How to get your kid to graduate within 4 years

Parents Forum
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<p>Our S entered his private U in CA with the maximum 60 AP credits. This helped with his GE requirements and he COULD have graduated in 3 or 3.5 years but we wanted him to take the full 4 years and take a few courses that he actually enjoyed, as well as cultivating friendships, research, and graduating to a job. He did receive 3 excellent job offers in February of his SR year, one of which he accepted.</p>

<p>For our D, it has been harder for her, as she was not accepted into the school she was majoring in until her JR year and she has had some health issues that have been a setback. She is still making good progress and will be graduating with a degree after 4.5 years at the private U, + 3 semesters and 12 weeks of summer school at in-state community college & university.</p>

<p>If the child can remain as healthy as possible, it is MUCH easier to graduate in a timely fashion. Being able to get the courses needed is a key factor–not getting the courses has delayed the academic progress of many I know who are attending various state Us. Having good guidance from counselors/advisors is also very helpful in navigating graduation requirements, especially in large universities.</p>

<p>To us, more important than graduating is graduating with or toward a job in the field the student studied in. S was able to do this and we have every hope that D will also.</p>

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<p>A lot of the advice given here doesn’t always apply. We had two graduate from a large top 25 state university.</p>

<p>First had no idea what he wanted to major in going in. Tried many different majors before settling on one his junior year and still graduated on time.</p>

<p>Second was in engineering and still graduated on time with a 3.8 GPA. </p>

<p>Biggest reason was: expectation. They knew that, barring something like a major illness, we would pay for four years.</p>

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<p>I was assuming that the primary reason to make sure your child graduates in 4 years was to save yourself thousands of dollars in tuition. If so, I’m confused by all the advice to take summer classes. We couldn’t afford full tuition plus thousands more each summer too, and besides our kids needed to work full time in the summer for job experience and to earn their book and spending money for the coming year. One class at our flagship costs over $2000 last time I checked years ago, and it’s not as though someone from a different college can automatically get into the popular 101 courses either. Furthermore, the better colleges and universities don’t readily accept credits from community colleges or some state schools. Also, AP course credit can and does backfire, as was pointed out upthread. Just because you can use it, doesn’t mean you should. So the student skips a lower level course assuming he already covered that material in high school. If he’s wrong, and he very well might be, he may really, really struggle in the next level, have to drop the class, and lose time and money.</p>

<p>The best thing my kids did was that in the beginning of freshman year, they plotted out a 4-year course plan based on major requirements and available scheduling information. They spread out their electives and required courses, and as much as possible evenly distributed the courses they thought would be the hardest. Naturally, their plans had to be modified with changing conditions (teacher taking a sabbatical so no course that year), but the basic framework was in place early on. My S commented that at his Ivy, a surprising number of kids didn’t plan well and ended up with a ridiculous senior year schedule of 5 difficult upper-level courses in their major each semester and if they failed any of them, they couldn’t graduate. </p>

<p>A friend’s D at a community college made it a point to get to know the dean. Several times she was able to get the woman to override the computer and allow D into classes that were closed due to capacity enrollment. She showed herself to be a diligent, organized student and alway presented compelling reasons. Another friend’s husband drove to the campus registrar’s office and said he can NOT afford more than 4 years of tuition and that his D needed this class this semester in order to stay on track. I don’t know that I’d recommend that or do it myself, but it worked in his case. Also, it helps tons if the student himself is responsible and gets on the computer exactly at midnight when registration opens and signs up for the classses he wants. Kids dawdle and then find themselves closed out of classes they need.</p>

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<p>A couple of the schools my kids looked at required 128 or 132 hour to graduate, with 15 hours a semester being a full load. They were small private schools and the only reason I saw for the requirement was to pretty much force the students into paying for summer school or an extra semester.</p>

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<p>Not a surprise, summer school taught by non tenured faculty can be a good money maker for the school. If merit or other aid is available for summer it’s not a problem but paying by the credit hour full fare plus fees could get ugly in a hurry.</p>

