Frequently Asked Questions

You will be registered for four academic classes, each worth four credits. This is a standard course load every semester at Sewanee.

All entering first-year students will also be enrolled in a one-credit Embark class.

As noted, all entering students are expected to take one of the two required Physical Education courses in their first semester.

You should choose courses that you genuinely want to take! This starts with your area(s) of academic interest—your potential major or program of study—and the direct guidance on what course(s) to take. (You can see a list of all programs of study in the Catalog.) Our General Education curriculum is very flexible and you'll take courses that apply to Gen Ed by default: All Encounter courses apply to Gen Ed, as do all foundational courses for majors.* Thus there are no prescribed schedules or courses specifically for incoming students, though students who indicate on the Course Preference Form that they intend to pursue a Pre-Health or Pre-Engineering program will have courses pre-populated on their Course Preference Form that are appropriate for those areas (see the pre-professional program’s webpage for more information). (Students should not attempt to remove these pre-populated courses from their Course Preference Form!)

* Except PSYC 101 which is required for the major. Students wanting to take psychology—but not major in the field—can select other 100-level PSYC courses.

Sewanee has identified essential "ways of thinking" and intellectual skills that we want all our students to develop. We frame these expectations as our General Education Curriculum. Students are expected to complete these requirements by the end of their junior year. Nearly all courses available to incoming first-year students satisfy a requirement, and those few that do not may still be essential: For example, while 100-level language courses do not fulfill Gen Ed, they are essential as pre-requisites for the advanced language courses that do fulfill Gen Ed. All Encounter courses apply to Gen Ed, as do all foundational courses for majors*. Given the flexibility of the Gen Ed curriculum, students are encouraged to select courses regardless of whether they satisfy Gen Ed requirements; you will end up taking multiple Gen Ed courses by default.

* Except PSYC 101 which is required for the major. Students wanting to take psychology—but not major in the field—can select other 100-level PSYC courses.

No, not all incoming students will be enrolled in math and English classes in their first semester. Fall course selection will be based on each student’s interests and course availability.

See the information about our First Year Experience for particulars about Encounter and Embark.

• You've already indicated your preferences for your Encounter course—a 4-credit class that meets a Gen Ed requirement. Some Encounter courses may also be a foundational course for a major. In building your schedule, we will be mindful of your preferred area of study, and if you picked an Encounter course that supports it, you may well be placed in that Encounter course. In contrast, if you ranked highly an Encounter course that is not appropriate for your major, you will not be placed in that course. (For example, the Encounter courses CHEM 115 and PSYC 151 are not appropriate for the respective majors.)
• Your 1-credit Embark course will be the last one we add to your schedule. We will build your schedule of four academic courses first and then add Embark. All Embark sections are the same, and all incoming first-year students will take the course, so you will not be asked to include it on your Course Preference Form.
• Transfer students do not take Encounter or Embark courses.

Transfer students will fill out a slightly different form than incoming first-year students. Your transcript will be evaluated over the summer, after which time we will learn how your credits will be applied. Because you have probably completed some of your introductory-level coursework, you will be choosing from a potentially broader array of courses. You will fill out your form to indicate some primary interests, and if necessary, one of the Academic Guides will contact you individually to help you choose other courses that will most usefully supplement the others you have taken elsewhere.

Transfer students do not take Encounter or Embark courses.

The Catalog provides information about how the Registrar's Office at Sewanee receives and applies credit earned elsewhere.

Incoming first-year students

• Have official reports sent for any Advanced Placement (AP), Cambridge International A-Level, or International Baccalaureate Higher Level (IB) examinations, and/or transcripts for any Dual Enrollment credit. (Collectively, "pre-college" exams.) Be aware that students must earn high scores on assessment tests (e.g., marks of 4 or 5 on AP tests) for the credit to be accepted.
• When acceptable results are received, the Registrar will "bank" the credit: any such credit will be on file but not applied to the academic record. We do this because in some cases, students have encountered problems by having too much pre-college credit; in some other cases, students have had a particular credit applied, only to discover that they wished (or needed) to take the course at Sewanee. We thus advocate patience and deliberation: Once you are on campus and have met with your academic advisor, you can elect to have any pre-college credits taken out of the "bank" and applied to your academic record.
• Note that in building your schedule, we do consider any confirmed pre-Sewanee results in determining if you've met a pre-requisite for a course, so your schedule will not be negatively affected by this "banking" process.
• You can read more about understanding pre-college examination credit and dual enrollment credit here.

