<p>I will have about 50 AP credits at the two state universities I have already been admitted and am considering. I am not sure which major I will be going with, but it will basically be in the math/physics/engineering area. </p>
<p>I am frustrated because people keep telling me that no one ever graduates within 4 yrs, even if they are bringing in a bunch of AP credits. This just does not add up to me. If everyone had to go 5 years, even if they only take 12 credits a term, that is 120 credits there, which is what is required for the degree. Add the 50 AP credits and you would graduate with 170 credits. So, if I would need to go 5 yrs even though I have all these credits, how long to engineering students stay who do not have those AP credits? It would seem to be it would be 6-7 years? It really does not seem right to me that anyone would willingly to a degree that they would have to stay 6-7 years for. If this is true, then I need to just cross engineering off the list. I worked hard for AP credits and would rather not spend 5+ years getting an undergrad degree. Plus, how does anyone pay for this? I would imagine that all those years to get a bachelors degree, going full time, would be financially exhausting. </p>
<p>I am really asking if it is true that one cannot graduate engineering within 4 years, regardless of how many credits they bring in.</p>
<p>It all depends on you. Are you willing to take early morning classes? Will you hold out for the favored professor or will you sign up no matter who teaches? Are you going to do a co-op? The less restrictions YOU impose, the more likely it will be that you’ll be out in 4.</p>
Absolutely false, many people graduate in four years. You just need to decide on your major - one reason engineering takes longer is because many of the courses are sequenced and changing majors or failing a class will set you back.</p>
<p>For the same reason, your AP credits certainly won’t hurt but may not help much, either. Engineering requires specific credits, not just credits in general. You may be able to accelerate the math sequence a bit.</p>
<p>The reason it takes a lot longer is that people do Co-ops, which can push you out to 6 years. BUT these coops pay really good money while you are doing them and often secure a job upon graduation. Mine paid around 4k/month. So in the semester I was gone from school I made a good 20K and got some great experience to put on my resume. You will need to at least do internships, definitely more than one.</p>
<p>Who are these people who keep telling you that no one ever graduates in 4 years? My kids both had no problem graduating on time, from different schools and both had internships (the summer after junior year). You will have to work hard but it is doable.</p>
<p>I did it with a little extra work. I used AP credits and took a couple of classes during the summers. I also had a job at an engineering firm all four years - they let me work during school vacations.</p>
<p>Often the kids that have IB diplomas (guaranteed sophomore status at Colorado CU) still take 4 years for engineering degree. There are many course sequences required - it’s not just a game of credit totals.</p>
<p>It is even more challenge at CO School of Mines, where some majors require more than 140 credits.</p>
<p>It is not true. I came in with AP credits and am scheduled to graduate with my degree in three and a half years. I decided since that’s cutting a bit short that I’d get my masters as well. I can get my bachelors and masters in four and a half years. It takes planning and action. You can graduate within four years. Plan. Makes lots of plans. And make sure your advisors know your plans as well.</p>
<p>Also, sometimes gen eds can double-count, which helps out a ton.
At my school, practically all of my writing classes can count as the 2 extra gen ed writing-intensive courses, and one counts as a global credit since it deals with international rhetoric. Likewise, my Euro lit class that I need for my French major takes care of my literature requirement. </p>
<p>If you have a major that helps you with that, it saves a lot. I’ve only had to take 5 straight up gen eds, not the usual 10. The other 5 are part of my majors.</p>
<p>Based on the people I know, I’m going to say there’s a roughly uniform distribution of taking anywhere between 6 and 10 full time semesters to graduate. A lot of people don’t do all those semesters consecutively, so it may take longer than 4 years even if it only takes 8 semesters. It’s plenty possible for you to do 4 years or less if you want to.</p>
<p>It obviously depends on the number of credits you come in with though, because people come in with anywhere between 0 and 70 credits. Coming in with 0 it’s practically impossible to graduate in 6 semesters, coming in with 70 you’re probably taking a lot of excess classes or just taking minimum loads if it takes you more than 7 semesters.</p>
<p>It really depends on your pacing / college / etc. (The average electrical engineer takes 5.9 years at my (not very selective) college to graduate anyways, and about 7% graduate within 4.)</p>
<p>So for engineering you need around 130-140 units so that already makes it 4.5 years compared to the 4 of every non-engineering major at my university.</p>
<p>Here’s what happens when you load a lot of APs in: You can come in with as few as 3 GE classes remaining and opt out of Calculus I, Calculus II, and Physics, which is a main reason why people take so long to graduate… They are the long chain of prerequisites that are very difficult to get into / may get severely held back if you fail one of them.</p>
<p>With lots of APs and good pacing (17 ish units a semester) you can easily turn the 4.5 years into 3 years.–It’s even possible to do 2.5 if you load in Physics C and run some summer school for GEs.</p>
<p>But regardless, other majors have a much greater boost from the AP tests… You can literally be out in 2 years if you’re a small major.</p>
<p>Hogwash. Both of my engineering sons graduated in 4 years. Unless you are going to have to co-op, its doable. PLUS neither of my s’s started as engineering majors, but switched soph year. It IS doable.</p>
<p>When I went to college, the four year graduation rate (overall, not just engineering) was under 40%.</p>
<p>I graduated in four years (eight semesters), having taken more credit units’ worth of courses than the minimum (I could have graduated in seven if I really wanted to, with use of some AP credit).</p>
<p>Low four year graduation rates are typically due to the following:</p>
<p>a. Poorly prepared students who need remedial courses.
