New LSA Freshman taking 16 credits - too much?

My son is taking 16 credits as a incoming freshman. Is this workload manageable? How much homework can he expect? He’s taking FY writing, basic Calc, a humanities and a social science class. Feedback appreciated!

My son took 18 first semester, 17 second semester with working 10 hours or so a week and starting a club that involved his time. Personally I thinks it’s doable. He can always drop a class before the deadline if it’s too much.

What does his counselor think?

So, that’s only four classes. Are they four credits each? He’s attending full time? I can’t see how that would be too much. Not implying the classes will be easy, but it would be atypical for a full-time student to take fewer than four full-semester classes.

I’m assuming he met with his advisor and they planned the course load together? Four classes seems typical. A student needs 120 units to graduate, which is 8 semesters averaging 15 units per semester.

Yes, he’s taking 4 classes at 4 credits each. He’s at the high end of the recommended load (14-16 credits, according to his advisor) but as an incoming freshman I think it’s better to take it easy a bit, and have a balanced schedule while getting adjusted. I would assume 4 classes to be the norm as well, and an additional credit or 2 won’t add too much more work. We’re just novices at this so hoping to get some insight and level set expectations.

There’s no—or Infinitesimal— difference between four classes totaling 15 credits and four classes totaling 16 credits. A “credit” just means the number of hours it meets per week, not necessarily the work load. It’s an old designation that seems to have stuck throughout the years. Indeed, I would argue that five classes at three credits each, for a total of 15 credits, is a much bigger load than the 16-credit load he has.

Is he a first-generation student?

If you’re concerned about the course load, then I’d counsel him about being judicious with his choices amongst the other college activities, such as attending sporting events and joining frats and the 1,000+ clubs available, which I think takes place after the 1st two weeks (or so) of the Fall semester.

Those other non-academic activities do “burn” a student’s time at college. But OTOH, those activities can bring “richness” to a student’s college experience too.

As stated… Have him try it out. If it’s too much he can always drop the class before the drop date and it won’t affect his grades etc at all. This way he will know what to expect. Also if he’s good at any of those classes in high school it might not be to bad as some of it will be a review. Math at Michigan tends to be hard… That is the one I would put extra time into.

Monday 9/24 is the last day to drop without a “W” on your transcript. Parents are/were told at orientation that professors tend to lighten up during these 1st three weeks of September, because they know students are dropping, adding and swapping classes. So I don’t know if the “try it out” approach is the best approach.

Also, FYI, the UM tuition is exactly the same amount whether a student takes 12 units up to 18 units.

@sushiritto… It’s funny you said this. My advice came from my son, going into his sophomore year. Most classes are light in the beginning of the semester but if he was having problems with that workload then that would be a clear signal… One of the reasons my son wanted to take the amount of credits was since it didn’t cost anymore then might as well get value for your money. ;). His counselor told him to try it out and drop a class if it gets to much. He is in engineering. One semester he had physics and Chem… Each with a lab plus calc and a sociology course first semester. I thought it was too much but he did fine. Now he is actually scheduled to graduate early due to some courses he took this summer.

Hey I’m just sitting in the cheap seats here and being an armchair QB to borrow a couple cliches. But the OP’s son is taking Calc 1, FY writing, humanities and a social science class. That’s a pretty basic or standard freshman LSA schedule from what I understand.

Even with 4 classes and labs, a student should still have plenty of down time. I could be totally wrong, but if you’re dropping down to 3 LSA classes, then to me, that’s not a good signal.

Your son is in Engineering, Computers, Engineering, Calc, Physics, Chem, etc. Those classes I think deserve a more “try it out” approach.

The OP’s son was admitted to UMich, so he’s a darn good student.

It all depends on what your son wants to study. My personal advice to incoming freshman with very high aspirations is to ignore your first year counselors! Their advice is too often NOT tailored to the specific student they are meeting with, as it should be.

I know it sounds crazy… but I entered the University of Michigan as a pre-med student with a specific NS major and minor in mind… a very heavy course load. Just like all of them, my freshman year counselor told me that I should take 14 or 15 credits my first semester and take classes that truly “interest me,” no matter what they were. It all sounded great at the time, but this turned out to be the stupidest advice I’ve ever received, and it will be costing me an entire year of work. I wanted to take 17 credits at first, but my counselor convinced me that this would be way too much to handle. She kept pushing me to replace my difficult intro pre-med classes with unrelated classes that interested me. I ended up taking 14 credits of classes that “interested me”.

At the end of my first semester, I mapped out every single class I needed to graduate. It turned out that only ONE class my counselor suggested I sign up for was going to count towards any of my distributions, major, minor, or pre-med requirements. My counselor essentially expected that I’d change my mind from wanting to be pre-med and take on a different major with a lighter course load.

I have taken 5 consecutive semesters of 18 credits to compensate for this useless semester in order to graduate on time with the academic plans I’ve never changed, and I’m signed up for 17 and 15 credits respectively my senior year. I also have been forced to take a gap year between graduating and medical school because, even with all those 18 credit semesters, I couldn’t catch up to where I needed to be to apply on time. There are soooo many science pre-reqs.

I feel the need to post this every time I see potential incoming pre-meds bring up counselors… map out all your classes right now! Use the “What-Ifs” scenario tool on Wolverineaccess! It sucks, but pre-meds with heavy majors (specifically physics and chemistry) should be taking 18 credits of core pre-reqs right off the bat.

I just don’t see how the schedule could be any easier. If your son is worried about it, don’t feed the machine. Tell him OF COURSE he can handle it! This is not considered a tough schedule. He’s a great student, evidenced by the fact that he was admitted to University of Michigan. It would be very out of the norm to register for only three classes. He doesn’t need to take less than a typical schedule to get adjusted. He should stick with the norm because he CAN do it and because you don’t want him thinking that he’s so different from everyone else that he has to take an abbreviated schedule.

@LICSW