Final exam period may be shortened from nine to eight days next year under a proposal presented to the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) meeting yesterday.

The current nine-day spring exam period ends every year on the Saturday prior to Memorial Day.

"The academic year now goes into Memorial Day weekend and that causes all sorts of problems," said Registrar Georgene B. Herschbach, who presented the proposal to the committee.

Supervisor of Examinations Thomas Lynch noted that an average of about 20 students per semester submit requests to reschedule Saturday exams due to religious conflicts.

Herschbach also said removing the ninth day from the fall exam period would add an extra day to intersession.

"There is a very short turnaround time between the fall and spring terms," she said. "Students ask us for more breathing room between terms."

Lynch said the primary concern of the Registrar's Office is that an eight-day exam period would increase the number of "doubles" and "triples," or students who take multiple exams in one day.

To test the effects of the proposal, Assistant Registrar for Scheduling Joseph D. Maruca developed a computer simulation using data from the last six semesters.

Maruca found a shortened exam period would have resulted in more doubles and triples in each of the last six semesters.

But Lynch cautioned that the computer simulation did not take into account those classes which are assigned to more than one exam group.

"We believe the number of doubles and triples would have been significantly lower if we had optimized and chosen the optimal exam groups" for classes assigned to more than one exam group, Lynch said. "We believe an eight-day schedule is possible."

Herschbach also suggested that more conflicts could be avoided by designating additional courses with tentative exam dates "to be announced."

But Marco B. Simons '97, a CUE member and the chair of the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council, said students would not favor any more courses with exam dates "to be announced."

"For many students, the time of the exam is a consideration in course selection," he said.

Simons also said he was concerned that shortening the exam period might reduce students' exam performance, especially for those students faced with doubles and triples.

But Herschbach said there is no evidence that shortening the exam period from 11 days to the current nine days has affected students' final exam performance.