American University of Beirut

The freshman program requires the completion of 30 credits, regardless of the student’s target major. Out of these 30 credits, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education requires that:

​In addition, the university requires that 3 credits are taken as ENGL 203. If students are placed in ENGL 102, it may be considered an elective. These students are still required to take ENGL 203 after ENGL 102 to complete their freshman year requirements. Students who take ENGL 203 in their freshman year should take any 3-credit course at the 200-level in place of ENGL 203 to meet the degree requirements for their target major.

Finally, specific departments may have additional transfer requirements depending on the student’s target major of study. These requirements are listed in Table 1 for majors at FAS and in Table 2 for majors in other faculties. A checklist for each major is provided on the website of the freshman program to assist students in meeting the ministry requirements, university requirements, and departmental transfer requirements.

Freshman students must complete all the 30 freshman credits before they can enroll in courses that count towards their sophomore class. Exceptionally, students who have completed at least 26 freshman credits and have at most 4 freshman credits remaining may enroll in courses that count towards their sophomore class for a single term only, typically their third regular term. They will only receive credit for the sophomore courses if they pass the remaining freshman credits. They may not take courses that count towards their sophomore class in a following term until they have completed the 30 freshman credits entirely and applied for the freshman equivalence. Students must also satisfy the requirements listed under the Office of Admissions section of this catalogue and the undergraduate General University Academic Information section of the catalogue in order for their freshman year to be granted the equivalency of the Lebanese Baccalaureate Part II.

Each freshman student is assigned an adviser who mentors the student in course selection. Students work with their advisers until they have completed their freshman requirements and submitted their freshman equivalence regardless of whether they have been admitted to a major.

Students in the freshman year who are not on probation at the time of application may join a major upon completing at least 26 credits and meeting the major’s transfer requirements.

Freshman students who wish to join a major within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences must meet the departmental requirements shown in Table 1. To join a major, students must submit a “Change of Major” petition to the FAS Undergraduate Admission Committee, provided that they meet the requirements for admission to the major. At FAS, late freshman students are considered freshman students for the purpose of transfer up to the end of their third regular term or up to the end of their fourth regular term if they have only completed at most 45 credits.

Freshman students who wish to transfer to a major in another faculty must meet the faculty requirements shown in Table 2.

Freshman students who do not successfully join a major are redesignated as FAS majorless students after they complete at least 30 credits and at least 4 regular terms.

Freshman students must take all their credits as 100-level courses except for ENGL 203. Some of these courses are listed below, arranged according to the areas of study.

Humanities: AHIS 150, ARAB 101, ARAB 102, AROL 101, CHLA 110, CHLA 111, CHLA 112, ENGL 101, ENGL 103, ENGL 104, ENGL 105, ENGL 106, ENGL 107, ENGL 108, HIST 101, HIST 102, HIST 103, HIST 104, MCOM 101, MUSC 150, PHIL 101, PHIL 102, SART 150, SOAN 103, THTR 100, AGSC 105 (from the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences), LDEM 107 and LDEM 108 (from the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture).

Social sciences: ECON 101, ECON 102, PSPA 101, SOAN 101, PSYC 101.

Mathematics: MATH 100, MATH 101, MATH 101I, MATH 102.

Natural sciences: BIOL 101, BIOL 102, BIOL 104, BIOL 105, BIOL 106, CHEM 101, CHEM 101L, CHEM 102, CHEM 102L, GEOL 101, GEOL 102, GEOL 103, GEOL 104, PHYS 101, PHYS 101L, PHYS 103, PHYS 103L, and ENHL 105 from the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Electives: Any of the courses listed above may be counted as elective courses. In addition, some additional freshman courses that do not fall into any of the above categories and that may be counted as elective courses include: BUSS 101, CMPS 101, ENGL 102.

Math Placement

By default, freshman students are placed in the appropriate math course based on their Math SAT score as follows:

The Math Placement Test (MPT) is an optional test for students who wish to improve their initial placement. If students opt to take the MPT, they will be placed according to their result in the test as follows:

​Students placed in MATH 101 still have the option to take Math 100 or Math 101 Intensive if they choose to do so. Some target majors may only require MATH 100.

Freshman students can receive equivalence to up to 15 credits of AP courses, provided they have a grade of 4 or 5 in these courses. The list of AP subjects and equivalent freshman courses at AUB is shown in Table 3.