<p>My friends son deliberately took fewer credits as a senior so he could play a fifth year of rugby. So now he will be graduating in the spring, a year later (so he can finish season ) and took one course each semester. Apparently this is common?</p>
<p>I would never have footed the bill for this. Right now her son is interning and the company says soon as he graduates they will hire him. </p>
<p>I just find this odd. First, postponing graduation for a sport, the schools being totsllymcool with it and this being something that is just done.</p>
<p>Would you be okay with this? I wouldn't. </p>
<p>Ps now my friend is irked she didn't try and dissuade son from making this choice.</p>
<p>Son of a friend did a fifth year and spent an extra year as an undergrad, but he ended up playing professional basketball [overseas, not NBA], so for him maybe the extra year was worth it.</p>
<p>He’d been redshirted a freshman to preserve his NCAA eligibility and was a substantial rebound/point contributor to the team as a senior and supersenior. The university had no issue with it. I understand it’s a pretty common practice, esp in revenue sports.</p>
<p>Whats the harm? The kid obviously loves his sport and that particular sport cannot be played forever. If the parents couldn’t afford to foot the bill they wouldn’t have done so.</p>
<p>My D is planning to skip a semester and replace it with the semester following her original graduation date in order to be able to play another season of her sport in college. She will not be spending more time at college or incurring additional college-related expenses.
She will do something useful, practical and in the “real world” during the semester she skips.</p>
<p>I had a chance encounter with a young man on his campus during his senior year of college. In his case he was going to graduate but still had one year of collegiate eligibility remaining. I strongly encouraged him to remain on campus and enroll in a graduate program so he could play his sport one more year. He wasn’t going to play professionally, so this was his last chance in life to play his sport at the highest level and even compete for a national championship, so he did play that final year. I don’t know if he finished the graduate program. </p>
<p>You get 4 years of eligibility. I think it makes sense to use all 4 years when you are young. These stories about 60 year olds playing college sports don’t really appeal to me, except in my dreams.</p>
<p>It’s not my business what other people pay for. Obviously the parent in question is paying it so how much ‘irked’ is he or she? How much does this really cost? How much money does the family have? Does student get any scholarship for playing the sport? Will child be expected to pay them back? Who knows.</p>
<p>He is obviously working hard and a good student or he wouldn’t have the interhsip and guaranteed job offer. So big whoop…he can pay them back can’t he? He has the rest of his life to be working!</p>
<p>To me this is no different than a hundred other reasons you might make good choices which result in taking more than four years to graduate. Be it to dual major, change majors, do study abroad where credits don’t transfer, explore courses outside of the required ones, slow down to learn more deeply or strengthen one’s GPA, or to gain work experience, or be heavily involved in extracurriculars, or involved in research. So many good reasons.</p>
<p>Personally I’d choose a school where my kids aren’t forced to finish as quickly as possible because of financial strain. You only do undergrad once in a lifetime and only a part of that amazing experience involves ‘course credit’.</p>
<p>“In find it riduclous to postpone graduation to play games”</p>
<p>Oh boy, now I do have to respond to this!</p>
<p>Forst of all sports is not “games”. Do you realize how much can be learned in the sports arena, what all the benefits are?
fitness and health
self-discipline
team-work
competition
recovery from mistakes and defeats and injuries
handling successes and adulation
politics
leadership
preparation and networking for paid jobs, for potential career in sports
networking for careers outside of sports</p>
<p>Frankly, some of these opportunities to learn are less present in the academic arena.</p>
<p>“postponing graduation” may be just the thing this person needs for his stage of development- we do not all mature at the same rate on a schedule where we are all magically “ready” for the next step…</p>
<p>Each situation is unique. We do not know enough about the OP to judge what is really happening.</p>
<p>College athletes have four years of athletic eligibility but five years in which to use them (the extra year is there primarily to accommodate a year off due to transfer or injury). A very common practice is to “redshirt” a recruited student-athlete - hold him/her out of competition their first year in order to let them develop physically and gain skills, then have them use their athletic eligibility in years two through five. My alma mater, Wake Forest, plays football in the same conference with schools such as Virginia Tech, Florida State and Miami. They can’t possibly hope to recruit the same quality and number of top football prospects as those schools, so the football program typically recruits smaller prospects and late bloomers, redshirts them all, and turns them into viable Division-I athletes during their first years. It’s very rare at Wake to find a senior on the football team who’s not a fifth-year player.</p>
<p>What difference does it make? Their life, their choice. I know LOTS of kids that take five years to get through school and they don’t play sports. </p>
<p>Life is about oppourtunities and this is an oppourtunity that this guy took, why should he be judged for it? </p>
<p>It sounds like the op may not be a sports fan or understand how sports can help people in life…jmo tho</p>
<p>I agree with performersmom. This can be a very good decision. We allowed our daughter to go a fifth year, primarily to continue one more year in her sport. She captained the team that year and her team achieved its goal to win the National Championship. She was also able to complete a second major and had many other rewarding experiences that year that furthered both her education and her personal development. No regrets, whatsoever.</p>
<p>You mean those silly games that helped them get into college to begin with, learn self-discipline, gain social skills, perhaps lifelong health, and possibly a scholarship? Possibly influenced him getting the job to begin with? Silly games that medical school would look for in applicants? And so on?</p>
<p>We are about the most non-sports oriented, non-athletic family you will ever meet. But I find it offensive that someone can dismiss someone’ else’s passion and talent as frivolous. </p>
<p>Not to mention it now sounds like you are just making up new info to win the argument here. On what basis are you assuming he might lose the job? I really hate when people do that on here…just start making up new assumptions as they go. </p>
<p>University of Houston has a quarterback who is in his 6th year.</p>
<p>He was in his 5th year last year when he went down in the first or second game and NCAA gave him special permission to come back. They are unbeaten and just moved to 8th place. He broke several NCAA records this year.</p>
<p>Seahorses- I, too, wonder what your issue is with this. I think it’s great that the kids, who may be immature or still developing physical size and strength, get 5 years if they so choose. But then again, I value college athletics, the lessons learned and the contributions of many of these young athletes to their schools and communities.</p>
<p>I am also curious as to why this bothers you so much. So, you take issue with an athlete taking a 5th year. What about, say, a musician who takes a 5th year to participate in the school’s orchestra for an extra year. Or the actor who would finally get that great part their 5th year. Or what about the students who take a 5th year to study abroad or intern or whatever. Is it just athletes who should be banned from taking a 5th year?</p>
My Ds both know they have four years of schools paid for.</p>