<p>I am curious to compare if different schools have different policies in terms of number of days they actually teach or conduct classes. In high school, I know that there is a state mandate in terms of minimum number of days schools have to teach. But it seems colleges don’t seem to have such a mandate. I see that some colleges have much longer winter/spring breaks than others. They still charge the enormous tuition fees but not do justice in providing enough instruction hours. </p>
<p>I am looking for this information for Undergraduate studies. I looked at the collegedata but that does not give this information.</p>
<p>If anyone has an idea on where i can find out this information for various institution, can you please share?</p>
<p>You could compute it yourself from the academic calendar (usually available on a college’s website), but I doubt that you will find these numbers in a central database. Nor is it easy to compute in a standardized way. Would you count optional non-credit-bearing winter sessions as days of instruction? Summer sessions? Exam periods? What if most classes are taught Monday-Thursday; does Friday count as a day of instruction then? What about colleges that teach classes on the weekend?</p>
<p>Thanks b@r!um for asking. I am doing exactly that by checking the published calendar. But I am wondering if there is a norm in terms of instruction days for most institutes and some of them really are at a lower end.</p>
<p>I personally would count weeks of instruction rather than days. I have been assuming that the norm is 15 weeks of instruction per semester or 10 weeks per quarter, but I am extrapolating from the colleges that I have been affiliated with.</p>
<p>That reminds me: I was enrolled concurrently at Bryn Mawr and the University of Pennsylvania for a few semesters. Their academic calendars were not always lined up but it struck me as odd that they always ended up with the same number of days of instruction. (For example, Penn’s fall semester usually started a week after Bryn Mawr’s; but Penn only gave their students an extended weekend fall break in contrast to Bryn Mawr’s full week, and their fall examination period started a few days later.)</p>
<p>I imagine there might be some variation but as a professor of several decades, having taught at several universities, been on many job interviews to campuses, and having colleagues and coauthors everywhere, I’ve never gotten a sense that there was noticeable variation (e.g. the number of hours per week is the same, as are the number of weeks per semester or quarter). </p>
<p>Maybe more useful would be to look at the number of required credit hours for a particular degree across schools. I don’t know if there is meaningful variation though. The only difference I really have noticed is US vs. Canada (e.g. US arts degree being typically 4 courses per 14 week semester for 4 years vs. Canadian arts degree being typically 5 courses per 13 week semester for 4 years). That is a very big difference!</p>
<p>It is interesting that some schools seem to have “breaks” often while others rarely. Some start mid-August, others mid-September. Some end in April, others in June. I can’t figure it out but I go with the belief that semesters are 15 weeks and quarters are 10 weeks which mean they are both 30 weeks of instruction if you don’t include the summer term which is generally optional. If you figure it all out please do share as I’m curious but not THAT curious!</p>
<p>I think there is a standard of how many hours of classroom instruction equate to each credit hour. D1 is a freshman at Rutgers and exams ended on Dec 23 (she was done Dec 21), however she had some friends who were home by Dec 9, although they had the same move-in date and the other friends had 2 day mid-semester breaks.</p>
<p>Most of the schools that I have been associated with either as a student or staff member were on the semester schedule with 45 contact hours for a 3 credit course. Lafayette uses a different system where students typically take 4 courses per term. Transfer credits are computed to be 4 semester hours are equivalent to one Laf credit. I am not sure how that would work if S wanted to take just one class at home this summer.</p>
<p>In my day our flagship had 16 weeks while the other state schools had 15, now they all have 15 weeks of instruction. Looking at the school’s academic calendar for a given semester they report the number of Tues/Thurs combined days and the number of Mon/Wed/Fri days as this is the traditional format for courses. There may be a day or so discrepency with holidays et al but they need to keep them equal so the day of the week a class meets doesn’t hurt it. Finals are after the class days counted. </p>
<p>Something to consider more is the credits given for a course. There’s a CC post I saw where the student wanted to transfer and saw how foreign language courses only counted towards that type of graduation requirement if they were 4 credits while his current U gave 3 credits for a similar course. Some calculus courses are 5 and others 4 credits. Likewise with some sciences. If you stay at the same school you should consider how many credits are required for graduation and how many credits you get for some courses, plus AP credits.</p>
<p>The time spent in class isn’t as important as the knowledge available in a course. An MIT math course for fewer credits may be far more valuable than Podunk college’s version, for example.</p>
Bryn Mawr has a credit system similar to Lafayette’s (regular courseload is 4 “units” per semester, 1 unit = 4 semester credit hours) and evaluates transfer credits by rounding up to the nearest half-unit. For example, a single 3-credit class gets transferred as one full unit, but two 3-credit classes only give 1.5 units. That works out fine because our transcripts don’t list transferred courses; only the total number of credits accepted for transfer. </p>
<p>I assume that that is not what Lafayette does though. Their transfer credit policy states that at most “three 3-credit classes” will be accepted for Lafayette credit, which seems to imply that they would accept them as full unit courses.</p>
<p>NJmom is right. Accredited schools have a number of minutes required per credit. I don’t know who regulates this but the state dictates it for our local CC. Most colleges building some cushion for snow days and emergencies. If you miss too many days in college, you will have to make it up some way.</p>