AP Credits at Northeastern: Scheduling

PengsPhils
Sat, 11 Apr 2020 02:17:44 +0000

So this is basically a two part question:

1. How many semesters of classes will I need to graduate based on my AP credit?

Regardless of how you decide to structure your semesters, the price will be the same. So the question of price comes down fully to question 1.

To answer that simply look at the incoming credit you have and what requirements those will fill to confirm they are used. Generally, ignoring labs, each class is 4 credits. A semester is 16 credits. A summer is a half a semester in cost and credit, so 8 credits.

Once you have the number of classes you have credit for, every 16 credits is a semester less needed, and every 8 is a half semester less. For total cost over your time at Northeastern, take that number and multiply by the COA/2 for the cost of a semester and you’ll have a pretty accurate number.

So for example, I personally came in with 22 credits (2 of those credits were lab credits, so effectively it was 5 courses), which allowed me to graduate in 7 semesters. If I had 26 (6 classes), I could have done 6.5 semesters. Once you have that number of semesters, then you can get your price and figure out the rest without worrying about it generally.

2. What attendance pattern do I want? (How many co-op’s, total time, number of summers, etc)

Now personally how I could* have structured that was basically up to me from there so long as I completed the needed number of semesters, didn’t go on co-op until at least my fourth semester, and didn’t end on a co-op.

In my experience, there are basically a few routes you can choose if you have enough AP credit:

Do a 4 year pattern with 2 co-op's without having to do as many summers

Do a 5 year pattern with 3 co-op's and eliminate all summers

Do a 4.5 year pattern with 3 co-op's, doing some summers

There are a lot of possibilities, there are just three common ones.

If you really get into the weeds of picking a pattern there are a few details to be aware of, but these don’t need to be decided on now. For example, you’ll need to make sure to do the Spring co-op cycle in order to do the 4.5 year pattern with 3 co-op’s.

Do you have anything specific in mind? What’s the goal? If it’s to save money, again, the costs will basically be the same no matter how you slice it.

*I’ll leave off the details of my specific pattern as a footnote since I did a combined BS/MS and that will only add confusion. If you’re curious, I did 5 years and 2 co-op’s for 9 semesters of classes for what should be 10 semesters thanks to AP credit.