Transfer students

Send final transcripts to the Registrar for evaluation. The Registrar's evaluation will inform the schedule-building process. In completing their Course Preference Form, transfer students who will be bringing in 32+ credits will need to be attentive to the requirements for their preferred area of study, as such students will be encouraged to declare a major in a timely fashion.

In many cases, transfer credit exams or coursework are not scored until mid-July, leaving a question as to how you might select classes for the fall. First and foremost, make sure your scores will be sent to the Office of the Registrar as soon as they’ve been determined. We are still building schedules through the end of July, and often can apply your newly received test scores to the building of your schedule. 

We cannot enroll a student in any course with an (AP) attribute unless we have a passable AP/IB score on file in the Office of the Registrar. If your high score arrives in Sewanee after your courses have been chosen for you, you will have an opportunity to make appropriate adjustments to your schedule once you have met with your academic advisor during Orientation. 

The Course Program of Study (CPoS) is a U.S. Department of Education regulation that requires that the student be enrolled in an eligible degree-seeking program to receive state or federal financial aid (grants, loans, work-study compensation, etc.). If you have state or federal financial aid, you are affected. This page addresses your CPoS questions.

To help students avoid running into financial aid restrictions for finishing all requirements sooner than expected, we "bank" pre-Sewanee work (like credit for AP tests or dual enrollment credit) and have students apply them over time, not all at once, in order to control how they move through college.

International students are still required to complete a foreign language requirement, but this requirement cannot be in their native language. For example, if you are native Chinese speaker, you cannot meet your language requirement by taking Chinese courses. Instead, you can fulfill this requirement in one of two ways. The first is by studying a language other than your native language. The second is by petitioning to have English 101 fulfill the foreign language requirement, a process that you will undertake upon arrival. If you are an international student hailing from a country where English is not the first language and hope to satisfy your foreign language requirement by taking English 101, please make note of this in the comment section of your Course Preference Form checklist item.

Yes, international students should continue to be in contact with the International Enrollment Advisor and the Office of Global Citizenship. That office has compiled information for incoming international students (see link below).

Sewanee has multiple pre-professional programs, but only a few have prescribed courses for first-semester students.

• Students who select that they are pursuing a Pre-Health or Pre-Engineering program will have courses pre-populated on their Course Preference Form that are appropriate for those areas (see the pre-professional program’s webpage for more information). These courses should not be removed from the list on the Course Preference Form!
• Students interested in the Pre-Law program are encouraged to take at least one course in English, History, or Politics in the first semester, but because there is no set Pre-Law curriculum, entering students do not need to lock into a specific plan immediately.
• Students interested in Business may minor in that discipline; they are encouraged to take ECON 120 in the first year of study. Entering students may also apply for the Carey Fellows program in Business.
• Sewanee supports students who wish to go into teaching, but there is no set curriculum and entering students should pursue a wide range of courses of interest.

Students are placed into the appropriate level for Chemistry and/or Calculus by faculty in those departments based on their review of your academic information. Because of that, you'll see "CHEM 121/151 by placement" and "MATH 101/102/207 by placement" on the list of available courses. So you don't pick the level, just the discipline.

(In exceptional cases the Mathematics faculty may recommend placement in a course above MATH 207; if you are interested, please note in the comments section of your form.)

All of these classes are less than four credits, and students can enroll in any of these courses once they arrive on campus and have met with their academic advisor. The courses you are selecting on your Course Selection Form are only full-credit (4 credit) courses.

Students should plan to take one of the two required Physical Education courses in their first semester.

We will only use your Sewanee email address, and we will not be sending email to non-Sewanee addresses from this point forward. Please check your Sewanee email regularly after you submit your form. If you will not have regular internet access, tell one of the Guides how you may be reached if they have a question about your responses. We may need to reach you to clarify your preferences or resolve a conflict in your schedule.

You will have a chance to meet with your academic advisor and discuss any changes you wish to make to your schedule during Orientation. All incoming students will be assigned an academic advisor and you will receive an email by mid-August announcing who your academic advisor will be.