<p>I'm applying to Stanford and one of the categories asks you to list what courses you are currently taking.</p>
<p>My high school runs on a "non-semestered" system, meaning that we take 8 courses simultaneously that run throughout the entire year. We have three official reporting periods. One in November, another in April and the final one in July after we've completed our final exams.</p>
<p>The application provides four choices of high school schedule:</p>
<p>1) Semester (Clearly not)
2) Trimester (Possible? But our courses are not broken into three terms, although the updated grade reports are; they're continuous)
3) Quarter (Clearly not)
4) Block (Yes?)</p>
<p>But then again, "Block scheduling is a restructuring of the school day into classes much longer than the traditional 50-minute period. In one common form, students have four long class periods per day instead of seven or eight. A course that normally covered the entire school year could then be compressed into an intense half-year course."</p>
<p>Another site describes it as "Six classes a day, five days a week, every day the same schedule," but I'd like to confirm whether my schedule truly is a variation on the block scheduling system.</p>
<p>We have 61-minute periods for each of our 8 classes; each class meets 3 times during a cycle (5 days). So I'm not sure if that's considered some form of block scheduling, although we do refer to it as block scheduling at my school.</p>
<p>I notice you are in Canada. Your schedule, as you have noticed, doesn't quite fit the categories given, is there a categoryfor "Other", guess not, if you are asking here. I think that you are closer to a "trimester". although an argument could be made that your schedule is a type of block, because you don't take the same classes every day. The real question to me is why are they asking this question on the application, what is it about the high school's scheduling that they need to know.
I suspect it may be to get an understanding of gaps in a student's course scheduling. For example, "block scheduling" here means that students take 4 courses in the first semester and 4 different courses in the second semester. This can mean they have long gaps in math or foreign language for example, or difficulty scheduling a class they want to take because it is only taught once a year. ECs that require a class here - like band or chorus, or even weight room if you play football - can cause havoc on the block schedule, students may have to drop in and out of ECs, because of scheduling problems. I think the adcoms may have become savvy to this, and are giving kids opportunities to explain what they have done with the available resources.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best advice I can give is just call Stanford, ask to speak to an admissions counselor (perhaps the international one) explain your schedule, and ask which box to check.</p>
<p>Are individual grade reports factored into your gpa? If so, I would guess trimester since your course runs throughout the year.</p>
<p>For purposes of college apps, Block scheduling is when a full year course is compressed into a semester, so a student takes only ~3 academic courses each semester, but for ~90 minutes each class each day; and finishes with 6 for year. It appears that your program is what we call a "modified" block. i.e., longer classes on alternating days. For college app purposes, modified block should not be checked off as Block since your classes run all year. </p>
<p>Adcoms are just trying to understand your senior schedule in the context of your academic calendar. Under a true block schedule, taking only three classes each semester would appear at first to be a slacker schedule! But, once the Block is checked, the adcom knows that it's a traditional 36 week course compressed into 18.</p>