<p>Hello, I was wondering if it's possible to graduate from a four-year college in two years if courses are taken over the summer? Thanks.</p>
<p>It depends on the school.</p>
<p>But theoretically, if you need 120 hours to graduate and you enter with say …15 due to AP courses, then you’d need 105. You take 9 each summer… that’s 87. Divide that over four semesters and that’s 21-22 hours a semester.</p>
<p>It’s a little crazy and your college may not allow you to even pursue that.</p>
<p>Probably, at least in theory. (You’d have to make sure that you can squeeze all of your major and general education requirements into two years, and you would either need a year’s worth of AP credits or be willing to sacrifice your life to handle an insane course load.)</p>
<p>In practice, you would be pretty out of options once you are done with college. Your heavy course load would prohibit you from gaining valuable work experience, and you are not in school long enough to become a strong candidate for many graduate programs (which might value advanced coursework, research experience, etc).</p>
<p>Here are the stories of two students who finished their degrees in two years: [Daily</a> Bruin :: Economy affects length of students? stay at UCLA](<a href=“http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2009/09/economy-affects-graduation-plans]Daily”>http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2009/09/economy-affects-graduation-plans) and [Smart</a> Set - Feature - UCLA Magazine Online](<a href=“UCLA Magazine | UCLA”>UCLA Magazine | UCLA)</p>
<p>I know someone that graduated in 2 years and went straight to med school at age 20. 
it’s possible if you can apply enough AP credits toward graduation requirements and then stack hours each semester + summers. however, I feel like you won’t be doing yourself any favors by skipping out on such a big life experience.</p>
<p>It would also largely depend on your major, and how often and how many sections of particular courses in your major are offered by your school. Some courses are only offered every other year, for example, and courses within your major might also be scheduled for incompatible time slots in a given semester.</p>
<p>Why would you want to? It’s not like whatever comes after undergrad for you is any better.</p>
<p>Most likely no, you’ve got to think about it like this</p>
<p>1.) Prerequisites. Maybe there is a set path of courses you have to take one after another. If there are more than 4 in a set path than you’ll be there more than 2 years.</p>
<p>2.) Not all your AP credits will matter. If you are an engineer for example AP Gov, AP US History, AP Econ, AP English, AP (insert language here), are all fine and dandy but you are just overkilling your SS/HU requirement and not getting more ahead with each one.</p>
<p>3.) Not every class is offered in the summer. If a core course isn’t offered in the summer or a course that has one of those set paths I mentioned earlier there is nothing you can take instead. You’ll just have to wait around until Fall.</p>
<p>In Washington you can do running start where you take college classes during high school that count for hs and college credit. You still have to apply as a freshman but you’d technically have junior status if you started running start as a hs junior. Only the public colleges and universities accept those credits. The private ones do not.</p>
<p>[U-Va.'s</a> One-Year Wonder - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html]U-Va.'s”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html)</p>
<p>Possible? Absolutely. If I had wanted to just get my one degree and my one major, I could have easily been outta here in 2 years. I came in with a ton of credits, took 18 my first semester, 16 or 17 my second, 14 over the summer (study abroad), and then if I had taken 18 last semester and 18 this semester, I’d be done. </p>
<p>However, I am in a major that doesn’t require you take X class before Y most times. I have a very flexible major. </p>
<p>Why would you WANT to though?</p>
<p>“Why would you want to?”</p>
<p>Money.</p>
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<p>Quite a bit of schools charge when you take over their maximum amount of credits – that’s providing if they even allow it. Not to mention, summer courses are expensive. So the amount of money you’d be paying for all of these extra courses will be very close to the cost of an additional two years. </p>
<p>And that isn’t even taking into account other factors such as stress and the lack of life.</p>
<p>Even without summer sessions, a “freshman” who enters with lots of AP and/or transferable community college credits can graduate with two years of normal course loads in a major that does not have a large number of required courses or long prerequisite chains. However, that can take some exacting schedule planning, which may depend on courses being offered at just the right time. And many such students would still want to take an extra year to be able to take more courses that are interesting and/or useful (though money to pay for the school may be the constraint or motivation to graduate quickly).</p>
<p>Anyone know what that 62-unit schedule (versus 15 normal and 19 as the usual maximum at UCLA) referred to in one of the linked articles above consisted of?</p>
<p>I could’ve graduated in 2 years if I had taken 6 classes per quarter my 2nd year.</p>
<p>
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<p>Probably mostly English classes</p>
<p>Just noticed that it says it wasn’t “seven upper division English classes.” It must have included some GE’s and probably some independent study too to fit in all the hours.</p>
<p>I’m graduating with my Bachelor’s 1 year after high school, but I came in with 90 credits from CLEP credits and dual enrollment credit. Technically, it’s two years of taking actual college classes (with only one summer session). So, in answer to your question: yes, it’s entirely possible. You just have to figure out exactly what you need, test out of whatever classes would be repeats of things learned elsewhere and overload on credits a lot. You may or may not have to sacrifice a social life, but you will not sleep–I know from experience.</p>
<p>AS A WORD OF WARNING: It is definitely not for everyone, and most faculty and administration really really discourage it and will go out of their way to make it difficult to do. In fact, there are a lot of policies that can make it almost impossible if you don’t know how to get around them. I had to go through a lot of hoops and get special permission to get into a good portion of my classes. As much as it was a good choice for me, I generally warn against it because it is emotionally, mentally, and socially taxing beyond what you might expect. It’s especially very difficult being significantly younger than everyone in your class–even if you can handle it academically.</p>
<p>On a similar note to above, I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to go to grad school. You need recommendations from professors and you need time to develop those relationships. 2 years is pushing it quite a bit. Plus, you might not get a lot of research/internship/independent study experience.</p>
<p>Sure it is, just look at James Franco at UCLA :P</p>
<p>I am going to do it. I entered into college with a total of 3 college courses under my belt. I took a full load in the summers and 6 classes each semester. I started in the summer of 2011 and I will be done the summer of 2013. It is a lot of work…but definitely worth it. I would not have had it any other way. I get to take a year off before law school to work and save money!</p>
<p>I think maturity matters a lot. Even if you’re an absolute genius, people won’t feel very comfortable hiring someone who’s 2-3 years younger than average. A lot happens in college, and maturity is something that comes with time, not the number of courses you take. In the real world, it’s all about how well you fit the bill. You don’t want to endure two years of insanity, without any commitment to building your own character and interpersonal skills through work and student/community organizations. It’s a double loose</p>
<p>I looked into it at the end of my freshman year just for fun.</p>
<p>I took a bunch of math in high school, and one class each semester freshman year, and if I took 3 or so math classes a semester sophomore year (and I think 17/18 a semester) I could have finished all of the required math classes and gotten enough credits to graduate. I don’t know if it would have actually worked, since the major requires a certain number of humanities/social science/literature/etc and I might not have met all the requirements.</p>
<p>Either way, I would have a very basic math degree and not much else. I want to be an engineer first and foremost, so this would be even more pointless.</p>