The course-taking behavior of various types of students pursuing undergraduate professional programs was examined, and an attempt was made to demonstrate some analytical procedures that can be applied in studying course-taking behavior. Course-taking behavior was defined as the average credit hour load of a student as distributed across the program course offerings of the institutions. The basic study question was to determine what influences, if any, student characteristics have on course selection patterns. The influence of the following student characteristics were assessed: sex, minority group status, full-time versus part-time student status, and level of the student. Additionally, the school and department in which the student was enrolled were considered. University of Pittsburgh undergraduate professional school students were studied: 4,413 in the fall term and 4,374 in the winter term. Among the findings were the following: of the six schools, only that of social work and health-related professions did not identify sex or race as influences on course-taking behavior; all schools showed that a difference existed between part-time and full-time students relative to the courses selected; and course-taking behavior (course election patterns) was differentiated among levels of undergraduates. A methodology for analyzing course-taking behavior, which includes use of multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis, is considered. (SW)