Courses and Credits
Each of Bread Loaf’s campuses offers a different set of courses, and the curriculum takes advantage of the location of each campus.
Academic course descriptions for the coming summer are posted in the course catalog section of our website in the winter.
You can also download the complete course catalog or see catalogs from past summers.
Credits
Each Bread Loaf unit is equivalent to three semester hours or four-and-one-half quarter-hours of graduate credit. Classes at the Vermont campus are valued at one unit each; Oxford and California classes are valued at two units; and the remote Directed Research and Writing projects may be valued at either one unit or two units depending on the scope of work.
In order to be used for a Bread Loaf master’s degree, all credits must have been earned within 10 years of a student’s initial enrollment at Bread Loaf. MA candidates must earn a grade of B- or better, and MLitt candidates must earn a grade of B or better, in order to receive course credit. This is also true of credits transferred to Bread Loaf from other institutions.
Course Load
The normal course load is two units per summer (the equivalent of six semester-hours of graduate credit). To complete either degree in four years, students may request to transfer up to two graduate courses from other accredited institutions.
After the first summer, students with an outstanding academic record may request permission to take a third unit of credit as an overload at the Vermont or Oxford campus. Requests, explaining the reason for taking the overload, should be submitted in writing to the appropriate campus coordinator within a week of enrollment confirmation.
Students taking a full course load will receive priority for campus housing. Students taking one unit of credit and living on campus will be charged full tuition.