We have taken our son on several college visits and one of the schools he likes is on the quarter system. I am concered that the material might come too fast and furious for him to adjust to after high school. Any impressions on the two calendars you can share?
A year long course (e.g. single variable calculus) can be divided into two 15-week semesters or three 10-week quarters.
However, some courses may be faster or slower paced. For example, a semester school may have a 4 credit semester long course; a quarter school’s equivalent may be a 5-6 credit one quarter course, or a two quarter sequence of 3 credits each (1 semester credit = 1.5 quarter credit).
At most quarter schools, the academic year is shifted later, often beginning in late September instead of early September or late August, but ending in late June instead of early June or late May. A few may start and end with the semester schools, but the winter quarter is split by the winter break. If the student is an athlete, the semester versus quarter difference may affect how much of the academic year overlaps with the sport season (e.g. football players would have football season overlapping with half of the academic year at a semester school, but only a third of the academic year at a quarter school).
At a quarter school, the summer session is a normal length 10-week quarter, while at a semester school, a summer session is usually an 8-week double-speed term (students take half as many courses/credits as during a normal 15-week semester).
My son goes to a quarter school and likes it better than the semester system he did in high school.
In general it does not affect the pace of most classes. My school (Virginia Tech) switch systems while I was there and for classes that were based on “take a year of _______” it just broke it up a little more. As junior/senior it did force you to pick elective a little more carefully because there were simply less of them in the schedule under the semester system.
On the flip side, the schedule was great. We started early and were done with the first qtr at Thanksgiving and had a week break, That was way better than coming back from Christmas break and diving straight into exams under the semester system. An interesting piece of trivia is that the week break at Thanksgiving remains in the academic calendar at VT to this day (25 years later) - it was initially kept to placate the students/staff as part of the transition but they never pared it back to the 2-3 day break most schools have.
It’s fast but you can take more courses.