<p>My S called last night. He is a senior at what I will call ABC University. He is a music composition major, but switched into that his sophomore year from a different music program. BM students must complete what is called "applied music" requirements, which are lessons on their primary instrument. My S had to switch instruments when he switched majors. He was told several times that his inital applied muisc credits would transfer to the new major. He had to make up some other credits because of the switch, and ended up taking classes last summer and a few extra hours this year in order to graduate on time.</p>
<p>Yesterday his advisor informed him that the "Degree Tracker" program that ABC uses to track credits got screwed up. The system had counted S's initial applied music credits as electives. So for the last year the advisor and S thought he had completed his elective requirements. Now he is being told he needs 6 elective credits to graduate. He is already taking 18 hours next spring, plus he has a part time job to pay rent, and he has to prepare for a senior recital in March. So he cannot possibly take an additional 6 hours. Not to mention that we will be hit with tuition for another 6 hours at over $1000 per hour. </p>
<p>Anyone ever have something like this happen? What did you do? Is it possible for a college to waive a requirement due to its own screwup? Or is it really on my S to have caught this earlier? He relied on his advisor, and the advisor relied on the program. </p>
<p>You really don’t have enough information to go on. Six electives in the major is very different from six hours of electives. If he’s missing 6 hours in the major, I think it less likely a petition for an exception will be successful. </p>
<p>Definitely not in the major, it’s 6 hours of general electives. Sorry I was not more clear. He finished his gen-ed classes last year and will have all of his major requirements completed in May. </p>
<p>If the advisor can’t see the requirements without the computer program, why does their job exist? The computer doesn’t make the decision, the person does. </p>
<p>IMO, you should post the name of the school to warn others.</p>
<p>First, this is <em>awful</em>. No experience, here, but I do have some ideas if the school takes a hard line approach that it’s always the student’s responsibility to insure they’re on track for graduation requirements.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if he might be able to CLEP out of 6 credits worth of electives. This might work if your son has strong math skills & the school offers a college level pre-calc course. If CLEP is an option, take a look at the various test subjects. Some of them sound like they might be relatively easy to learn the material without paying for a university course. (I’m assuming these aren’t music electives that the school insists be delivered at their school.) Or maybe S could transfer credits in from a couple of (cheap) online elective course for the elective credits he needs. Hope you don’t need to go this route…</p>
<p>Does the college give credit for CLEP exams? If so, S could browse the list and find something he could master easily, perhaps even pass woihout studying.</p>
<p>Some schools have a process whereby you demonstrate proficiency in material that matches an offered course via testing by a professor. But may have to pay for the credit hours received even though not taking the actual class. </p>
<p>Is there a process to evaluate courses for transfer credit? If so, could find some courses offered next summer at your local community college that college would accept, possibly online sections. That is generally pretty cheap. Would be $1000 for 2 courses at our local CC. That has the disadvantage of postponing graduation until end of summer, though. What are his postgrad plans?</p>
<p>Just now D’s college’s degree audit computer program messed up to show that she needs to fulfill a requirement that she has already finished, which generated e-mails from 2 different offices demanding she take this course next semester. You can be sure we were quick to correct that. Easy to notice mistake when they are asking you to do something extra.</p>
<p>If the 6 credits of electives can be lower division transfer credit, then 6 credits of courses at a low cost community college in the summer may be an option.</p>
<p>Still, he should have been tracking his progress with the written requirements for his major and school, rather than relying on a third-hand source (advisor relying on an erroneous program that incorrectly counted the requirements) without verification.</p>
<p>We had a similar mess up. The university requires students to meet with their advisors every semester to avoid just that issue. My son had a double major and two advisors. He (and they) were under the impression that he was on track to graduate on time until partway through his FINAL SEMESTER, when he was informed that he was three credits short in one of the majors. </p>
<p>Even more annoying, he had room in his schedule to have been able to take another three credit class, but by the time this information was given, it was too late to add a class.</p>
<p>He walked in the spring graduation, and took an online course over the summer to finish his requirements. </p>
<p>I have heard of this happening to a number of students. If I was more cynical, I would think it was one last way of wringing an extra three credis worth of tuition out of us.</p>
<p>We did not contest it. At the time we had other things to deal with which were much more important. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the comments do far. We are first-time college parents and really never thought about needing to keep a close eye on the graduation requirements. I did talk to the S several times when he switched majors to make sure all his credits would transfer. He assured nme that he had gone over all of this with his advisor and there would be no issues other than a couple of composition lessons to make up. I guess I made a mistake assuming the advisor knew what was going on. One reason we chose this college was that it is hands-on about advising, and students must meet with their advisor every semester before they are allowed to register for the next one. </p>
<p>I had not thought about CLEP or community college if they do insist on S completing those 6 credits. Great suggestions! We do have an excellent CC near us that many of our friends’ kids have used in summers to catch up on classes. </p>
