is 18 credit hours too much for a freshman

ucbalumnus
Tue, 28 Jun 2016 23:06:25 +0000

Erin's Dad:

For most schools that’s a very high load and potentially a killer. Is the normal full time load 12 hours? You should start there.

Normal full time load is 15-16 credits, if one wants to finish in 8 semesters (which usually requires 120-128 credits).

The minimum full time load for financial aid eligibility as a full time student is 12 credits, but 12 credits per semester will require 10 semesters to graduate.

18 credits as a first time college student is somewhat risky in that a first time college student may not know beforehand what college work is like.

1 credit is supposed to correspond to 3 hours of work per week, including in-class and out-of-class time. So 12 credits = 36 hours per week, 15 credits = 45 hours per week, 18 hours = 54 hours per week. But actual workloads are probably lower on average, though not so for all courses (lab, art studio, and music performance can be more; foreign language can also be high workload).