A generous AP or IB credit policy of the college can help you graduate on time (or early).
Although that is more for gen eds and not major requirements.
I know several students that finished their undergraduate degree in 3 years and/or doing a bachelor’s and master’s in 4 years.
Perhaps the most useful advanced placement for an engineering major is being able to start in a math course more advanced than calculus 1, since the long prerequisite sequences typically start at calculus 1. Starting more advanced here gives one semester of slack in the dependent long prerequisite sequences, reducing the risk of delayed graduation due to missing or delaying one of the courses in those sequences. Of course, it is best for students with AP calculus credit to try the college’s old final exam for calculus 1 (and 2 if BC) to check their knowledge against the college’s standards, in order to make the best placement decision.
In some other cases, AP credit for an engineering major may reduce the volume of courses needed (e.g. general education requirements, or chemistry for those majors where it is a side requirement or option science).
Just to clarify, I wasn’t necessarily talking about an engineering major.
I now see that OP was talking about being an engineering major, I missed that.
Plenty of engineering majors graduate in the four years.
Sample of one…my kid. She graduated in four years with a bioengineering degree…and double major biology. She did take one term of coursework one summer…but we were clear that it was on HER dime to do so.
If she hadn’t picked up the biology major, she would NOT have needed that summer course, and would have graduated in the four year time…no problem.
So many reasons why students may need a 5th year:
illness puts them behind a semester
family situations require you to go home for a semester
finances mean you take some time off to work or cut back on hours
mistakes - ultimately the students are responsible for knowing what they need to graduate, but they misinterpret or get bad advice and get out of sequence or have to take extra courses
changing majors, adding majors, deciding to pick up some sort of certification…
College is a part of your life, and sometimes, life gets in the way.
Many students change their major too. I took 5 years to get 2 tech degrees from a big ten tech program. I didn’t have a solid major until my junior year.
I think there are a few major reasons a student wouldn’t graduate in 4 years.
First would be that they are not really prepared for college or their degree program. This can manifest itself in a couple of ways. One would be taking a semester or two taking courses necessary to begin the four year degree. Another would be not doing as well as you need and having to take courses over. I wouldn’t expect a student accepted at GT would fall into the first category. You should have a degree of control over the second.
Second, would be either changing majors or adding second majors or minors. Double majors or dual degrees often creates a situation where courses aren’t available or conflict with other courses adding semesters to complete them. I’m sometimes a bit amused at the goals some HS students set for themselves. Often what a student thinks of as a double major is actually a dual degree, two separate bachelors degrees. Since each school has its own requirements it can require significant hours. Students who change their majors may usually find that courses they have taken and passed don’t meet the requirements of their new major. It is my guess that students who have firm plans and goals would do better in finishing in four years vs. those who are searching for direction.
The coop option I don’t look at as a five year degree. As others have mentioned most students finish their degree in 8 semesters they just work an added two semesters (plus classes or work during summers). That additional time costs them little to no additional money. I suppose statistically it may be considered 5 years but I’m not sure. I
As an engineering major at GT or anywhere for that matter any of these could add to your time. I would imagine a bright student who has a single major and doesn’t change it, works hard, and doesn’t coop would be expected to finish in 4 years.
I think your information on it taking “most” 5 years to graduate is very limited to your data source. The many engineering students I know all graduated with 4 and often had double majors as well. They start in a higher level math to begin with and stay on track - they are the focused types. So as long as you don’t attend a school where it is hard to get classes and don’t change majors to an entirely different discipline late in the game, there is no reason to think it will take you more than 4 year. Pick the right school where graduating in 4 is the norm!
If it takes 5, you not only spend another year on college costs, you also lose the income by not working. So when evaluating the cost of a college, be sure to account for both of those, you would be surprised how many forget to factor in the lost income and extra year.
I’m sure someone else has said it but a lot depends on the school you attend. Some are compacted and it’s difficult to get your classes. Transfer students can be hit hard especially because some schools give them very low class registration priority. Schools ahould be upfront. I know our local public universities say at info nights to expect an extra semester of a couple quarters.
Lots of students come in with a year or more of AP credit, so at least for them, 5 years seems rather long, even in engineering. I know several students who completed their BSE and MSE in 4.5 years.
Re @TomSrOfBoston comment about becoming a CPA…yes, you need 150 credits, but they can be undergrad credits. My child just passed the CPA exam and is employed by one of the Big Four and all her credits were earned in four years as an undergrad
Look at the total credits required to graduate. It is easy to do the math regarding how many credits are needed per semester. If the engineering program is 130 credits, the student will need to take at least 15 per semester plus comp out of a class or two and /or take summer classes or take more than 15 for a semester or two. Many engineering unis will have a math placement test to see if you can get out of Calc 1. Most also have a flow chart based on 4 years but look again at the semester credits used in the flow chart because sometimes it is hard to get scheduled exactly to the flow chart and sometimes 18 or 19 credit hours to fit an additional class has to be balanced against GPA as most engineering programs have minimum requirements to stay in like any major at a selective college.
Engineering students spend a lot – really a lot – of time studying and in labs. You know your kid so plan accordingly. Also some require 4 semesters of math and some require 5 (including Calc 1).
The 3 “big” engineering programs in Michigan require as follows or at least that was in my notes from 5 years ago when S3 was a senior, so yes, possible to do in 4 years especially if one or two of the AP classes with a score of 4 or 5 can replace a couple 100 level classes and at least 15 credit hours a semester. The numbers vary slightly depending on major, too. but it is not 120 credit hours at any of these unis. I have a whole list from everywhere he looked, but I’ll not bore you with the details.
