Credits per semester

<p>Hello - my daughter is leaning towards UMD - pursuing a double major. Even with the overlap of core courses she probably is looking at ~ 150 credits vs. normal 120. She will come in with a good number of AP and college credits which will cut this down but she will still need extra credits each semester and/or summers.</p>

<p>With many of the other universities, full time is anything over 12 credits; anything over 17-18 credits and you have to pay extra for each credit. I cannot seem to find anything like that at UMD. Can she take any amount of classes for the flat full time tuition rate?</p>

<p>Your daughter would be going for a double degree (150 hrs) vs. double major (120 hrs)—what both my 2 are doing. I think she will have to take at least 12 hrs to be considered full-time. I think Gina on here has taken 20 credit hours at least one semester? D2 was enrolled for 19 last semester. I believe students have to get special permission to register for more than 18 credits, but it also depends on the major/college. I found this on the general info section of courses for Fall, 2011 on testudo…</p>

<p>This is from Testudo, but I believe she’ll find a lot more info online with regard to her majors and college(s)…</p>

<p>"# Maximum Credit Limit: Undergraduate students are generally limited to registering for 16 credits until the first day of classes. Students can then register for a maximum of 20 credits. Requests to register for over 16 credits before the first day of classes require special permission.</p>

<h1>Requests to take over 20 credits always require college approval."</h1>

<p>My oldest’s 2 degrees have a fair amount of overlap, so she was able to take lighter loads when she needed to…it gave her the ability to drop a couple of classes at the beginning of a couple of semesters and pick them up with a better choice of prof in a later semester.</p>

<p>"Can she take any amount of classes for the flat full time tuition rate? "</p>

<p>Yes she can. Hopefully she won’t need to take any more than 17/18 per semester to accomplish her four year plan. I am an extreme case, dual degree (one in ARHU, the other in CMNS, plus pre-med) yet my four year plan has only one 18 credit term (last fall) and a 14 credit term (my last). My plan calls for no summer or winter term classes as I felt this time is much better used elsewhere, such as research.</p>

<p>“She will come in with a good number of AP and college credits”</p>

<p>This definitely helps. My 55 AP credits (Full credit for 10 exams) are what made my particular plan possible, though the degrees would still have been feasible with fewer credits.</p>

<p>Thank you - I guess I thought AP would count for 3 credits. Do they really count for 5.5?</p>

<p>Also, she has three College in High School courses from the University of Pittsburgh. Assume these would carry over as 5.5 credits?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>@marnick1, the AP credit given depends on the exam. Some exams count as single term (3 credit such as English Lang/Lit, US Govt., World History, Music Theory or 4 credit such as foreign languages) while some give credit for a full year of study ( 8 credits for Calc BC, Biology, Physics C, or 6 credits for Chemistry). If you scored less than a 5 is might be different. The way Maryland handled AP credit was a huge factor when I was deciding where to attend.</p>

<p>My DS will graduate this May with 150 credits and a dual degree, meaning that he will earn two separate bachelors degrees. He has taken 17-18 credits each semester, having entered with a number of AP credits, and has found the workload very manageable. I know that UDel charges for additional credits but UMD does not.</p>