b. Students who cannot handle full course loads, either because they are poorly prepared, or because they have work obligations.
c. Students who voluntarily choose to take light course loads, or delay taking key courses because they are offered at 8am or because a “hard” instructor is teaching them.
d. Students who change major late, where long prerequisite sequences delay graduation.</p>
<p>For engineering majors, co-ops are somewhat common. But these are semesters off from school (no tuition or school expenses paid, while you are earning money at the co-op job), so there is no undesirable aspect like taking extra semesters of school would have. Eight semesters spread over four and a half or five years with one or two co-ops is perfectly fine – that is basically graduating “on time” even though it is not counted as such using calendar time to graduation statistics.</p>
Unless I missed something, you didn’t say what colleges you were talking about. How easy it is to graduate in 4 years can vary tremendously from one college to the next. Some schools have engineering degrees as part of a 5-year (or 4+1 or 3+2) program, some require high enough credit or other conditions that make it difficult to graduate in 4 years, and at some the vast majority graduate in 4 years. It’s also possible to graduate in 3 years at many schools, if you start out with a lot of credits, although not common. I finished both a bachelors and masters in engineering at Stanford in under 4 years. </p>
<p>The 4-year graduation rate for various colleges that have a large percentage of their class in engineering & CS is below. All values are based on IPEDS data. Note that the 4-year graduation rates are all over the map, for different colleges. There is a clear correlation with selectivity, suggesting that much of the difference in graduation rates relates to differences in the entering students, rather than the college. However, there are also some colleges that don’t fall where one would expect, based on selectivity, such as GeorgiaTech’s low rate. If I remember correctly, engineering is a 4.5 year degree program at GeorgiaTech, so the low 4-year grad rate is expected. </p>
<p>Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering – 89%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 83%
Harvey Mudd College – 79%
California Institute of Technology – 73%
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology – 69%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute – 68%
Carnegie Mellon University – 67%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – 65%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – 64%
Colorado School of Mines – 40%
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus – 31%
Rochester Institute of Technology – 28%
Illinois Institute of Technology – 5%*
*IIT may be incorrect. Some sources list conflicting rate with IPEDS.</p>
<p>Students doing co-ops should consider “on time” graduation to be 8 semesters (or 12 quarters for quarter system schools) of school, rather than 4 calendar years.</p>
<p>Obviously, the 4 calendar year based graduation rates can be inaccurate in a practical sense at schools where many students do co-ops.</p>
<p>However, the number of credits needed at the Florida public universities’ EE majors listed above is 127-131, which some other schools’ 8 semester EE majors fall into.</p>
<p>I’m a transfer student who used no AP credit and I could have graduated in 4 years but the engineering school by design makes all transfers take one department specific sophomore class respective to their major which is a prerequisite to all their junior classes. The downside is that it takes 5-6 semesters post transfer to finish engineering sequences (MechE and EE have more schedule flexibility and can be done in 4 if one overloads the last 3 semesters). The upside is that it allows for lighter loads and freedom to take more electives or grad courses.</p>
<p>The IIT 4-year graduation rate is about 38% but many students take co-op and that extends the time by one or two semesters. however, students who come in with as many as 50 AP credits can certainly graduate in 3 years even. The difficulty for ANY engineering major is that there are sequences of courses that are 6 semesters long and even longer in some cases. These courses are not ones that are available in AP courses or even community colleges. Consequently, there is usually a minimum of 3 years of courses to take for students who transfer in from a Community College or with a lot of AP credit.</p>