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I am filling in a form for graduate research at a US university. They have this question in the previous college attended part of the application form: How many hours did you take at the institution?

What does this question mean? How many hours I have spent in college, or how many hours I have been in college classes to earn a bachelor's degree?

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    This can mean a lot of things, I would suggest asking the research program in question directly.
    – Dirk
    Commented Oct 3, 2019 at 6:13
  • Ask the people who set the question. Not random folks on the internet!
    – user2705196
    Commented Oct 3, 2019 at 10:48
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    If you state what system you've taken your credits in, you might get a better answer than the very generic one I gave, some sort of suggestion for how to convert. Otherwise, you can ask the program that you are applying to - they may or may not have some familiarity with your system, depending on how common applicants are from where you are. They might be simply trying to determine whether you have a 4-yr or 3-yr degree. (I guess in all this I am presuming you do not have undergraduate education at a US institution)
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Oct 4, 2019 at 2:02
  • What distinction is there between your two options anyway?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 4, 2019 at 19:14

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In the US, university education is quantified as "credits" typically expressed as "credit hours" referring to 1 hour per week of instruction for a semester (so about 15-16 hours of face time). A course meeting 3X weekly would be worth 3 credit hours and is usually expected to involve an additional 6 hours weekly of work outside class. A 4 year bachelor's degree is about 120 credit hours.

I'd interpret this the same as asking for how many credits you took with that institution, expressed in an appropriate conversion to credit hours.

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  • I have attended 20 hours in a week, does it mean my credit hours are 20*4=80 hours in one semester?
    – lsr729
    Commented Oct 3, 2019 at 12:16
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    @lsr729 No. The US system is credit hours per week so you might have had the equivalent of 20 credit hours. The US also has classes like laboratories that only count for 1 credit hour but meet for 2 or 3 hours a week. However, Semesters and quarters in the US are longer than 4 weeks so there's no easy equivalent.
    – mkennedy
    Commented Oct 3, 2019 at 19:33

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