Credits

[MedStudentWanna]

Why is 12 credits considered a light load? I thought it was 12 to 15 credits each semester to graduate in four years, depending on whether or not you want to take summer classes, so why do some pre-meds on here think 12 credits is a light load and not a full time load? I know in med school it'll be more work, but really 12-15 credits is considered full time study at most universities so why is it necessary to take 21 credits a semester to prove something?

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[Wickedgood]

At my university, the most credit hours you can take in one semester is 19. This is for the college of liberal arts and sciences - I think fine arts students can take more. If it is necessary to do 21+ hours then I'm SOL... however my university has a fairly good history of students matriculating to medical school, therefore I'd be inclined to say this is a myth.

 

[Punkn]

Every school is different in regards to credits. At a lot of colleges, 12-15 hours/semester is considered full time. I don't think anyone is saying that 12 hours isn't full time status, it's just that it's a lighter load than most people take. For example, at my school, the average course load per semester is 16 hours. So, if someone is only taking 12 hours, they're taking at least 1 class fewer than the average student.
I think some people feel that if they take 20+ credits during a semester (and doing reasonably well), they're showing adcoms that they can handle a heavy workload. Who knows if adcoms actually care, though.

 

[DrBowtie]

At my school, 12 is light, 15 is norm, 18+ heavy.
Just depends on the school.

 

[Compass]

Look at it this way.

Assume each of your credits requires 3 hours of studying a week.

So that means, you take 12 credits, + 36 hours of studying. That's 48 hours a week of work.

Now let's take 15 credits, + 45 hours of studying. That's 60 hours of work. You're working half a day more by taking 3 extra credits.

With 18, 54 hours of studying. That's a whopping 72 hours of work a week.

A week has 168 hours.

Let's say you sleep 8 hours a day (hah, as if). That's 56 hours, so in reality, we have 112 hours to work with. Assume travel time to and from classes, and doing regular stuff like dressing, bathroom, etc. That's an half an hour a day for guys. 4 hours rounded. We now have 108 hours. We have to eat, too, so that's about 2 hours a day if you have long meals. 14 away. 94 hours. So that means that if you're taking 12 credits, you have about 50 free hours. 15, you have about 38. 18, you have about 24. This is an example, not a schedule, but the more free time you have, the less pressing your schoolwork is, and it also gives less information about how well you balance your time. If you can pull 18 credits and get good grades, that may look better than a person with 12 credits getting all As, as you're putting more time out of your week to work, and you have less spare time to work with if you need to study something more, for example.

 

[spospo]

Why is 12 credits considered a light load? I thought it was 12 to 15 credits each semester to graduate in four years, depending on whether or not you want to take summer classes, so why do some pre-meds on here think 12 credits is a light load and not a full time load? I know in med school it'll be more work, but really 12-15 credits is considered full time study at most universities so why is it necessary to take 21 credits a semester to prove something?

well at my school you have to average 15 to graduate in 4 years w/o summer school. anything under 12 you will lose your scholarship. i think the average is 16. last time i took only 15 credits was first semester freshman year (not because i am trying to prove myself, just because that is how the classes worked out for me), so it will be weird for me to only take 12 this semester. i guess i'll get more sleep

 

[PreMedMommy]

My average semester is 15-18 hours. At my university, if you take any more than 19 hours, you must have special permission from the dean of the dept. However, since I am a science major of some sort (physics), most of my classes are 4 to 5 credits, so in reality, I'm taking the same amount of classes as my non-science counterparts, granted science can be a little more involved than, say, an education course (depending on where your talents lie).