3 year graduation rates

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I really appreciate the availability of 4 and 6 year graduation rates. I'm hoping to find data on 3 year graduation rates.</p>

<p>Tens of thousands of students each year are now being named AP National Scholars (earning a score of 4 or 5 on at least 8 different AP exams). Many more are completing IB diplomas and taking university courses as dual enrollment students while still in high school. For many of them the option to graduate from university in 3 years can be very attractive. </p>

<p>Ultimately a student should look at all the minutia of AP, IB, transfer credit, course load policies and graduation requirements before ultimately choosing a university with any hope of graduating in less than 4 years (or in 4 years with an engineering degree). Unfortunately this takes a long time for each college. It would be great to find 3 year graduation rates as a quick way of finding universities that are friendly to the idea of graduating early and as a reality check on policies that look friendly until you try it.</p>

<p>Does anybody have any ideas as to how to find or gather 3 year graduation rates from different top colleges? Has anybody else started gathering some of this data?</p>

2

<p>7-semester graduation is probably more common than 6-semester graduation. But the number of early graduates is probably small in most schools.</p>

<p>AP and IB credit often does not get that far ahead toward graduation, since many of the tests are commonly not accepted for subject credit, or are only accepted for subject credit for a one semester course. While state universities are often generous with credit units for AP and IB credit, students in majors with lots of subject requirements or long prerequisite sequences may not gain too much in the ability to graduate early. Community college courses taken in high school are often well accepted for subject credit at same-state state universities, but less well accepted elsewhere, particularly private universities.</p>

<p>State universities are probably more friendly to the idea of early graduation than private universities, due to economic factors involved (each in-state student is using a tuition subsidy at the state university, so the faster s/he graduates, the better from the state’s point of view; a student at a private university is a source of tuition income).</p>