Hi everyone,
I was looking for some info on how much credit points are worth at US universities. I was awarded 24 credit points last year form an overseas institution, and that was meant to be based on US credit points system.
So firstly, is the credit system uniform for each university?
And secondly, how much time would you put in (hours, semesters) to receive 24 credits?
Thank you
Roger Explosion
Credits vary by university. Remember, just about anyone can set up a program and then award “credits” with impunity. So usually colleges are very very stringent about what they accept for credit. Do not be surprised if your credits do not transfer over. Students who do “semester abroad” programs, even ones that are set up by their schools, often do not actually earn transferable credits.
FWIW, at my school we do fifteen credits a quarter, and three quarters a year. So twenty four credits would be quite a bit.
I believe the credit system is uniform through the U.S. People at my school usually take between 12 and 14 credits a semester, with exceptions obviously. So that’s about one year of college credit that you have. Of course, those 24 credits don’t mean anything if the program at the university won’t take the credits or if they aren’t applicable to your college’s requirements.
Thanks for the replies.
I am currently trying to transef the credits over to my university, and they are being very, very difficult.
They want to give me 1 credit (we do 4 per semester), so I need some proof as to why they should give me more.
Cheers
-Roger Explosion
No, it is absolutely not. You will need to get in touch with the university in question so they can send a course description to your school. There is little standardization in curricula and credit numbers.
Credits are certainly not standard, but the following is very common: a credit represents one hour of lectures per week for 15 weeks or two hours of laboratory. The one hour of lecture is supposedly supplemented by two hours of work outside class, while the two hours of lab may be supplemented by an hour spent preparing lab reports. Of course, this is an expectation; the reality is that the time spent outside class may vary from almost nil to a lot more than two hours.
I once advised a student from France who showed me a very impressive syllable for an algebra course she took at Montpelier showing all the usual topics on the basis of which I advised her to take algebra II (which I happened to be teaching). Halfway through the term, she was in serious trouble and came to me to admit that the syllable she showed me was more a wish list than what she had actually done. She was also unfamiliar with the concept of homework and home study explaining that her course consisted of four lectures a week plus four hours of tutorial sessions from an assistant. And that is why college administrators look askance at foreign credits.
I hereby award the OP 20 credit points. That with one of the new $2 bills will buy Roger a cup of coffee in some locations.
It is quite non-uniform. One college I know of wanted to reduce the profs workload from 4 to 3 classes (12 credit hours) but the board of regents refused. So classes got “upped” in value. A 3 C.H. class became a 4 C.H. class. So profs only had to teach 3 classes. They also changed the number of credits needed for graduation, etc. to make things come out right.
What schools do in evaluating transfer credit hours is look at how many are needed to graduate vs the number of credits of the course and award credit in the same proportion to their system.
Schools also look at the course descriptions and requirements in order to assign the credits to classes which match up. I recall with some bitterness my attempt to transfer not only the hours but the course of “Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence” when I transfered colleges. My new college had Psychology of Childhood" and “Psychology of Adolescence” but my combined class earned me neither of them as an equivalent.
It seems we have a little confusion here. I have now taken courses at four colleges and/or universities. In general, SEMESTER credit hours are uniform; where as, courses are not. One credit hour seems to be one credit hour at most accredited schools, but how many credits are awarded for a particular course seems to vary. For example, at the school where I took Calc and Calc II, each of them was worth 4 hours. The school I am currently attending only has 3 hr Calc classes; however, at my first school there were only three calc classes where at my current school there are four. So it is still 12 hours of calculus. They awarded me eight hours of calculus when i transferred even thoug you cannot take eight hours of calc at there school. so the hours seem uniform but the classes don’t. usually, 6 hrs is considered a half-time student and 12-18 hrs is a full-time student (per semester). Most schools it is generally approximately 30 hrs per classification (freshman, sophomore, etc.). So 24 hrs would still classify you as a freshman if they all transferred.
I’m in Canada, but even here credits are not standardized. My SO and I go to two different universities, located about 40 minutes apart. At his school, a credit is approximately the number of course hours - a course that meets for 3 hours a week gets 3 credits. At my school, for some reason I cannot fathom, the same course would get assigned to it 0.5 credits. He takes approximately 36 credits a year, I need 20.50 to graduate. There’s no way to make sense of it.
Your best bet is to talk to the university you’re interested in to see what they are willing to give you. Provide as much information as you can - course outline, syllabus (if possible) and maybe even some coursework if you think that’s necessary to get recognition for a course you feel is equivalent to one they have.
Okay, this is just wrong. My school, for example, sets up study abroad programs and it is this school which grants the credit providing the student completes the coursework at the partner school’s program.
At my school, we have a “4x4” system, where it is expected/the norm to take four classes a semester, each consisting of four credits. At said by a previous poster, usually four credits translates to four hours of lecture. Lab classes (which is all I take, what with being an engineer and all) range from four to eight hours a week, yet still only have four credits, and still have a crap-ton of work outside of class, horrid system, IMO. We also have classes worth less credtis, to as low as one (although most one credit classes are as much work as a two or three, so they are the worst in terms of work to credit ratio.)
I would imagine that while the actual numbers vary considerably, looking at ratio of credit points per subject to total credit points required to graduate would give a fair indication as to the supposed depth of the course.
Absolutely not. Earlham College, when I was an undergraduate, had the “Earlham Credit”. All courses were either worth 1 “Earlham Credit” or less (for choir, physical education, etc.). If it was a freshman writing course, it was worth one credit. If it was a microbiology course that all members of the biology department agreed should not be taken with any other coursework if at all possible due to the expected 8+ hours per day in laboratory, it was worth one credit. One class, one credit, that was the Earlham way.
These “Earlham Credits” did not translate well into “Semester Hours” or “Quarter Units”, either.