Each ASU semester is divided into two 7.5-week terms called session A and session B, with a full-length 15-week session C running alongside them for courses that need the whole semester. In fall and spring that gives ASU Online students four short entry points, session A around August and January and session B around October and March, plus summer starts, which is why ASU advertises six ways into the year. Online nursing courses commonly run one class at a time through these 7.5-week sessions, so your timeline is class count times 7.5 weeks, chained A into B across the year. Tuition is charged by session, which is why your bill lists A and B separately, and the compression is the whole design: momentum in exchange for a clock that forgives no lost week.
What session A and session B actually are
A semester at ASU holds two half-length sessions. Session A opens the semester and runs about 7.5 weeks, session B picks up where A ends and runs the second 7.5 weeks, and together they span the same calendar a traditional 15-week term would. Each 7.5-week session is a complete course start to finish, not half a course, so a class you take in session A is fully graded and closed before session B begins. Summer compresses these into shorter sittings. The format hands you a real gift, a full course banked every couple of months even at a gentle one-class rhythm, and a real tax, since each week is roughly an eighth of the grade and a collapsed week is a large fraction to recover.
The full-term C session, and why it exists
Alongside A and B sits session C, the traditional 15-week term that spans the whole semester. Some courses, particularly ones with sustained projects or clinical components, are scheduled in C because they genuinely need the runway. For most ASU Online nursing coursework you will live in the 7.5-week A and B rhythm, but it helps to recognize C on a schedule so you are not surprised when one course runs on a different clock than the rest. Reading the session letter on each course is the small literacy that keeps a term map honest.
The six start dates and the entry rhythm
Because every semester carries two sessions, ASU Online publishes six start points across fall, spring, and summer. In practice that means the next door into a program is usually a matter of weeks rather than months, which is the flexibility working nurses enroll for. The exact dates are dynamically dated and published on ASU's official academic calendar each year, so book from the calendar rather than from memory, and note that programs vary in which of the six starts they actually offer. When you are chaining classes, the useful move is to know your next session's start before your current session ends, so a gap becomes a choice instead of an accident.
How the split rides your bill and your plan
- Tuition is charged by session, so your statement shows session A and session B separately even though they belong to one semester
- Financial aid, by contrast, is packaged and disbursed by semester, a mismatch worth understanding before you plan a light term
- One class per session is the common working-nurse rhythm; two at once doubles the weekly gates on a clock with no slack
- Chaining A into B without a gap keeps momentum, and a deliberate one-session breather before a heavy course is planning, not drift
- Map each 7.5-week session in its first sitting, because the compressed clock punishes surprises more than a 15-week term ever would
Where tutoring fits
The session structure is where our work is most useful, because a 7.5-week course leaves no recovery arc for a bad week and nursing keeps a C floor under the whole thing. Session-based tutoring exists exactly for that shape: the writing load absorbed in the weeks your unit spikes, the term mapped before week one, the pace held mechanical through a rotation from hell. Where the billing model rewards moving, we will help you chain sessions on purpose rather than drift; where your calendar says do not double up, we will say so. Send your program and a session to plan and the first sample is free.
Map the session before it starts
Send your program and course list. A session-by-session map comes back free, same day.
Sources and verification
Facts on this page come from official sources, and anything that matters is worth checking against the originals:
- registrar.asu.edu: ASU's official academic calendar and the dynamically dated sessions
- asuonline.asu.edu: ASU Online's hub, source for the session structure and start dates
- catalog.asu.edu: the official ASU catalog
- nursingandhealth.asu.edu: Edson College, source for the one-class nursing rhythm
- apastyle.apa.org: APA Style, the official style authority