D refused to take physics. She took honors bio, chem, anatomy and physiology, and AP Bio senior year. She was accepted at NYU and placed into their scholars program. She also dropped math junior year and took College Algebra senior year. But I will add that she is a studio art major, so she had presented them with a portfolio that accounted for half of her admissions.
There is no blanket answer though. You should call the schools you are interested in and make a decision based on their input and understand the consequences. For us, I would have preferred her not to drop math junior year. But it would have been worse if she failed math and brought down her gpa.