Hello all. Just as the topic questions asks.
If financial burdens weren’t an issue, what would be the general consensus on a 5th year of undergrad? Are there others reasons one shouldn’t consider them? Or, in this case, would it be more of a “sure, knock yourself out” kind of thing?
Opinions welcome 
If you have to the money I would recommend doing the 5th year. I mean even though it does not look great on a resume, if you are rich you can probably use family connections to get a great job. You are very lucky. I can’t even go to an out is state back up school which is great for my major. I have to go to a mediocre private school which gave me a free ride
Assuming that you mean extra semesters (beyond 8) of school (rather than 8 semesters with spaces in between for semesters off school in co-op jobs or some such)… the cost can be substantial, including both the cost of attending school and the delay in entering the work force for a higher paid job that one can get after earning a bachelor’s degree. Of course, some people may not have the choice, due to needing to take reduced course loads or attend school part time due to the need to work to earn money to support themselves through school.
Otherwise, academically less prepared students who may need remedial course work or who may have difficulty handing a full course load every semester may be more likely to need extra semesters of school.
@ucbalumnus What about students who use that 5th year for grad school application ‘boosting’?
I’m close friends with 4th years (they’re in my org.) who are intentionally staying a 5th year to work on research, or take extra grad level classes. I was surprised they were doing that, since that’s an extra year of costs, but there you go.
Mind you, these aren’t students who are at the normal pace, they’re almost all honors students and the like, so I was curious if this was a new trend.
Haven’t heard of that as a trend. Usually, the most advanced students take graduate level courses and other extra in-major electives, and do undergraduate research within their 8 semesters. Indeed, there is a push at many (public) universities to get students graduated as soon as they can, so that they do not take up space that could be used to enroll additional students.
Another common case of needing extra semesters would be transfer students whose prior schools did not offer all of the needed frosh/soph level courses for their majors, so that they need to “catch up” on these courses after transfer. But that does not seem to be what you are referring to.
I have heard of students delaying graduation for the purpose of raising their grade point average for law school admissions since law schools do not calculate post-bacceleaureate coursework in their consideration of one’s grades.
U of Rochester has a program called Take Five.
“The Take Five Scholars Program, unique to the University of Rochester, provides an additional semester or year, tuition-free. It offers the chance to pursue a demanding major and still enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the broad-based, intellectual enrichment of a liberal arts education.”
http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/students/opportunities/takefive/
Despite the handwringing, there actually is no “standard” number of years to complete college. People take a 5th, 6th, and beyond year all the time. All you’ll ever put on your resume/CV is the year that you graduated. No one cares.
Take a 5th year if you want. who cares?
State universities that are enrolled to capacity want to graduate students as soon as they are able to graduate, so that the (subsidized for in-state students) capacity can be used for more students. Here is an example of a policy: http://www.sjsu.edu/advising/120plus/ .
I realize that many Calif schools are impacted. Most universities don’t have this issue though.
If finances are really not a concern at all, then I guess there’s not really a problem. But at some schools, there’s a limit to the number of units you can take so you may have to take a lighter courseload.
If you don’t need to raise your GPA though, then you could take a gap year to boost your application for graduate school (I know several students who have done this with great success). You can work in a position related to what you would like to do (I know several who worked in research labs before grad school, some taught, some worked in homes for people with disabilities, some volunteered in hospitals, etc), while working on your applications. You may also be able to take graduate courses as a non-degree seeking student. It may even be easier than doing this while in school, since you won’t have to divide your time between work and classes.
The only students I knew who took a fifth year did so because they took lighter courseloads (for various reasons) at some point during college, but I also don’t know anyone that would just disregard the money it would cost to spend an extra year at school. All the students I knew who were on the normal pace and/or were honors students graduated on time (having already done research during undergrad and/or taken graduate level courses). Many of the ones who intended to go to graduate/professional school applied their 4th year, but some took a gap year to apply. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a new trend, but if they have the money to burn, sure, I don’t think there’s any harm.
The way they told me, their scholarships were still sufficient to cover most of their costs if they chose to stay a 5th year. Most of them had some sort of merit scholarship, or so they say.
My graduate student mentor told me she stayed a 5th year, at the request of her professor to stay in the professor’s research group. She took a ton of units while in her 5th year, and the previous 4, so she graduated with around ~280 units. That’s crazy to me, but she’s that kind of person lol.
Finances are almost always an issue, but I would stay in school my whole life if they weren’t. More realistically, I would stay an extra year if I could get scholarships for it.
My guess is that you will take 10 years to get a Ph.D. if that is your goal and end up working at Starbucks.
Other posts by the OP imply enrollment in a California public school, though.
My dd stayed a fifth year because she went to an OOS that didn’t have an EECS program and she wanted to complete her exposure to more CS to be competitive. Turns out she was right. She was hired as an EE/software engineer.
But you also have to consider lost wages from not working that year (assuming, of course, they would have otherwise been working. Also, it is unlikely (certainly not impossible though!) that they all had full scholarships that covered tuition, room and board, books, and supplies for five full years of school (with no loans, of course). So there is always potential money that could be lost. For some, when you crunch the numbers, it might come out equal, but I would argue that for many it’s still a loss financially (unless, of course, you have a full scholarship that would extend to that fifth year). I’m sure it’s worth it for those who do it, but that’s not the case for everyone.
And that wouldn’t even be possible at my school! 240, I think, was the limit for us and that was only if you were a double major =D
Why couldn’t she volunteer in her professor’s research group after graduation? I suppose she may have not had the time, if she was also working a full-time job (though I know students who continued volunteering/working in the labs they worked in as undergrads, while working full-time jobs after graduation). I loved my PI in undergrad but I don’t know if I would have stayed an extra year for him unless he was willing to pay my tuition lol. I would have happily continued working in his lab though after graduation, if I hadn’t moved away for grad school.
@baktrax I can’t speak for all of them, but some of the 4th years that I talked to did have a full-paying scholarship, the Gates Millennium Scholarship, so they are able to do the 5th year (GMS covers up to 5 yrs of undergrad).
As for my graduate student mentor, she was also a GMS scholar, so staying the extra year incurred no financial hit for her. She had received Phd offers for schools, but she decided to take the extra year simply because she liked the research and she could pretty much just take an extra year of leisure lol
Having that big a scholarship that covers more than four academic years is relatively unusual.
@ucbalumnus The way they tell me, it had a >2% awarding chance. Apparently, it’s an equal split of 10 years between grad and undergrad.
If so, more power to them.