Thank you ProudMom7 for the clarifications.
The course catalog shows 19.25 and 18.25 credit hours for the fall and spring semester respectively; that seems to be a lot a hours. Looking at DS's schedule closely, he's only got 16 credit hour for the fall semester, that seems normal for a freshman college kid, but a few hours less than what the catalog shows. Any insights from anyone?
Most cadets do end up with 18-20 credits each semester. Perhaps your son DID place out of a core course, and instead of replacing it with the next course in the sequence, he has decided to take one less class this first semester. I don't think my daughter has had less than 18 credits any semester so far (she's starting 2/c year). If you want to share his schedule (feel free to PM instead of posting), I can compare to what I know most 4/c take and can compare to what my daughter took.