Freshman 1st semester - number of classes/credits (14 vs 19)

It seems things at my D’s school are a bit different than when I went to college, when generally a class was 3 credits, you took 5 classes a semester and that would have you finish your degree with 120 credits in 4 years… At her school classes are 4 or 5 credits, and you need 128 for her degree+minor.

With her AP credits (about 15), she’ll need to average 14 credits a semester to finish in a normal 4-year timeframe. She’s a biology major, so her 1st semester she was going to take

Honors Seminar (required) - 4 credits
Calc - 5 credits
Chem - 4 credits
Chem Lab - 1 credit

That’s 14 right there… but it’s only 3 classes, which to me just seems odd. But any other class is going to be 4 or 5 credits.

Personally, think 18 or 19 credits her fall freshman semester would be too much. I’d much prefer she ease in, get used to college, time management (she’ll be on the equestrian team so has to fit that in, plus one of the music ensembles). Since she only needs to average 14, this keeps her right on schedule… but being only 3 classes feels off to me.

What do you all think (obviously she’s going to decide for herself, i just want to give advice if she asks for it)?

My advice is to start with 14 this first semester, to get used to the college life.
However, see if putting off a class until Spring will mess up any pre-requisites for the future.
Also look and see if the college hasa typical curriculum for a Bio major on line.
For example TCNJ also generally has 4 credit courses.

https://biology.tcnj.edu/sample-pathways-to-four-year-biology-degree/
Their Freshman first semester is:

BIO 201/Foundations of Biological Inquiry

CHE 201/General Chemistry I
MAT 127/Calculus A 1
Freshman Seminar

She will also talk to her advisor who can give advise.

My experience is also that a full course load is 5 courses per semester x 2 semesters per year x 4 years for 40 courses. It looks like her degree only requires 32 courses (128/4)? If so, that seems a bit light. It would seem odd that her degree requirement is 8 courses less than the standard. If that is the case though and she has 3 course equivalents from AP courses (15 credits/5 credits per course) then she only needs to complete 29 courses over 4 years or about 3-4 courses per semester. It seems to me that if she were to take a more standard course load she could finish in 3 years instead (provided she had the appropriate prerequisites). In any event if she is a Bio major shouldn’t she at least be taking Bio or is that one of her AP credits?

I could see taking 4 courses in first semester to ease her way into adjusting to college, but 3 seems really light. That’s just my opinion though.

It’s number of credits, not number of courses, that matters. Two typical models are the 3-credit-hour system where you need to take 5 classes a semester (15 credits) in order to graduate on time and the 4-credit-hour one where you usually take 4 classes a semester (16 credits). (This is assuming semesters and not quarters, where the number of courses is reduced each quarter because it’s a more intense experience.)

The proposed schedule looks good to me - it’s on track for her credit needs and fills requirements while allowing her the study time to adjust to college and begin with a strong GPA, plus making time for extracurriculars.

Seems like the school either crams more into the math and chemistry courses or has credit inflation, since they are 5 credits instead of the more usual 4 (chemistry including lab is often 4, even though the lab can add considerable work).

Even though the Chem Lab is only 1 credit, it will be like having another class with write ups of experiments and keeping laboratory observation notes, maybe even quizzes at each meeting. Taking it slow and easy for the 1st semester is fine and allow her to acclimate to the pace of college courses. I completely agree with @bopper. Believe me when I tell that the required lab classes are time consuming (note: I had 3 1/2 years of Chemistry courses for my major).

What is the date by which she would need to drop a course and have it completely disappear from her record (rather than get a W)? One option would be to start with one more course, but be very aware of the ability to drop one quickly.

I used to start with 6 courses and always drop to 5 by sometime in the first or second week of the semester. However, if the drop date is within the first two weeks, this may be too quickly to get a feel for what the work load is going to be.

It does seem strange for a biology major to have no biology class.

If you can take the chem class and the lab separately (as was possible with most of my chem labs), they might not function as one class. That schedule might be closer to four classes than three.

There are two different models of course loads at semester based schools: 4 four credit courses per semester times 8 semesters equals 128 credits for a degree versus 5 three credit courses per semester times 8 semesters equals 120 credits for a degree. In the Boston area Northeastern, BU and Harvard are 4x4 schools while BC and UMass Boston are 5x3. There is no “credit inflation”. It is the way each school has set up their academic structure.

