I am a rising senior in high school and I want to major in computer engineering in college. I took honors physics and got a b+ in it and didn’t get placed into AP Physics C Mechanics for this year. I want to take a higher level of physics because I will be applying as an engineering major to colleges. Should I take the equivalent class at a community college or should I self study for it?
Are you asking about the course from an admissions standpoint or a college credit standpoint? Self studying will not help you at all with admissions because the test takes place in May after you’ve applied and been accepted to colleges. But it may be helpful for college credit if you pass the exam. This depends on your college. A community college course can be shown on college applications as being a part of your senior schedule, but again may or may not be accepted for college credit.
Ask for an exception to be made to be placed in your high school AP physics class. It will be more rigorous than the comm coll class
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Overall, good points in the post. However, it is a bad idea for a student aiming for engineering to try and pursue college credit for an AP exam physics course, should the college even accept it for placement or credit.
I don’t know much about physics, but if engineering is the goal, start with the 100 level course, which will be foundational and will set the stage for other courses in the major.
I have two perspectives here:
In my son’s case, his 4 in AP stats did him no favors and he wishes he hadn’t sought college credit for it. He took the class as a sophomore in high school. By the time he needed to take a stats course for his major, it had been at least 3 years since he had taken a stats class. And guess what? Because he already had credit for AP stats (effectively the 100 level stats course, as far as the college was concerned), he was not allowed to take the 100 level class in college. He had to go right into a higher level course and by then, had forgotten most of what he learned. It was very hard and he had to play catch up. It did his GPA no favors.
My eldest child self-studied AP Psych because it wasn’t available at our high school and she thought she would probably major in it. Got a 5 and decided against trying to get placement in the next level class. She took the intro level psych class and was very glad she did. That foundation was very important.
APs are rigorous, but they are not truly representative of college level material. Self-studying isn’t helpful, for sure, especially if your high school offers AP physics. Colleges aren’t expecting students to have community college classes on their transcript.
Either ask to be placed in AP physics because you are looking for rigor, or take it in college.
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This is not necessarily true, especially with AP physics C, whose math pre/co-requisites are less than those of many calculus-based physics courses in college.
Of course, the quality of community college courses does vary, often based on state policy regarding the transfer pathway to the state flagship starting at community colleges.
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Yep. If you want it then fight for it. A b+should be good enough unless your school only accepts “A” students into BC. Funny thing is many find BC easier then Honors Physics. .
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You don’t need to do this to get into college as an engineering major. There’s likely a reason why you weren’t placed into it.
I wouldn’t try to overreach. You can but you’ll still get into solid engineering programs regardless.
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AP physics is not required for studying engineering in college (although some kind of high school physics is recommended before taking physics in college).
Looks like your high school may be artificially rationing places in AP physics if an A- in honors physics is required to take AP physics.
I agree with this. Have your parents call the school. Counselors are used to blowing off kids but parents have more weight. Their taxes fund the school, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be allowed to take a class they’re paying for. Which is what they need to explain to the counseling staff.
If the high school is rationing space in AP physics due to lack of instructional capacity, the likely canned response will be “we do not have enough instructional capacity in physics because of funding limitations, so we only have enough space in AP physics for students who earned A- or higher grades in honors physics”.
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