<p>Hello, I am a freshmen at GWU. The school requires you to take 200 credits over the course of four years. Due to time constraints and problems, I am only taking 13 credits (4 courses) first semester. I plan on taking at least 16 next semester. I also already have close to 20 credits from AP credit and college courses. If I want to transfer to somewhere like a Georgetown, Michigan, etc., how much will only taking 13 credits first semester hurt?</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t really think it’s going to hurt you much at all (if any) as long as you’re taking challenging courses. You can only take as many credit hours as you can take. If time conflicts prevent you from taking more than 13 credit hours (odd, but not far fetched), then it’s not like you could magically be in multiple places at once.</p>
<p>If you really feel it’s an issue, you could just explain it (briefly, I might add; avoid over-emphasizing it as it’s a small issue at most) in your application. </p>
<p>It does, however, seem plausible that the admissions committees would expect a higher GPA from you this semester because of this, so it’d probably be worth the extra effort of shooting for that elusive 4.0 this semester. (Well, you should shoot for it every semester! Actually getting it when taking fewer than average credit hours probably matters a bit more than if you’re taking the average or more than average number of hours.)</p>