-i’m going to be in algebra 2.
-i have no prior physics knowledge
-the teacher is apparently good but only grades quizzes and tests so it’s impossible to keep an A.
-my class rank right now is in the top 1% and i don’t know if i should risk my GPA/rank to take physics.
No it’s not. Get an A on quizzes and tests and you get an A in the class.
If you are targeting top colleges, you need physics. It does not need to be AP Physics 1 if there is an honors option available, and the rest of your scedule is sufficiently rigorous. The other thing you should look at is the pass rate for the AP exam at your school, since overall 60% fail it.
who should i ask for the pass rate?
and i’m honestly not targeting top colleges, i’d still like to keep my rank at the top 1% though.
Unless your school routinely tracks kids in Algebra 2 into AP Physics 1, I’d suggest waiting until you’re in pre-calc. My kid really struggled with the vectors at the beginning of physics; when she hit them the next year in the first couple weeks of pre-calc she realized why the physics teacher strongly recommended pre-calc as a corequisite.
Either the teacher or the GC.
The difference between top 1% vs top 3% is statistically meaningless in most cases, particularly if students choose courses solely to preserve rank.
One of the OP’s previous posts suggests that s/he is considering Texas A&M, so it is possible that s/he is in Texas, where rank is used instead of GPA or grades for the state university admissions. If so, that would explain the heightened focus on rank, although whether top 1% versus 3% matters for other than UT Austin is a different story.
While true, automatic admission is top 10% for all except UT-Austin, where it’s top 6%. Automatic admission gets one into the university, but not necessarily to the major. At that point holistic review comes into play.
So even for TX, I stand my my earlier statement.