IB credits at McGill

[CommeDesEnfants]

I had heard that IB students typically get 30 credits from McGill, thus pushing them into their U1/second year at the university. No, I am not talking about transfer credits. However, when I was looking at my unofficial transcript, it said that I only received 28. I called McGill, and somebody told me that "28 credits was already really good." Now, I know what you're thinking - "2 credits isn't that big of a deal." No, it really isn't, but it really could mean an extra course for me. Seeing as how my schedule's already looking to be quite jam-packed, I'll barely have time for this extra course over my next 3.5/4 years in Montreal. Anybody care to shed some light into this?

Also, can I use my English/History credits as elective credits towards the 120 credits that I need in total for my major on top of the 28 I already have?

[greaterthaninfinity]

I think you are fine. You might be getting only 28 credits because the McGill system for science credits is rather unorthodox. I believe they generally assign values of four to science credits? In any case, I'm pretty sure you can use your History and English credits because they are at higher level.

A general rule of thumb is that as long as you are taking five courses per semester, you should be fine as this is what is considered a "full courseload" at Canadian institutions.

[CommeDesEnfants]

Oh, really? I'm doing 4 courses this semester, but that's because there's a 17 credit limit for each semester. Since a lot of the 100-level freshman science courses are worth 4 credits instead of 3, I already have 15/16 credits for both semesters, so I can't fit anymore courses in. Hopefully they'll look at credits more than they do about the number of courses.