The laws of physics haven’t changed much since Newton’s days, but the same does not go for the classes teaching them.
The College Board has decided that the Honors Physics class taught here (and at other schools across the country) will become an AP class next year. AP Physics 1, as the course will be called, will be almost exactly the same course Honors students are currently taking, and will be comparable to Physics A at a college level. This is the same course that WS has been teaching for decades, considering an Honors course with an Honors credit.
“College Board has waved its Cinderella wand and said ‘boop, you’re AP now’,” said Honors Physics teacher Will Keay. “We’re literally changing [almost] nothing.”
The change is coming as CollegeBoard is realizing that Honors Physics classes across the country are actually taught at a college level, and often out of a college textbook, as WS does.
“The mentality is that if you’re already taking something that’s as hard as or harder than AP Physics 1, why not get the AP?” said Student Services director Jennifer Knox.
In the past, Physics teachers haven’t considered it a college class mainly due to the pacing – while it is college level material; it only covers part of a college textbook. As a result, another class, AP Physics 2, will also be available to students next year.
“AP Physics 2 corresponds with Physics B,” said Keay. “[It] is literally all the chapters we don’t get to in… AP Physics 1.”
As it builds on the material in the lower level AP Physics course, it’s recommended as a second-year class. Of course, the AP Physics C class the school currently offers – which teaches Calculus-based physics -will continue to be a class. In other words, next year WS will be offering three different AP classes on Physics. Regular Physics won’t see any changes, but a new Honors class will be offered, meaning this year’s course selection catalog will feature a total of five different Physics courses. The Honors class will be almost indistinguishable from AP Physics 1, but with marginal changes to the curriculum mainly for the purpose of being able to call it a separate course (and without an AP test or AP credit). The Honors class will also require students to complete an 11-page research project over the course of the first semester that AP students will not have to do.
All these changes raise the question of what is going to happen to students who are already taking Honors Physics. Many students currently taking the class feel they deserve an AP credit (and an AP weighted GPA), since they are taking a college level class that students next year will be receiving an AP credit for.
“I’m actually pretty annoyed, since I’m not getting AP credit for doing the same work,” said junior Danielle Triebwasser.
Treibwasser and other current Honors students who feel cheated out of a GPA boost will have to cut their losses, since there’s no plan currently in place (nor any feasible way) to change Honors Physics into an AP class halfway through the year when the AP test is still being designed and won’t be available until May of next year. Furthermore, “AP” is a registered trademark, and schools must pass an audit to be allowed to use the name. Giving kids an AP credit at this point could turn into a serious legal fiasco, even if it’s the fairest option from a student’s perspective.
“I don’t think you’ll get AP credit for the course as far as the Fairfax curve goes,” said Keay.
Keay did point out however that the GPA boost isn’t as important as many students think. Colleges take away weighted GPAs anyway before evaluating students, and colleges will be able to take into consideration that current juniors with the course “Honors Physics” really took an AP-level course. And for current takers of Honors Physics, it will be possible to take the AP Physics 1 test next year and (if their score is good enough), potentially be exempt from taking Physics A in college. For students going that route, some type of review sessions will be provided by the school to refresh their memories– though what these sessions will involve is still up in the air.

“We’re definitely going to have… something [to review],” said Keay. “We want students to have that opportunity. I think everyone’s in agreement on that.”

While a lot is still being decided, the county has already made at least one important decision about what classes current Honors students will be able to take,

“I do know one thing… kids that are in Honors Physics this year will not be allowed to take AP Physics 1 next year and go ‘ha ha I’m literally taking the same class I did last year’,” said Keay.