My school is taking the freshman that are in honors (GT) chem right now and are placing them straight to AP Physics next year (without any prior physics classes or lessons whatsoever). Normally (for the GT students), it’s bio (8th grade) --> chem --> physics --> AP Science of your choice.
While these kids have the option to opt out and just take honors physics, the overwhelming majority won’t say anything and just take the AP Physics class because it’s the default.
The counselors claim they can handle it, but many people in the GT program are, while smart, unmotivated and struggle a lot (and regularly fail) because of their laziness in these honors classes. Nevermind the AP science class in a course they’ve never exposed to. In fact, those same students in honors physics right now struggle the same why the freshman suffer in chemistry. It’s ridiculous that they’re seemingly blind to this and consider putting them straight to AP Physics!
While this doesn’t apply to me because I’m a sophomore, I want an outside opinion on why my school is doing this.
first of all, sorry if it sounds like I’m insulting your school, b/c it is not my intention.
and second, Mind you, I’m only saying this based on my own school that does something like this as well
At my school, AP Lang is the default English class for 11th graders and it’s actually nearly impossible to be placed in an Honors English class (my school doesn’t even offer regular). Out of the whole county, we have the most students taking AP Lang every year (95% of the junior class takes it), but we have one of the lowest average scores.
When my school county publishes a huge AP report at the end of the year (with scores, analysis, plans for improving scores, progress made, etc), they always mention that my school has the “most people taking AP tests” (w/out mentioning the low scores) and then my school proceeds to brag about it and we get extra funding from the county, apparently. Some other schools in my county do this too - the more students that take the AP test, the more funds they get.
There’s no way that your school doesn’t know that AP Physics is an EXTREMELY difficult class and if your school makes AP Physics the “default” course, then I think that there’s a decent chance that there are very selfish motivations behind it. By placing large numbers of students into AP courses as opposed to only qualified students/student who want to take the course, they know that they are compromising the average score.
tldr: your school may be thinking of “quantity over quality”. As I said though, this is just based off of what happens in my school district, so who really knows what your school admins are thinking. So this is just a “why your school MIGHT be doing this”.
Your school seems to be messing with statistics (as @miopyon13 said) and it seems like they’re about to severely inflate grades. I’m going to assume that the class will be easy, but the average AP score will be low.
There are 3 AP Physics classes available… AP Physics I, AP Physics II, and AP Physics C…
I’m assuming that they’ll be putting you into AP Physics I, which is all algebra-based… It’s not a difficult class as far as the math goes, but IS a difficult class conceptually… (AP Courses are supposed to be difficult though ) It will be fine.
Ohhhh that’s right, there are the new AP Physics classes. I forgot about that. Never mind, your school will most likely be fine, the old AP Physics class was just split into two new ones.
At my school, there is no prior physics course. If you want to take AP Physics 1, you do so; and many people succeed (our course also happens to be quite difficult). If people are taking it without a prior physics course, the teachers will probably take that into account.
“AP Chem and AP Bio which require a foundation class (preferably honors).”
This is why my school makes no sense. Freshman class of 700 and over 2500 students, as well as a completely separate building built 2 years ago for this Eastland Fairfield Career school and Columbus State CC classes across the street, yet we have no AP Physics, no AP Human Geo or World History (ok, these aren’t a big deal as Physics), and no Honors Chem or Bio. It’s just jump in from regular to AP level. Our regular chemistry classes cover 4 chapters, while AP covers 22.
@MYOS1643 Does taking regular and not honors make a big difference? (going into AP from ClassA vs ClassB)
My school has one chemistry (first four or five chapters of AP Chem) and one biology (pretty much irrelevant stuff) class before you can jump into APs. AP Bio and AP Chem are introductory classes that more or less correspond to Bio 101 and Chem 101 in college… there isn’t really a large amount of preparation necessary
It depends. My school does not have an intro chem course labeled “honors” and it is the standard prereq to AP Chem and kids do fine with the transition. That said, our 1st level chem class covers almost the whole book, not 4 chapters.
Keep in mind that Chem 101 in college supposes one year of HS Chemistry, so of course AP Chem, which is similar to Chem 101, would have the same basic pre-req.
If your school offers only one section, then assume it’ll prepare you for AP - ask your teacher if s/he thinks you can get a B or better.
If your school offers regular and honors, then assume the regular class is “terminal” while the honors class would prepare you for the AP class. @Anish: aren’t you allowed to take these classes at the other schools?
) It will be fine.