<p>^ Sophomore standing is defined as:</p>
<p>1) You have the equivalent credits of a normal student after a year of college after your first semester at MIT (96 credits…48 credits is a “normal load” per semester)</p>
<p>2) You have finished the majority science GIR courses</p>
<p>3) You have completed a CI-H HASS</p>
<p>The first requirement is pretty simple - after the first semester, you need to have completed 96 credits.</p>
<p>The second requirement is a bit nebulous - but the science GIRs are 18.01, 18.02, 7.01x, 8.01x, 8.02x, and 5.11x/3.091. So, I assume if you complete 4 out of the 6 by the end of first sem, you will have completed the majority of the science GIRs. I passed out of 18.01, took 18.02, 7.01x, and 8.01x first sem and qualified for advanced soph standing.</p>
<p>3) You must take a CI-H HASS class, so make sure to put this into your schedule.</p>
<p>Overall, I would say that a typical applicant will probably come in having passed out of 18.01, so that’s 12 credits right there. That plus 48 credits (3 science + HASS) frosh year or 54 credits (plus advising seminar) would mean that you would need to have either 36 or 30 additional credits coming into MIT. If you don’t have any transfer credit, this means you need to have taken 3-4 AP courses that MIT could give general elective credit for (9 units…most humanities APs qualify, but not the science ones). </p>
<p>The advantages of early soph standing is primarily you won’t have the silly 54 credit cap second semester. It’s a lot easier to take 5 classes, rather than 4.5 classes. The difference between ABC/NR and ABCDF shouldn’t be that drastic.</p>
<p>Yes, you guys don’t have HASS-D requirements anymore. Just take one each from the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and you’re set! (basically the new requirement streamlined the HASS-D categories, so there aren’t so many of them) IMO I think this new system is a lot more flexible and includes more HASS classes, so it’s great for you guys. I’m not sure what they’ll be doing with the HASS-D lottery actually in the future. The HASS-D system will remain unchanged till at least the class of 2014 become seniors (2014s are the first class affected by the new requirement), but you guys will be operating under the new system jointly with the existing HASS-D people.</p>