<p>I think another factor in the 6 year graduation rate is those kids who aren’t prepared for college and need to take remedial courses. </p>
<p>Most kids I know are finishing in 4 years unless they make a significant major change after a few years.</p>
<p>They simply cannot be challenging courses. The rule of thumb is two hours study for every hour in class. You may be amassing credits, but you’re not getting an education. </p>
<p>If this story is true, my respect for Sonoma State just hit rock bottom.</p>
<p>@emeraldkity, Congrats to your daughter! Thank you for posting about the 4 yr limit on the financial aid. That is something I will definitely pay attention to now when weighing choices!</p>
<p>33 hours of contact time for 23 credits that represent 13 individual courses would indicate that a fair number of those courses are one credit or half-credit courses. To me this looks like a Phys Ed major who is loading up on the specific skills courses this term, so it may not be all that unusual. Even if I’m wrong about that, enough students take 20+ credits a term so that while fluteloop’s schedule is uncommon, it certainly is not unique.</p>
<p>Happykid took 19 credits her second semester of college (four 3 credit classes, one 4 credit class, one 2 credit class, and one 1 credit class) and arrived late to one of the classes in her major field once a week because it overlapped with a laboratory section for the science class her advisor wanted her to take. When someone asked her why she was taking so many classes, she just looked them in the eye and said, “Because I’m an over-achiever.” The next semester she was back to a more workable 16 credits and I slept easier at night.</p>
<p>Musical Theater is another discipline that requires a lot of workshops and classes at single credit and two credit levels. My son had what I thought were ridiculous number of classes in his major. It still is difficult juggling all of that in ones schedule.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that there are a number of majors that are 5 year such as teaching and accounting, and even more if you decide even a year into college that you want to go that route. Unless summer courses are a possibility, there is no way to get some of these majors in 4 years at some school, some in most schools. It can come down to being focused on getting out in 4 with whatever, to make it happen.</p>
<p>What I found with some of those 1 &2 credit courses in hands on disciplines, was that the time required outside of class was even more than a lecture/lab sort of class.
So if 15 credits of traditional coursework required 30 hours outside of class for reading/writing/discussion, a performance based class could require twice as much time.</p>
<p>I agree it is not always the students fault that it takes 6 years (although sometimes it is) Due to state support decreasing at our school many sections of classes have been cut. An example is Calc II required for all sophomore classes (this is in engineering) If the student can’t get into Calc II then graduation is pushed back a semester. Students can take summer school, but depending on financial aid this isn’t an option for everyone. </p>
<p>Something to ask when visiting schools-- how many required classes for the major have waiting lists? How many students usually get off of the waiting list?</p>