Graduating Penn in 3 years, plausible?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>Hi. I am asking this ridiculous question because I am interested in dentistry, and Penn's dental program is 3 years undergrad + 4 years Penn Dental. In this program, I'd be forced to major in biology, which I would rather not do. Aside from that, the dental program is my dream. </p>

<p>However, if I can choose the major I would like (psychology), and then finish all my credits in 3 years and then apply to a dental school (Penn, or one that's loads cheaper :p) then I'd rather do that. And I'd probably get rejected from the dental program so this second option is likely to happen. It's a ridiculous question, and I must sound naive. I have a famiyl friend who graduated from cornel in 3 years.... and one year of tuition means a lot to me. </p>

<p>With a psych major, could I graduate in 3 years? Or is that a blasphemous question :D</p>

<p>I can be really hard working and I'm smart, but I'm not a genius or anything.</p>

2

<p>Yes, you can graduate in three years. Plenty of people do. It just requires a lot of planning. You can always take out summers if need be.</p>

3

<p>Would I be busting my brains and not be able to have a decent social life?</p>

4

<p>Not necessarily…you’d probably have to be taking at least 5 classes, maybe 6 a semester. Is it a heavy workload? yes…will you not have a social life? no…as long as you are strong academically and can do things quickly.</p>

5

<p>Hm, I will have to think about it. What a life :D</p>

6

<p>Had I taken 5 classes a semester in my third year instead of four, I could have graduated a full year early. Instead I went easy on myself and am graduating this December. To do it, you would be well-advised to front-load your requirements. Before you declare your major, just take as many requirement courses as you can, and figure out where you can double count courses (for a foundational approach AND a sector requirement). Graduating with a hard science degree in three years is more difficult than with a social science, liberal arts or humanities degree, simply because you need to take labs with many courses, so if you are doing a hard science, be prepared for that.</p>

<p>My course load was, in order of semester, 4-5-5-6-4-4-4. I took one course over the summer in 2009 in Germany, and I have one AP credit. Two of the courses in my upcoming semester are free electives (Photo I and an independent study), and I’ll be graduating with a major in Political Science and minor in German Studies. </p>

<p>As for it being a heavy workload, it is what you make it. For me, it was enough to keep me very busy, but that was mainly because I do a ton of stuff on campus (on average, 40 to 50 hours of every week is consumed by extra-curricular activities and jobs). If you don’t go overboard on extra stuff, it shouldn’t be very hard to complete your coursework in three years.</p>

7

<p>Oh thank you. </p>

<p>Is psych an easy major?<br>
What about a minor in biology/business?</p>

8

<p>there are no business minors</p>

<p>as for graduating early, fairly easy to do. can graduate taking just 4 courses per semester. If your major has fewer credits, you take summer courses and come in with ib/ap credit (plus a somewhat increase courseload) you could possibly graduate in 2 years. The real question is whether this is worth it. If money is an issue, it may be better to negotiate with the FA office instead.</p>

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<p>Money is an issue, and I’m going to be pursuing a career in dentistry which will be $$$$ that I’d like to pay off ASAP.</p>

<p>It’s funny how on CC people value the “College Experience” but on a site like SDN the “college experience” is overrated. they prefer the “making money early with less debt experience” lol.</p>

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<p>Oh thank you. Are there biology related minors? </p>

<p>And wow that does seem easy… too easy… are you sure you’re not exaggerating? :D</p>

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<p>Graduating in two years is completely unrealistic when you have 12-13 requirement courses and a minimum of 32 courses to graduate. It’d involve taking 22 courses in four semesters (four first semester, six the other three), another eight courses over summers (which, by the way, would cost the same as an actual semester!) and having two AP credits coming in.</p>

<p>Three years is a reasonable time frame to shoot for… also, even when you don’t have much of it, making money isn’t everything. It’s a big thing, but not everything.</p>

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<p>Is this true? Just in general and not commenting on 2 years vs 3 years, I looked at the summer school website and it cost about $3365 per credit unit in the summer (SEAS) with some sort of $245 fee (not sure if it is for each course or not). More if Wharton courses, and presumably less if it is a CAS course. 4 courses would be $14440 instead of $23+k normal per semester tuition. I think the grad courses are more but still you can try to take mostly undergrad courses in the summer.</p>

13

<p>Alright, I exaggerated a tad. Four courses over the summer would be roughly $14,500, whereas a fall/spring semester would cost roughly $18,000 (both numbers are purely tuition and don’t include associated fees). On-campus housing would cost $2,628 for both sessions, while off-campus housing would cost roughly $1,500 for both sessions (if you’re subletting… it would likely be around $2,100 if you have your own apartment/house). </p>

<p>In essence, you don’t really gain that much of a financial advantage by taking four summer courses (which would be VERY difficult) as opposed to five academic year courses (which is pretty standard). If finances are that big an issue, financial aid packages should negate said issue.</p>

