<p>What is sophmore/junior standing?
How does one achieve this?
Please be as detailed as possible, thanks.</p>
<p>People use the word standing to define how many credits they have taken towards a degree.</p>
<p>Because schools typically only require a certain number of credit hours to graduate, rather than years, and because people will vary in the number of hours they take, this concept is used.</p>
<p>Most schools/majors that I know of require between 120-130 semester credit hours as the minimum to graduate. Within that amount of time you are supposed to complete all your general ed requirements and those of your majors and minors. </p>
<p>So for example, when I entered into undergrad in the fall of 2001, I had 15 hours of various college credit, so I basically had the standing of a 2nd Semester Freshman, because credit wise I was a semester ahead of someone who started with no credit. By the time I finished my first semester I had 30 hours, and was - again, credit hour wise - equal to a 1st semester sophomore, even though I was only in the second semester of my first year. </p>
<p>So basically that's standing. At my school the breaking points were as follows:</p>
<p>0-26 = frosh
27-52 = soph
53-88 = junior
89+ = senior</p>
<p>Class standing at most places is really only important in two things: Signing up for classes as enrollment opens first for seniors and last for freshmen - meaning, that if you are ahead of others in your year, it makes getting into classes you want easier; and the other thing is being eligible to take certain classes. Some classes are reserved for those with junior standing or higher, or are off limits to only freshmen. Likewise, there are some courses that are ONLY available to freshmen.</p>
<p>I suppose it might play a role in housing too, but I never had to worry about that...</p>
<p>Was that in enough detail?</p>
<p>Basically what bigredmed said. Except check with your school on how many credits you need to move up a standing... at my school, it's:
0-30 = frosh
31-60 = soph
61-90 = jr
91+ = sr</p>
<p>So each school has their own thing for how many each class is. It's most likely listed in your school's bulletin, which is the list of classes offered and most likely lists of requirements for each major and some general academic rules.</p>
<p>It also matters for such things as football tickets</p>
<p>So if a high school senior comes into college with 60+ credits (from AP's and Community college credit), then that person would a "junior" in terms of credit and only have to take about 2 more years worth of credit, thus graduating two years early?</p>
<p>that person would be a junior, if and only if, the college takes all those 60+credits in and if they count towards the general ed or major requirement.</p>
<p>"only have to take about 2 more years worth of credit, thus graduating two years early?"</p>
<p>Not exactly. For most majors your APs and community college courses will only fill general ed requirements and intro level courses. I came into college with like over 50 credits but A) not all of them count and B) you are really discouraged from skipping any courses that provide foundation for your major. </p>
<p>It will get you ahead, but because of the way colleges schedule courses, they make it difficult to take courses out of sequence... or at least in my school and my major... and my friends schools and their majors. It seems pretty common to offer upper level courses only in the fall or spring, and only offer limited sections of them(ie it's very likely that you'll have course times that overlap and you won't be able to take both if you're trying to take them out of order)</p>
<p>Standing helps in getting nicer dorms, better courses, and being just better situated for nearly everything that is competitive administratively.</p>