<p>Hi!i'm a newly admitted student.i have two questions.
1/how many semesters in one school year?
2/Why does berkeley have a super low four-year graduation rate(69%)?...too competitive?too high criteria for graduation?or other reasons?...</p>
<p>Thank you!:)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>there are two semesters in one year.</p></li>
<li><p>the low grad rate is mostly attributable to the students’ financial capabilities; Berkeley is full of Pell grantees - one of the highest in the nation. Add to that the many Cal students who take a year off to study abroad and/or work. The 6-yr grad rate is comparable to top privates though. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>this is just my personal opinion, however.</p>
<p>^Also, with budget cuts and a huge student body, some kids can’t get all the required courses to graduate in 4 years, so many take 5 or 6!</p>
<p>^ perhaps that’s true too, but only partly. Maybe only about 2% to 3% of the students encounter that, IMO. The vast majority of the students who needed to enroll in their required subjects end up enrolling in those subjects. </p>
<p>I really think it’s more of an economic reason on the part of the students, rather than on the incapability of the school to provide more subjects.</p>
<p>In the College of Engineering it’s a requirement that you graduate in four years, so if you’re an engineering major, then 6 year graduation won’t be a problem for you. You can get an extra semester if you’re double majoring though and petition for it.</p>
<p>Also, when you take summer classes, its no longer considered graduating in 4 years. You technically are taking more than 8 semesters when you take summer classes, so its counted in the 6 year grad rate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, the requirement is eight semesters for those who entered as freshmen. A student may take a semester off school to do a co-op job or for other reasons and therefore take longer than four calendar years to graduate, but with only eight semesters in school. Students can petition for a ninth semester.</p>
<p><a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/advising/advising%20handbbk%2011-12.pdf[/url]”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/advising/advising%20handbbk%2011-12.pdf</a> (page 6) says</p>
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<p>My son is an EECS major and he’ll be graduating 1-2 semesters early, along with some of his EECS friends. Not that difficult to do in EECS, especially if you have a lot of the requirements out of the way through AP classes.</p>
<p>Hello mom484,
What is your son going to do after he graduates 1-2 semesters early?
Is he planning on attending graduate school or is he gonna start a career as an engineer?
Thanks.</p>
<p>yeah apparently I could graduate in 3 years too, but I’m considering taking some grad school classes in my senior year and maybe applying for that 5th year MS, but finish that sooner than the 5th year at Berkeley. If you’ve got AP or college credits then you’ll definitely finish on time if not sooner (in my case I had AP and college credits, apparently I came in with about 57 credits:
Four-year Institution Transfer Units (Took these classes in high school):
24.3 UNITS ADDED
* Exam Units (AP, GCE, and IB)
33.2 UNITS ADDED),
)</p>
<p>Berkeley is really nice about accepting credits from accredited institutions. If you have any credits, you should make sure you send Berkeley that college’s transcript so your units can transfer. For some classes if you plan on using the units to also skip out of some classes, you may need to show them a class rubric</p>