14

<p>Maybe I’m wrong but that is not the way I read it from the website. $14400 for 4 summer courses include fees. Fall/Spring current tuition and fee is 23k+ whether 4, 5 or more courses are taken. None of these include room & board and dining fee. Obviously, this is not for everyone, and this would be something more interesting for full pay student. They can do one summer and overload a few semesters and graduate one year early. Don’t forget the opportunity cost of starting working one year earlier.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I would want to graduate early… in my opinion, it’s probably better to stay in school, explore all of your academic interests, and delay having to start work in a weaker economy. There have been a ton of articles published recently about the life-time career challenges of college students starting work in a down year.</p>

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<p>I completely understand why a student wants to stay for four years (or more in some cases). This is just hypothetical scenario that is feasible if someone really wants to do it. If I propose this to my son, he probably says that I am out of my mind.</p>

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<p>Throwing in fees, tuition is around $20,000 (not 23) for a semester and around $13,000 for the summer (my bad, I looked at the SEAS prices, not SAS). </p>

<p>The reason people don’t do summer courseloads of 4 c.u. is because it doesn’t make sense to take four summer courses as opposed to four fall semester courses. Graduating from SAS in less than four years is easy, regardless of major, and though you may be able to knock off a semester by taking four summer courses one year, you shouldn’t forget that doing this would eliminate any opportunity for you to do an internship or get a full time summer job. </p>

<p>Taking into account that you save roughly $7,000 in tuition by taking four summer courses as opposed to four fall/spring courses, you must also take into account likely summer earnings. Presuming you can get $10.00 an hour, 40 hours a week, for a job, that is $5,600 for a 14 week summer. If you are doing a serious internship, you may be looking at $1,000 a week or $14,000 for the summer, thus making it so that you LOSE $7,000 in opportunity costs by taking four summer courses, all factors considered.</p>

<p>Now take into account that the summer sessions would shave off a semester of academic year (which is unlikely given the available courses and the requirements of the College), and you have an additional semester in which to find a full time job after graduation. Just playing the odds, you are statistically less likely to get a post-bac job offer which starts in January than you are to get one which starts in June or September. If you do OCR, none of those positions begin before June/July of the following year, so you gain no income by graduating early.</p>

<p>In other words, it doesn’t make financial sense to do four c.u. in a summer with the sole purpose of earlier graduation. </p>

<p>It DOES make financial sense to do four c.u. in a summer with the purpose of getting a double- or triple-major, completing a dual degree or avoiding a super-senior year as the result of switching schools mid-career (i.e. someone who transfers from Wharton into the College after their second year would normally need an extra semester or two to complete all of the major and curriculum requirements, so a summer could help avoid that). It also makes financial sense to do a single summer session so that you could have a job for the other part of the summer. It also makes financial sense to do a summer session if you are in a field where GPA matters heavily with regard to future plans: if you are pre-med and would benefit by taking four courses per semester instead of five, summers are necessary and, though financially detrimental in the short run, incredibly financially beneficial in the long run since quality of med school is so crucial.</p>

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<p>You can do internships AND take classes at the same time over the summer – this is what I did a while back.</p>

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<p>Thank you for all the posts. Time is priceless though… I kid haha. </p>

<p>More opinions please. I guess summer credits are out of question…
I plan on utilizing AP credit so… that + a more heavy courseload during the semesters = feasible 3 year graduation?</p>

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<p>I don’t mean to beat this to death, but I still don’t see how chrisw can willy nilly say that it makes zero financial sense if you can graduate in 3 years instead of 4 by taking some summer classes for someone who is full pay or closed to it.</p>

<p>1) 1 year = 50k+ saving. -> up $50k so far
2) Overload some semesters with 5 or 6 courses and using AP credits to reduce 1 semester cost nothing. -> still up $50k.
3) $5k summer loss wages is a very high estimate, definitely not the norm for any internship that I have heard about, but lets give it the benefit of the doubt. -> up $45k so far after subtracting $5k
4) 4 summer classes $13k -> up $32k after subtracting $13k.
5) Room & board for one summer $3k -> up $29k after subtracting $3k
6) Food should be a wash, you need to eat no matter where you are. -> still up $29k
7) Assuming you can find some sort of entry level job the year after graduation and make a conservative estimate of $40k per year. -> up $69k</p>

<p>So after 4 years, you are either up $29k or $69k if you can get a job. If you go to grad school, you still have the $29k saving for grad school and presumably, you would finish grad school one year earlier. There is no question in my mind that graduating early by accelerating your course taking saves money, this was true when I went to college long time ago, and have known many that were doing this back then. It is even more true today with college cost being so high.</p>

<p>It is a legitimate point to bring up with the infeasibility and unavailability of courses that you need to take in the summer. I don’t know if this is a deal breaker, but I imagine, you need to chart out your courses carefully, and try to do the summer thing as early as possible like right after freshmen year. You can try to get all the electives and low level courses out of the way ASAP and those type of courses probably have better chance of being offered in the summer than other higher level classes. It is probably much harder to do for some majors but not so much for others.</p>