<p>My first post. For a lot of reasons my son is signed up for the Harvard Summer School Program. He is taking a physics course that is every day for 8 weeks and in its description is described as fulfilling the two semester requirement for physics for pre-med students. The syllabus is just out and indicates that course is geared for the MCATs. My boy is a junior in high school. His school has a weak physics class and so we thought this would be a good way to get the physics into his transcript. He is a very strong math, science student. For admissions purposes he intends to take the SAT II in physics in October. The book he’s going to use this summer is the two volumes, Physics by Cutnell & Johnson (32 chapters). They are going to cover all the chapters, but 5 or 6 dealing with heat stuff, I guess. Relativity apparently won’t be dealt with. It seems like enough physics for him to take the SAT II, but my question is - is this the wrong course, or will it be okay? Will it give him enough of the right stuff? I know nothing about physics. Thank you.</p>
<p>I don’t know the specifics of the book your son will be using for the summer course but I am pretty sure he will be fine for the SAT II. My son’s junior year physics course didn’t cover electricity and magnetism at all, nor some other topics covered on the SAT II. He learned the missing material on his own, using SAT II prep books available in any bookstore, and scored an 800 on the SAT II. (He is a strong math science student like your son, but not a genius or prodigy by any means) Your son’s summer course sounds more complete than the h.s. course my son took, so since he is strong in math and science, I think he should just purchase a couple of review books to learn any small topics which were not covered in his summer course. Good luck!</p>