<p>It’s possible he will still walk through graduation on time, but they might hold his diploma until he completes whatever requirements he’s missing. Sometimes a student can get an exception and have class B count against the requirements instead of class A. He should immediately get together again with his adviser and see if he can’t jig the classes to eliminate some or all of those 6 hours. If the adviser is not willing to fight for him, then perhaps your son can escalate to the dean. My son had a similar situation caused by the department “changing” it’s graduation requirements at the end of my son’s junior year for his major. He had to be pretty forceful with his adviser, the department head and the registrars office to get a work around. I also raised bloody heck from my end because effectively I would have had to pay over $7000 to keep him in college town post-graduation for 4 credits because they were retro-actively changing the major requirements and I thought that was ridiculous. sometimes you just gotta fight the system and I think the OPs son should. </p>
<p>I have a student who is going through this. Her advisor gave her a sheet that said she was good to go, then later gave her another sheet that said she needed three classes. Now she has a problem with the spring semester too, so might not graduate until Spring 2016 instead of Spring 2015 like she should of, and Fall 2015 like she was already screwed into.</p>
<p>If your son can make it up in the summer, he could likely walk with his graduating class and have 2015 on his diploma.</p>
<p>@honestmom I recommend that you study Momofthree’s comment. Given that the adviser mis-advised, but at the same time your son has taken what are, in effect, “extra” courses that are not counted as the adviser assumed, I recommend a couple of approaches.</p>
<p>1) Appeal. To the “college” within the College or University or to the ABC level. Whoever set the rules, and may not have anticipated your son’s switching of majors but might understand the situation is probably in the dean’s office. That is, appeal to whoever the deanlet for curriculum is, or whoever the adviser reports to: that official would normally be responsible for certifying your son’s eligibility for the degree. Your son should write a nifty letter asking for an exception from the rule, based not just on the mis-advising and late notification but on the fact that he will have completed more than the minimum required number of credits or courses to graduate on schedule.</p>
<p>2) “Walk” graduation with his class, but complete any needed credits in summer 2015. My daughter had to do this because of a tragic event that befell a classmate during her senior year. My daughter had taken the lead in organizing a school-wide memorial event, and needed to make up credits. Unfortunately, that cost money, but it was doable. My only further advice is that if ABC permits this approach then make sure to clarify whether the year of graduation would still be 2015. In my daughter’s case, they said she could walk with her class but the degree would be credited to the following year. </p>
<p>It is not uncommon for a junior or senior to find out they may need another term to graduate after switching major. It probably would not help much if it was found out a couple months earlier. Would the school accept credits transfer from community college? For electives, they should be available at CC for a lower cost and perhaps easier to accomplish.</p>
<p>Just curious, if the student has enough credits to graduate, how can he be short electives? A major is so many hours/so many required classes. Why aren’t music classes that aren’t part of the major counting as electives? I am asking this as an advisor, although not one in the major. If I’ve got a student who’s met the gen eds, the requirements of the major (including all electives within the major), and has enough hours to graduate, I have a hard time understanding what would be left to insist that he take.</p>
<p>I agree that community college or another local college or even an online class is a good option to consider to make up elective credits. Some colleges offer a very short winter session, held during most colleges’ winter break, where one class can be taken. (I know that Rutgers in NJ offers this, and it is available for students from other colleges to attend.) I can imagine that a motivated student could complete two online credit classes over winter break, if an online program with flexible schedule/dates could be found. Otherwise, there is next summer. </p>
<p>I just did a quick google search for “college winter session”, and found that Marist College offers a distance learning winter session. </p>
<p>It is also worth having more discussion with the advisor, department head, University administration, etc., if this could be waived.</p>
<p>Yes, is the problem that there aren’t enough credits overall, or that some particular requirements (like distributional requirements) haven’t been met? That could make a big difference.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure what happened is that the advisor “knew” the credits would transfer in the major and assured my S that they would, but never actually looked closely to make sure that they were, and neither did my S. Then he didn’t look closely at the actual electives, just at the numbers in the system. The “default” if you change majors is that anything outside your new major gets counted as electives. So that is what the system did. Someone needed to go in and manually change those credits to his new major and they never did. I’ve never actually looked at this thing online myself until today - I didn’t even know it existed. It is very confusing. If my S had looked at it he would not know how to read it either. </p>
<p>We have a call scheduled tomorrow with the advisor to find out exactly what happened and why. Then we will take it up with the registrar and bump it up from there. </p>
<p>When I was in college I kept a copy of the college catalog and filled in the courses as I took them. I started at a cc and when I transferred I used the course descriptions to convince my advisor to reclassify credits from free electives to specific degree requirements instead. </p>
<p>Your son should be proactive. He should get a list of all the courses he’s required to have and compare it to what he’s taken. If he believes he’s met the requirements he should appeal to the college. If not, pursue cc classes or CLEP and transfer the credits to his current school.</p>
and I think the OPs son should. </p>