HELP - Confused about converting credits to quarter and semester hours

[Kimm in WA]

My son is applying to a college in the East. His community college classes in WA have, typically, been 5 credits. That translates to 1 year of high school. Is this the same as 1 quarter hour? Does 1 quarter hour mean 1 year and, therefore, one 5 credit class would be 1 quarter hour?

 

Thanks for any help - I'm confused!

Kimm in WA

[Lori D.]

Before trying to figure out credit/hour equivalencies, I would first ask: Has he done those WA community college (WA CC) classes as dual credit? If so, then he will have a WA CC transcript in addition to your homeschool high school transcript. It would be a good idea to find out in advance (i.e., NOW) from the specific East Coast college which WA CC courses will transfer and count directly as college credit and which won't. (That will help you figure out how to do your highschool transcript.)

 

The next step is to find out directly from the East Coast college their specific conversion table of how they count hours when converting from a semester-based to a quarter-based credit system.

 

Very loosely (and it varies from school to school, so you really need the specific school's conversion method), to convert semester hours to quarter hours:

semester hours x 1.5 = quarter hours

 

To convert quarter hours to semester hours:

quarter hours/1.5 = semester hours

 

Check out this article from the Diploma Guide website. For example, I just googled and came up with this conversion table for Trinity College in Deerfield IL so you can see an example of what to look for from your specific East Coast college.

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Lori D.