<p>College schedule information is already available on-line. I was wondering how many credits a Freshman should take. According to the schedule she must take 12 credits to be a full-time student. Is 15 about right for the first semester? Or 18? . She is a very bright girl, but has ADD. She will be on her medication to start college - has been off of it all this year. Thanks parents!</p>
<p>I would think that 15 is the right number for a freshman. You need to remember that college is much different than highschool. The first semester can be quite a learning experience for a new college student, many things to learn beyond the classroom. Don’t burden her with too much right off the start. Let her spend a semester figuring out how things work and you can always up the course load after that if things are going well.</p>
<p>This is also true when picking the first semester courses. You want her to be challenged, but be careful to not go too far. Try to stay with subjects that she is comfortable with if at all possible.</p>
<p>Many schools limit the number of credits a freshman can take without special permission. My d’s school limited it to 16 (four 4-credit courses). Are you sure that your d’s does not do this as well?</p>
<p>The information says it strongly suggests 14-16 credits. Can take up to 18 without additional cost.</p>
<p>Her college says she MUST take:
First year Honors Seminar (3 credits)
Language (3 credits)</p>
<p>Says she SHOULD take:<br>
Two History classes (3 credits each) (Her intended major - may change, of course)</p>
<p>These four classes will be 12 credits.</p>
<p>Then the info says to complete her schedule with General Education. And there are many, many classes to chose from in 7 categories. She must eventually take one class from each category.</p>
<p>Personally, I told my S1 that more than 15 for freshman fall is too much. Watch to see what the number of credit hours is to become a sophomore. Somehow, my son missed by 1 credit hour which isn’t that big a deal, one lab class his sophomore year caught him up, but if you are planning on the finishing in four years route with no AP credits counting for college credit then you need to keep track…especially if you go with 12 credit hours. At my son’s college it was 30 to transition to sophomore status - 2 semesters of 15 credit hours.</p>
<p>15 is a good number to start with. If she finds it to be too easy, she can go up to 18 next semester. It will also allow her to drop one class if something goes wrong, and still keep the full-time student status.</p>
<p>Our son took 13 credits his first semester and I think that was just right for the courses that he was taking (he took two junior level math courses). There’s a big adjustment in a variety of areas and taking fewer credits allows one to experience clubs, sports, jobs and department talks. I’m sure that there are kids that don’t run into adjustment issues where more credits are not a problem.</p>
<p>I don’t think that I’d go higher than 15 for the first though. That was the recommended number for our son but he had already taken several of the freshman fall courses coming in.</p>
<p>No more than 15 credits. BCEagle 91 is right. There’s a big adjustment to college – from roommates to expectations in the classroom to doing your laundry to finding some extracurriculars that you like. Once your daughter is comfortable with her surroundings, she might want to increase her load. But she needs to find her comfort zone in a new place.</p>
<p>15 is a good amount for first semester, freshman year. </p>
<p>My D had her schedule assigned to her and because of her honors program, she was given 18 1/2 credits - and that included calc. and 2nd semester chemistry. She had a very tough first semester with that course load and roommate issues. </p>
<p>Now S was assigned 15 credits at his original school (he had no choice in his courses, either). But there was one religion course that was WAY over his head. He decided to drop that one which left him with 12 because by the time he dropped it, it was too late to add another class. That was fine, but left him with too much free time and not much to fill it with.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone, for your input!</p>
<p>Back when I was a freshman I took 16 - four 3 credit courses and one 4 credit course. That was what most kids in my major (Accounting) took. I thought that was a reasonable load. After freshman year I always loaded up with more credits (between 18 and 21), but I wouldn’t have wanted to do that as a freshman before I got the lay of the land.</p>
<p>I noted the Honors course, therefore 15-18 credits sounds reasonable. Too few may see her bored and may mean more semesters to graduate. Students can drop classes further into the semester than adding them, she can go for the fullest load and drop the one she likes least/is doing worst in- but she can’t easily add a class missing the beginning. I advocate “going for it” and taking as many credits early on, by senior year you have the freedom to back off for work or research. It’s nice to get requirements out of the way. Top students are probably used to working hard and there shouldn’t be a problem with transitioning to a college workload, especially if she has AP credits. The number of courses may matter- 15 credits could mean 5 courses to keep track of whereas 17 could be 4. Don’t be afraid of doing too much- if she never had study halls in HS she will be better prepared for handling more than many students. I never liked the idea of “easing into” college- the courses freshmen take are ones they are capable of. It all depends on your goals- maxing out the system or being average. A social life can be had with 18 credits.</p>
<p>I took 21 first semester (but 5 were P/F) then 19, 20, 21, 21, and 27 (but only 24 were concurrent). Next semester I’m planning on taking 25, but my final semester I’m only planning on taking around 17 (to try to better able to negotiate around grad school interviews–assuming I get any). I don’t regret taking heavy course loads–I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of them–but it’s not something most would want to do.</p>
<p>Focusing on the number of credit hours is an erroneous standard to use because colleges use many different credit hour systems. I recommend that your daughter determine what the standard course load for frosh year is and make a determination from there. </p>
<p>Our son, a compsci/cogsci major took a standard first year course load but took an overloaded schedule thereafter to add two minors in philo and electronic arts and game simulation.</p>