<p>I don't know how the college credit system works, so I have a few questions.</p>
<p>First, is it possible to condense freshman and sophomore years into one?</p>
<p>Second, is it possible to condense three semesters' worth of college credit into two?</p>
<p>Third, would it be advisable to do any of this if I intend to transfer after my first year of college?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>That depends on how many credit hours you plan on taking in one normal semester. I would say no, but there are people who graduate early because they come in with credit, either transferable credit from a CC or other college, AP credit, credit by examination, etc. If you come in with around 15 credits, you would have a semester’s worth of credit under your belt. If you came in with 30 credits, you would have a year’s worth of credit under your belt. This is for a school on the semester system, of course. I can’t speak for those with quarters or trimesters. </p>
<p>Here at UR under the credit system, for example, 12 credits is the minimum to be considered a full time students, and 21-ish is the maximum you can take, and even for that, you have to have approval from the Dean. Thus, it would be impossible to take two semesters worth of credit in one semester, but, if you take the greatest number of credits each semester, you could, at the end of your tenure as a student, shave off a semester, maybe two.</p>
<p>You also need to consider the residency requirements for the school you want to transfer to. Most institutions require you to take classes at that university for a minimum number of credit hours.</p>
<p>Thank you, URichmond2010!</p>
<p>It is possible. I did it.</p>
<p>But you may have to show up with something they’ll give you credit for.</p>
<p>You’ll also need to look into how many courses you will be allowed to take during your first semester, and you may need to take some courses over the summer.</p>
<p>If you’ve got no credits when you arrive and you don’t stay through the summer, you would need to take twice the number of courses that are expected, and most advisors would want some kind of track record that shows you can handle that before they’d agree.</p>
<p>I think it may depend on what major you’re planning on being, because I can tell you right now it wouldn’t have been possible with my major (chemistry). It would not have gone well taking general chemistry (freshman) AND organic chemistry (sophmore) at the same time :). Aside from the fact that genchem is a prereq for ochem - it would have been 6 hrs of lecture and 9 hours of lab every week just for those two classes. I’m also completely ignoring other freshman/sophomore coursework like physics and calc that would have had to been taken at the same time. Eww - yeah, that would not have worked well at all, my GPA would have suffered horrendously.</p>
<p>Some courses are also only offered one quarter or semester per year so you can’t always trim down a quarter/semester by piling on the coursework. Summer school is your best bet to catch up or get ahead.</p>
<p>As with URichmond2010, for me 12 units is the minimum for full time status - 21 is the max, averaging 15 is typical. For example, Gen chem is 5 units (3 hrs lecture + 1 hr discussion + 3 hr lab (labs are 1 unit per 3 hrs). Organic chem is also 5 units (3 hrs lecture + 6 hrs lab). For every unit that you take you are expected to spend 3 hrs studying/doing homework. In high school you are probably used to 6-7 different classes at a time, but at the college level you’d have to be insane to do that.</p>
<p>It is possible to get 3 semesters worth of credits in 2 semesters, but you can only condense two years into one with extra work (AP credits, summer classes etc). As Pearlinthemist pointed out, attempting this is only possible/advisable in a major that does not require courses to be taken in a certain order (e.g. history could work out fine but not sciences or languages) unless you are already quite advanced (in the chemistry example above, AP Chem, AP Calc and AP Physics should place you out of the intro courses).</p>
<p>if u have AP credits that transfer into stuff like “elective” credits/credits that don’t place u out of a class, would that only mean that later in college u just wouldn’t have to take some of the “fluff/extra” electives to supplement ur graduation credits?</p>
<p>Yep, that is what it means.</p>