Brick and mortar students spend anywhere between 6 and 7.5 hours in school per day, as well as an average of 3 to 5 hours doing homework/studying per night. This adds up to anywhere between 45 and 62.5 hours per week just for school. This is more time than working a full-time job! But how does this number compare to iUniversity Prep students?

I surveyed iUniversity Prep students ranging from 5th grade to 12th grade to see how many hours per week they spend on their schoolwork. This number included the time spent in live lessons, doing lessons, assessments, and studying. Compared to brick and mortar students, the results were shocking! 

Thankfully, iUniversity Prep provides students with the opportunity to work on their own time and at their own pace, compared to the mandatory 7 hour-long school days for brick and mortar students. Because of this, iUniversity Prep students don’t have to sit in a classroom waiting for other students to finish their work and ask questions, eliminating a lot of the time spent doing schoolwork. Of the iUniversity Prep students surveyed, an average of only 24 hours was spent doing school per week. This means that our virtual students spend about half as much time doing schoolwork compared to brick and mortar students, providing them with the time and freedom to dedicate their time to other places in their life, such as sports, acting, singing, and more. 

What accounts for such a difference between how much time iUniversity Prep vs brick and mortar students are spending on schooling? Let’s take a look at a typical school day for a brick and mortar student:

• 5-10 minutes: commute to school
• 15-20 minutes: hang out before first period 
• 5 minutes: go to locker, put stuff away, walk to first period
• 40-80 minutes: first period
• 5 minutes: transition to next classroom
• 40-80 minutes: second period
• 5 minutes: put items away and go to lunchroom
• 30 minutes: lunch
• 5 minutes: put lunch away, gather school materials, go to next period
• 40-80 minutes: third period
• 40-80 minutes: fourth period 
• 5-10 minutes: go to locker and get backpack
• 5-10 minutes: commute home 
• 3-5 hours studying and/or doing homework

This list is quite an extensive list. How does this compare to a typical school day for an online student? iUniversity Prep students have 3-6 lessons assigned on their planner per day. Depending on the subject and the length of the lesson, they take about 15-90 minutes each. Then there are 1-3 live lessons per day, lasting 1 hour each. Students are not required to have a lunch period and can snack throughout the day. There is also no commute to and from school, nor to and from each classroom.

Overall, these little differences do add up and account for the large difference between how much time iUniversity Prep students vs brick and mortar students spend on school each week.