<p>Is it possible to graduate Williams with a B.A. in 3 years? (assuming summer courses, heavier course load) Has anybody done this?</p>
<p>Essentially no. Williams requires 32 course credits to graduate, and a typical load is four classes per semester (so you get your 32 credits over eight semesters). Summer courses are not accepted except to make up deficits, i.e. if you fail a class. So if you wanted to graduate in three years, you would need to take five courses every semester for the first two years (and I don’t think that’s even allowed for freshmen), and six courses per semester in the third year, which is an insane courseload especially once you’re taking upper-level classes. I’ve never heard of anyone graduating early, and I’m not sure they would let you even if you wanted to. Williams is very much built around the full four-year experience. It’s really just not done. The sacrifices you would have to make would just not be worth it; you’d be compromising both your academic experience – having the opportunity to put more time into coursework, and having four years to refine your academic interests and form relationships with faculty – and your social/extracurricular experience to the point where you’d really not get to experience most of the benefits Williams has to offer.</p>
<p>Anyway, why would you want to give up your senior year at Williams? You’re in an incredibly beautiful town, learning from brilliant and compelling professors, surrounded by a group of smart and talented students from around the world who you’ve had the chance to bond and become close friends with (unless of course you’ve been holed up working the whole time due to an unreasonable courseload), with a ton of cool stuff going on and no real-world responsibilities. Why abandon that sooner than you have to? You have the rest of your life to live in the real world; jobs and grad school opportunities will still be around the next year, and you’ll be that much better qualified for having waited.</p>