<p>Can a current student or parent please explain the normal semester course load? Since Elon awards 4 credit hours per class rather than the traditional 3, do most students take 4 courses or 5 per semester.</p>
<p>Most take 4.</p>
<p>Some during freshman year take more because the first year core includes a required 2 credit course so unless another 2 credit can be found, you could possibly end up with 18 or 14…</p>
<p>“Full” load is 16 credits - 4 full credit courses. Generally Elon is a 4-1-4 school, which means you take 4 courses in the fall, 1 in January term, and 4 in the spring.</p>
<p>Elon also runs some 2 credit courses (such as Health) and Elon 101, the intro course for Freshmen, is 1 credit. Generally 2 credit courses run for half of the semester. So it’s possible to have 18 or 19 credits, but the standard load is 4 courses = 16 credits.</p>
<p>The only time you are allowed 19 credits is fall of freshman year. Otherwise the max is 18. Health is a requirement for freshman, and Elon 101 is optional, but recommended(most take it). So, if you have 4 regular classes, Health(2 creds) and Elon 101(1 cred) that makes 19. You need 132 creds to graduate, so if you average 16 creds/semester you come up with 128 after 4 yrs. Winter term, which is not mandatory, but included in fall semester tuition, would add 4 creds per year. So, essentially, if you take a Winter term class a few times, you could take a slightly lighter load for a semester here and there–and by that I mean 3 regular classes and maybe a 2 cred class. There are some majors that have 2 cred classes as a requirement. For example, Public Speaking is 2 cred(communications major). Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who replied! Very helpful info.</p>