^I don’t see a problem with getting a W as far as the transcript record is concerned. The main concern would be if she spreads herself too thin and then doesn’t do as well in the other courses.

I thought that as well, but then I looked at about 20 other schools and it was about 50/50 whether there was any biology the 1st semester. Heck, at one school you didn’t do a single biology class until spring of sophomore year. I guess that can make sense since most schools done’t even require you to declare a major until end of sophomore year.

Does she talk to an advisor before registering for classes? If yes, listen to them. Don’t overload first semester. Has she had chemistry or calculus in HS? Unless she had both AP chem and Calc, I would stay with the lighter schedule.

I know every school counts things a little differently… does hers have anything like 1 or 2 credit choir or yoga or anything like that that she’d be interested in?

If she had no AP credit, what classes would she be taking? Have you replaced each of those classes with the next in sequence, or an elective? If not, then yes her course load is lower than usual. As others have said, it seems odd for a Biology major to not be taking a biology class - did you cut that because of AP, and not replace it with something else? Or would the Chem normally be taken later?

Think of the 15 AP credits as currency to use over the first few semesters, to either lighter her load, or allow more freedom with electives. Obviously the Honors Seminar is not required of everybody, but likely replaces a humanities elective - or is it supposed to be in addition to the regular class load? If it is supposed to be in addition, then that’s what I would use the AP credits to ease. I would look for an elective to take along with these other classes - maybe something in the arts or humanities that might be enjoyable.

I suspect what you’re seeing compared to your alma mater is simply a different way of doing things. 30 years ago when I was in school, our lab sciences and Calc classes were all 4 credits, and 16 credits/semester was common. My degree required 132 credits (so 33 per year/ 16-17 per semester). Typical first semester Freshmen in Engineering took Calc (4 Credits), Chem (4 credits), Physics (4 credits), plus an introductory course for your specific discipline (1 or 2 credits), and a Humanities or Social Science elective. Calc had a lecture plus a recitation scheduled separately. Lab sciences had Lecture, plus Recitation, Plus lab sections.

Yeah she’ll get to talk to an advisor before (well the day of) registration. She has an honors orientation/overnight later this month at which time they’ll register a day before the rest of the freshman. She’ll meet with an advisor then. She just likes to go in prepared since she doesn’t know how much time they’ll have access to am advisor on that day.

She’s had AP Calc, but her chemistry teacher was a disaster and pretty much everyone in her grade pretends they never had chemistry… they got good grades, but they felt like they learned nothing.

I think with the ECs of the equestrian team and playing for one of the music ensembles, the lighter schedule makes more sense until she gets a feel for her time commitments.I know from experience that musical ensembles take a lot of time for rehearsals … we really just had an ‘uneasy’ feeling of just having 3 classes (even though I know labs are significant work, I don’t treat it like another course in my head).

Also, keep those AP credits for emergencies…my DD had a kidney infection and was in the hospital for a week…she had to withdraw from one of those 4 credit classes (from 16 to 12 credits) but she remained full time and on schedule to graduate on time thanks to AP credits.

With AP calculus, which calculus? Has she tried the college’s old exams of the courses she is allowed to skip?

Some schools remove AP credit if the student take the college course covering the same material.

People always say to take it easy your first semester, but I’m not sure if this is always a good idea. For me, I ended up wasting a lot of time, and postponed my difficulties adjusting to college to freshman spring. It’s hard to say what do without knowing your daughter’s ability in math and chemistry, what the honors seminar involves, what her study habits are, what her goals are, and so on. If the drop date is very late, that can be an opportunity to try four classes, and drop one if it ends up being too much work. A lot of times, honors programs will have drop dates all the way to the end of the semester.

I agree with the prevailing opinion – start off slow rather than potentially overload.

The 3/4/5 credit per class thing was new to me too. At first I thought S wasn’t taking enough classes (not credit). But it’s different today (at least from my 1980’s experience - every class was 3 credits including calc with labs). His calc (4 credits) met 4 days per week with an additional 1 hr lab (required) so it actually met 5 hrs per week. Spanish was a 4 day a week class, etc. I guess they just do it differently today.