My DS is in a crisis. He’s recently accepted to graduate school in education at a prestigious state school that starts this June. He’s set to graduate undergrad this May. He did a grade and class audit with his registrar this past fall, prior to applying for grad school, to make sure things were in order. This week he gets an email from registrar that he is missing two general ed classes to graduate. He has met with his advisor who is trying to help him through this crisis, who also never caught during their past meetings that these classes were missing. Of course advisor doesn’t want my DS to miss out on the prestigious grad school, which will make everyone look bad and devastate my DS. More than likely DS will need to immediately enroll in self paced online courses for these two classes. Something that is flexible so he can get these finished on top of his current classes, by end of April. Any recommendations on the best sources for these online classes? His school is small and doesn’t have online courses. And thanks for reading all this, part of me just needed to vent about this situation.
Which two classes does he need? Some schools might have a mini semester.
His school has a May mester, but it’s after graduation. We are hopeful to find an option that wraps this up before graduation so he can walk in the ceremony and it doesn’t cut so close to grad school starting. He needs a general math and a science, which should be readily available.
Does https://courses.vccs.edu/courses/distance offer any possibilities?
Have your son reach out to the grad school and see if he can defer his start for a semester. Seems crazy to me to pile on TWO courses right now before graduation when he’s already got a full academic load going. It’s fine for him to do the online classes after his finals… in the grand scheme of his life, what’s a few months???
Our kid was accepted into the Peace Corps. She had one core course to take which she took after graduation. She was allowed to participate in graduation but didn’t get her diploma until after she finished the course in August.
In your son’s case…can he take one online course now and one during the May term? That way, he would be done before his grad school starts.
I am surprised the graduation audit wasn’t on line and automated.
Also he should talk to his adviser…will the college accept the credits from any online courses?
I would definitely look into that Maymester…yes he may have planned to vacation but that will be his best bet.
Not sure talking with the advisor is enough, considering this was missed.
The University of North Dakota has self-paced, start anytime courses available. However, I think they expect each course to take at least 3 months. I’m not sure how your son could start and complete 2 full courses in addition to his current course load by the end of April. Could he possibly pass any CLEP exams?
We’ve looked into CLEP and his school gave him approval for only one. That was Chemistry. The problem is he hasn’t taken Chemistry since 10th grade! Seems risky - if he didn’t get the approved score, he’d have to wait 3 months to try again.
He cannot defer grad school, it runs summer, fall, spring semester cohort only. I’ve found flexible online courses at U of Florida and LSU. I am hopeful those will work out for him. Advisor is meeting with his Dept. Head today. I sure hope they work something out - so many dropped balls (and yes, my DS could have done a better job tracking things as well, but the fact several second sets of eyes didn’t catch this earlier either is just - ugh!).
Will your son’s school accept credit from Straighterline? How about WGU?
The University of Missouri also has very flexible online course options, some of which could be completed in 6 weeks.
https://online.missouri.edu/enrollment-procedures/course-types.aspx
Deadline to enroll is 3/1/19.
I’d ask your son to reach out to admissions at his grad school “just in case” he needs to defer for a year; better to keep a June 2020 start date in his back pocket than to panic, no? I don’t know how intense your son’s current course schedule is, but none of my kids (nor me, for that matter) could have handled two extra courses on top of our regular course work senior year of college, no matter how flexible the timing, classes, pace, etc. could be.
One of mine was writing a thesis (a requirement to get a BA, which took up TONS of time in addition to all the rest of the coursework) AND had a minor to finish with a few key courses. One of mine had already handed in the thesis (committed to doing it first semester of senior year so that the favorite professor could be the advisor) but had tons of other work to finish off Jan-May. And senior year courses were hard! I would have imploded with even one extra course senior year, even though I got a job offer and accepted it well before graduation- my classes were hard and time-consuming, I had a leadership role in an EC which meant a lot to me, etc.
If your son balks at the idea of piling on with more work right now- have him figure out a Plan B. Maybe finish off his BA by August, then get a teaching job at a private school for the year? One that pays decent but doesn’t require certification and the Master’s???
I walked in my undergrad graduation ceremony with 6 credits remaining. Took 2 courses at another local public college that summer and the college allowed that. You get handed an empty diploma holder. No one else has to know.
I would encourage your child to push the administration to allow this since it seems they have some responsibility in this mixup.
The issue is…will the grad program allow him to start before he completes those two missing courses. Ask the grad program this question. They might say it’s fine…
Stay away from most for-profits. You want an accredited (regionally) school. Be sure the credit amounts are what you need (so avoid quarter-system schools unless the undergrad school is also quarters). Many community college foundation courses transfer to regional colleges and the CC usually know which ones transfer (it’s part of how they make money)
I agree that he can probably walk as long as he is within certain tolerances. Check with the grad school now about deferring. I doubt they will admit him without proof of graduation with a bachelor’s.
Look at Phoenix, U Maryland’s University College, Raritan Valley in NJ , BYU, Eastern Michigan U, Seminole State in FL. Lots of accredited schools are leveraging this situation to their advantage.
"I walked in my undergrad graduation ceremony with 6 credits remaining. Took 2 courses at another local public college that summer and the college allowed that. You get handed an empty diploma holder. No one else has to know.
I would encourage your child to push the administration to allow this since it seems they have some responsibility in this mixup."
^^^ This.
Can he double dip? Dd was informed her last semester, while student teaching that she was short a gen ed. Honors students were exempt from gen eds. The registrar kept insisting that it was in the course book. She checked and went back four years and found it wasn’t listed. Oops. That got left out. She was allowed to double dip another course for the gen ed course with the department head approval.
Thank you everyone. I appreciate the feedback. We are working on a plan and see where it goes.
Your son needs to go start talking to the deans of the college. If there’s a Dean of studies, start there. If the registrar did an audit in the fall and they didn’t catch the error until late February that looks very bad. And he’s not missing just one course, he’s missing two.
I’d tell him to take his transcripts and any documentation he has showing he talked to the registrar and his advisor and ask the Dean if there are any courses on his transcript that can be counted instead of the two he’s missing. Don’t offer to pay additional money to take more classes somewhere else. That’s your last resort. Stress that he may be in danger of losing his grad school seat and you hope they can help. Departments and deans can sometimes override graduation requirements. This is a major error on the school’s part. I hope they do the right thing and fix it.