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<p>From what I saw, the “best and brightest” college students were the ones who graduated in 8 semesters (or sometimes fewer) of school (not counting co-op jobs and other non-school semesters off), not the ones who took 9 or more semesters of school because they did not follow the course plans needed for their majors, chose or changed majors late, failed some courses, etc… Indeed, four year graduation rates tend to increase as selectivity increases, even when restricting the comparison set to public universities.</p>