UofM 128 credit hours
Michigan Tech 132 credit hours (5 semesters of math – Linear Alg)
Michigan State 128
Looking at my S3s HS cohort who “did” engineering no one got out in less than 4.5 at any of the above 3 local unis but 2 did get out of Hope which is ABET accredited but a very “lean” engineering school in an LAC setting. None of them changed majors midstream, they all started in engineering. Frankly, if they want to be an engineer, whether it’s 4 or 5 years at a good engineering school is alright by me.
This relates to my earlier post in which I separated reasons for 5 years across the full national population to reasons for 5 years among well prepared students. If you look at colleges with well prepared students where only a small portion do co-ops or get multiple degrees, then 4-year graduation rate is usually ~90% – the overwhelming majority. HYP all fit in to this category. However, Stanford lags behind all of HYPMC… all ivies… top LACs… and other similar colleges with a 4-year graduation rate of under 80%… The primary reason for the lower graduation rate is because co-terminal masters degrees are quite common, which involves simultaneously working towards a bachelor’s and master’s degree. ~40% of CS & engineering students pursue a co-terminal master’s degree, as do a notable portion of other majors. It is possible to do a BS + MS in 4-years if you come in with near a full year of transfer credits, which many students do. ~18% of Stanford engineering co-terms complete both degrees in 4 years. I finished mine in 1 quarter less than 4 years, with a BS and MS in EE. I started with near ~1 year of transferable credits and often took more than 15 credits per quarter. However, a co-term is technically a 5-year program and the majority take 5 years, which really drives down the 4-year graduation rate.
Many posters have stated many informed facts. Repeating the concepts. If you intend to minimize your semesters in college you need to work hard and plan well to get your classes and do well in them. You need to be focused and not change your mind. A cost/benefit ratio- monetary and otherwise.
Our son ended up finishing the computer science major in addition to his honors math one with a fifth year when he overreached for top math grad schools and then changed his mind about the direction to take. Worked for him and was instate costs.
You need to decide your intentions. Do not be afraid to change directions if while in college you figure out your plans will not make you happy in the long run. Do not be so focused on completing the major you start with if it means working the rest of your life in something you do not really like. Cost/benefit ratios. Monetary and other (do not discount intangibles, life is so much more than earning a living. It is meant to be enjoyed, including work time). Once you are in college be flexible, even if you need to find ways to pay for a better plan than the original. Decades later you will be glad you did.
@Flo123: Are you including summer terms ? Or did your daughter average 19 hours per semester ? Thanks !
Agree and good advice wis75, plus the wash-out rate is high in engineering for many reasons. That can be found by looking at the graduation totals in a given major. I know my son started out with hundreds of freshman in his engineering concentration and less than 100 actually graduate with that concentration. Some may switch from ME to EE of some other concentration, but many turn to a totally different major as happens with many kids who go in thinking one thing and now think differently. My sibling is going through this with their freshman who is now not totally smitten with Poli Sci.
I needed 130 hours to graduate, which I kind of resented when I found out friends at other schools needed 120. It was possible to finish in four taking no more than five academic classes per semester. Two required January term classes added 6 hours, two required labs added 2, and 2 required PE classes made it 130. I had a semester where I dropped a class and one where I did and internship worth 12 hours, so I needed to take a couple of summer classes (this was before AP classes came to my high school). Our S18 will probably end up at a school that requires 128 hours, but it also has the J-term and PE requirements. The big difference is that he’s probably going to start with 20 hours worth of AP classes.
Something for parents and high school students to consider when doing financial planning and college selection is whether a 9th (or more) semester (or 13th (or more) quarter) of school would break the budget, particularly if the student does not have top-end academic credentials and/or is undecided on his/her academic and professional directions. Choosing a school that is at the very edge of affordability (or where a 9th semester would be completely unaffordable due to a large scholarship running out) means that there is no room for error here.
Of course, parents and students should also be aware that some programs do normally require more than 8 semesters (or 12 quarters) of school. These would include NAAB-accredited BArch architecture programs (nominally 10 semester or 15 quarter programs), accounting preparation for CPA exams (150 credits, or 10 semesters’ worth), Florida public universities (required summer session is like an extra half semester), and Dartmouth ABET-accredited engineering (nominally 13 to 15 quarters).
This is a good thread because honestly it was something I was totally unaware of when S3 started looking at engineering colleges. I was actually secretly hoping he’d pick one of the LAC college programs and come out in 4 years, but he is headstrong and on tours was wowed by the facilities and research and depth and breath of the nationally strong engineering programs…and those were not the 120 credit hour programs on his acceptance list. His only AP that would have helped the credit reduction was high school Calc but he was not comfortable missing that college class and I got it. Not fun to start out your freshman year with a potential B or C and gpa hurdles in engineering and dyslexia because you jumped ahead of the sequence. You really do need a very strong freshman year cause it just gets harder and harder so we bit the bullet and planned on more than four and then that got confirmed during a parent orientation. Of course he picked the program with the most credits required…sigh.,but coming into the light at the end of a tunnel and another year added before retirement. At least i know he’ll step into a job with a living wage and we can cut the financial strings at graduation.
When general education requirements are included, my ChemE program comes out to 134 credits. On a tangentially related point, this is why honors programs can sometimes be a hindrance instead of an asset, because those were additional requirements I had to fulfill – research, and 35 honors credits. Some classes double counted for my major and for honors, but I really didn’t want to take stuff like Honors Organic Chemistry (Orgo is hard enough already) so I did have to add some classes on. AP credits helped a bit with that.