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<p>missypie–do you mean they could only take 15 credits or that was average? When I was in college everyone took at least 16 credits, often up to 18. You paid the same up to 18 credits so why not? Most everyone graduated on time without taking summer classes. Today that same school reports grad rates in two ways, one is overall grad rate, the other is kids that started freshman year “on time” and finished in 4 years. That rate is 90%. I wish more schools would publish that rate vs just an overall rate. I think it is more telling.</p>

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<p>Both girls picked expensive private schools that fortunately had high 4-year graduation rates. In fact both schools get Concerned if you don’t graduate in four years. It’s an expectation.</p>

<p>On top of that we made it clear that we could afford 4 years each and that was it. Any “victory lap” year was going to be on them. I think they both make strategic use of the AP credits they came in with, but both colleges also accepted only a limited amount of AP credit.</p>

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<p>These days, a lot of colleges have old exams for introductory courses on their web sites. A student considering skipping an introductory course with AP credit can try the old final exam for the college course to see how well s/he knows the material from the college’s point of view.</p>

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<p>It could be that the school requiring 128 credit hours to graduate had only 4 credit hour courses (as opposed to a mix of 3 and 4 credit hour courses, or courses of various other credit hour values), and expected students to complete 4 courses per semester (16 credit hours per semester).</p>

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<p>What does “started freshman year ‘on time’” mean? Does it mean no need for remedial course work? How much worse is the 4-year graduation rate for not “on time” freshmen?</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus–would you get off the “remedial coursework track”…</p>

<p>On time=fall after senior year of high school. The kids coming out of our schools do NOT take remedial classes…it’s a CA thing remember…</p>

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<p>At at least some of the top colleges, you have to register for and complete a certain # of classes by the end of your first year and a certain # of classes by the end of your second year. Your adviser has to sign your course list before you can register. No adviser will sign unless you are registering for enough classes. </p>

<p>Not too long ago, there was a message from a student attending one such college on these boards. He’d withdrawn from a class he was failing and, having registered for the minimum # of classes, he was in trouble. That meant summer school. It also meant summer school THAT summer. Until he took an approved summer course, he would not be allowed to register for sophomore year because he would not have met the minimum # of courses completed to allow him to register.</p>

<p>In addition, some of these schools have distribution or core requirements. Your adviser is required to make sure that you have completed a certain number by the end of your first and second years. Again, if your schedule doesn’t meet these requirements, you’re not allowed to register.</p>

<p>Almost everyone graduates in 4 years. Those that don’t take time off. They are not allowed to stay on, taking 2 classes a semester as you can at many colleges. Only a few students take time off, and I firmly believe that part of the reason is that it’s less enticing to postpone graduation when everyone else in your own class has graduated than when half your class is taking a fifth year.</p>

<p>Of course, these schools are very selective and they enroll kids who are good bets for succeeding academically. Moreover, this isn’t a feasible system for schools in which many students are working full time and taking classes. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I think parents of “kids” who are going to attend college full time should be wary of the colleges where it is common for kids to stick around for 5 or 6 years. One member of my extended family never finished college. One reason is that he kept putting off the required math class. The longer you’ve been away from your last math class, the tougher taking it is. I tried to tell him that to no avail. At my kid’s top school, it is not only “highly recommended” that you take a foreign language and a math class --both distribution requirements–your first semester, the advisers practically twist your arm to force you to do so. The weaker your skills in those areas, the less likely you’re going to get out of their offices with a signed course schedule without having those courses on your schedule. </p>

<p>In choosing among schools, I think parents and “kids” should check to see whether there are these sorts of processes in place. But even if your “kid” is going to directional state U with a 40% graduation rate, I think you can follow the rules yourself. I do NOT believe in taking only core/distribution/gen ed requirements your first year–that’s a bad way to get enthused about school. But if a college requires foreign language or math classes to graduate, take them freshman year–even if they will be tough for your kid and the temptation is to ease into college. I’m NOT recommending taking a super tough schedule. I am recommending that if your kid isn’t good at math or foreign language, that (s)he take them at the beginning because the longer (s)he waits, the tougher it will be to do well in them. (I’m assuming your student will be continuing in the same foreign language.)</p>

