) a bit more maneagble.
She doesn’t yet know her major but not engineering and not medicine. She’s thinking maybe math and chem – but is also thinking about architecture.
Also what kind of college is she aiming for? Rice might care but others may not. She can use Khan Academy to learn physics, and supplement her lectures, and homework sets, regardless of whether she takes it at a CC or the high school AP version available. Is there any guarantee that the CC will not have a new instructor the semester she signs up there? Some colleges care about taking the hardest classes,and AP Environmental science is not the hardest science class offered at her high school. Also chemistry majors often need to take physics, so its good to get exposure in high school.
Thanks all. Funny you mention Rice. That is one school she is looking at. Others are Pomona (reach), Hamilton and maybe Scripps as safety.
I reached out to the CC professor re. math and my daughter has the bulk of the math she’d need. The CC course is algebra based. There is just a small amount of the Trig she’d need that she hasn’t covered, but my partner will be able to brush her up on that small part in a weekend.
So I’m confident that’s she ready for the course and able to handle the material in the shorter time frame. The CC prof also said that quite a few HS students take her summer course and they all tend to do really well.
So I guess my question is still, would top colleges see the CC choice as less rigorous. If that is the case she would probably just “suck it up” and deal with the highly ineffective teacher. IAgain, I just don’t know how to advise her.
For students who know the calculus well, physics may be easier to understand with calculus.
But that is not really the issue, because
In this case, it is a physics for biology majors course. There may be pre-med competition in this course. But the content of the first semester of physics for biology majors should be similar to that of AP physics 1 (though there may be some variation in the topic order in different schools).
It may depend on the college, as well as how good a reputation your local and state community colleges have.
Thanks, ucbalumnus and houston1021. Good to know about the credit with Rice but that is not so much a factor. The main issue is having a rigorous looking transcript for admissions.
Just as an aside, she should be the one reaching out on these types of issues.
If this is the “main issue,” than from an admissions perspective, they are equivalent, even if they are not equivalently rigorous from your DD’s PoV. So now she needs to move on to other parameters, including which has the potential for the better grade.
They are only equivalent if that’s what your D’s guidance counselor is prepared to state. Your D wants the guidance counselor to be able to say that your D took the most rigorous classes possible, which included taking physics at a local college when the HS physics options didn’t work with her schedule. You don’t want any hint that she’s taking the CC class because it’s easier, is graded on a better curve, covers less material/is less in-depth, is content oriented but doesn’t teach the formulae and problem-solving techniques, plus your D got an extra study hall by having a lighter schedule, etc. I’d have your D confirm with the GC that her plan is going to yield a “most rigorous” tick on the box before moving ahead.
Agree, more or less, the less part being beyond the scope of this thread. But in theory, one class out of the 24-28 should not move the check into the next box.
It’s all quite frustrating because my daughter has been looking forward to AP physics since freshman year and WANTS a rigorous, well taught class that also looks the best on the transcript. That overlap seems elusive.
I also think they would be pretty much equivalent. Theoretically one could take one of the AP Physics tests after the course, but if she’s taking it in the summer that’s a lot of time to forget all the material.