Do Number of College Unit Credits Given For a Class Affect the Level of It?

Applying to College
1

I’m a Junior in high school wanting to take Spanish 2A at my local community college (Chabot College), so it can say that I have taken 3 “years” of foreign language in high school on my record. This course offers 4 units of credit. While researching other community colleges, though, I noticed that mostly all of their Spanish 2A courses were 5 units. Does this make a difference in anything concerning its considered level of Spanish? Do number of credits matter in that regard? All of the 2A classes I looked at from all of the colleges (including Chabot) fulfilled the same IGETC Areas (3B, 6A), though. So would most/all either colleges view these courses as all the same level of Spanish (3 years of high school Spanish)?

2

Number of credits typically reflects the amount of time that the class meets in the classroom. A three credit class will meet for three hours per week, a four credit class for four hours, etc. The number of credits has nothing to do with the level of the class. Obviously these different colleges have different ways of approaching language instruction. It doesn’t mean one is better or worse than the other.

3

Chabot’s Spanish 2A is considered equivalent to LOTE 3 (high school year 3 language other than English) by UC and CSU. Many other California community colleges’ third semester Spanish courses are considered equivalent to LOTE 4+. That Chabot’s beginner and intermediate foreign language courses are 4 credit units while most others’ are 5 credit units apparently reflects a real difference in the amount of material covered in the courses (i.e. the other colleges’ third semester Spanish courses start and finish at more advanced levels).

Chabot College: https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist/institution/4303;academicYearId=17
Mission College: https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist/institution/4356;academicYearId=17

4

No, it won’t matter. It’s a 3rd year language-level course, that’s all that will really matter for college applications.

“Units” aren”t even standard. My college courses were mostly 9-12 units.