<p>Do a regular degree audit. Don’t just say “I’ll only pay for 4 years.” Say “you have to finish all of the required gen ed/distribution/core requirements and half the required number of course credits by the end of sophomore year or the Bank of Mom& Dad will close.” (Obviously, you can make an exception if your child gets sick or has some other unforeseen difficulty.)</p>

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<p>Check the 4-year graduation rates; our mistake. DS at LAC where they are working hard to make the 4-year graduation rate closer to 70%.</p>

<p>And echo MaineLonghorn along with the sigh.</p>

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<p>The need for remediation is not confined to CA.</p>

<p>"According to Complete College America – a Washington-based nonprofit aimed at increasing college completion – four in 10 high school graduates are required to take remedial courses when they start college. According to Cincinnati.com, two-thirds of those students attending four-year colleges in Ohio and Kentucky fail to earn their degrees within six years – a number that is on par with national statistics. </p>

<p>College completion rates are even lower at two-year and community colleges. In Ohio and Kentucky, only 6.4 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively, of remedial students earn an associate’s degree in three years. The rest either require more than three years, or withdraw."</p>

<p>This is why Ohio public universities have banded together to try to reduce the prevalence of costly of non-credit, remedial classes.</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see how the lower-scoring students whose ACT scores place them out of remedial classes actually do in their non-remedial courses.</p>

<p>[Students</a> can avoid remedial courses in college if they get minimal ACT or SAT scores | cleveland.com](<a href=“http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/01/students_can_avoid_remedial_co.html]Students”>Students can avoid remedial courses in college if they get minimal ACT or SAT scores - cleveland.com)</p>

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<p>I am not so sure the colleges that require 128 or 132 credits are trying to get the students to stay longer. It is possible that they are adjusting for students coming in with credits from high school and want them to spend 4 years. </p>

<p>It does feel like engineering schools usually seem to have more credits required for graduation.</p>

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<p>When I went through RPI in the 80s the curriculum required 5 courses for 6 of the semesters and 6 courses for 2 of the semesters in order to meet the minimum graduation requirements. I know CU Boulder was another one with overload semesters required for a 4 year graduation. Many could not handle this.</p>

<p>We have told our son that he has 4 years on our dime. As a kid with 1710 SAT and no AP credits going into EECS, it will be tough.</p>

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<p>GeminiMom–take the community college kids out of that equation and the numbers look a LOT different…</p>

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–seriously, if you put all B’s on the ACT you should get higher than an 18 (ok, maybe not quite) but kids that can’t get above an 18 on the ACT probably aren’t 4 year college material. The AVERAGE composite score in our high school is 25…</p>

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<p>Even better, take a foreign language for several years in middle and high school and get a high-enough score on the SAT subject test for that language that you meet the foreign language requirement of most colleges.</p>

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I don’t view that as necessarily a good attribute. These colleges are operating more like factories churning out product and limiting them in order to do so. That’s fine if one conforms but what if someone wants to change majors, wants to do a different minor, do more exploration, or just feels like taking some additional courses because they just feel like it? </p>

<p>IMO this is where there’s an advantage to many state colleges vs many private colleges (keyword ‘many’ - I’m generalizing) - the students at the former can be more flexible and if they need to (because of switching majors) or just want to explore additional courses, they can do so not only because they’re permitted to, but also because it’s usually affordable to do so relative to trying to do it at a private U.</p>

<p>Another possible advantage to coming into college with a lot of AP credits - even if they’re of limited value in obviating the course load, they can still count as ‘credits’ and thus place the student in accelerated standing such that they enter as a sophomore standing rather than freshman and get a higher priority for signing up for courses. This only works at some colleges but it’s another plus to the AP courses.</p>

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<p>I think parents also need to realize that there are some majors that no matter how proactive you are, just can’t be done in 4 years. Nursing is one of the big ones. I also don’t think having to take a lot of classes over the summer qualifies as graduating in 4 years. That is just putting an extra year in different months on the calendar. I think the OP means 4 real years of college, not 4 years and 3 summers. That is the same as 5+ years. Colleges that we have visited have been very upfront about certain majors taking more than 4 years and to plan on that.</p>