<p>I'm just wondering what this mysterious thing called "general elective credit" is, what it does for you (if anything) and basically if you need it to graduate.</p>
<p>thanks!!</p>
<p>You do need general elective credit to graduate, in a sense.</p>
<p>Most classes at MIT are worth 12 units. You need to accumulate 180 units outside the GIRs in order to get a degree from MIT. This is the number of units you would accumulate if you took all seventeen GIRs at MIT, and took four 12-unit classes for eight semesters.</p>
<p>So coming in with general elective credit means you don’t have to take four classes per semester in order to graduate – you have a cushion, in case you have a semester or two where you need to drop a class or something.</p>
<p>You’re probably interested in this because of AP exams. A lot of AP exams will get you 9 units of general elective credit for scores of 5.</p>
<p>I came in with 45 units of general elective credit. Mollie is correct that all it really does for you is provide a cushion, which you probably won’t need. I didn’t end up needing my 45-unit cushion, so it gave me nothing except the satisfaction of having a lot of units at graduation.</p>