The area is not conducive to student off campus living, IMO. It’s kind of a bubble in affluent suburbia.
Can she take 3 courses each semester plus an honors thesis? Lots of people used to do that: they took five courses a couple of semesters in order to make the space available. The honors thesis is really a culmination of one’s educational experience, IMHO. It’s been a long time since I was there, so this might be an out of date option. And back in the day, you had to be eligible for the thesis, have a proposed topic, find an advisor, and so forth, all of which would be more complicated from France.
If employability or graduate school is a concern, an honors thesis can make a difference.
“Catty”? How sexist can a comment be?
Let’s remember this is about the final courses for a major, in senior year. Not just taking some course in France or online to get a credit. At the sort of school we’re talking about, except for kids who somehow managed to get all the major requirements done early, the expectation is a higher level of focus.
@Massmomm, the first thing I take from your post is that your daughter is having a wonderful and enriching experience in France. That’s wonderful! Under the best of circumstances, coming back to reality would have its issues. Having read through this thread, I wholeheartedly agree with you that taking five classes at once would be a very bad idea. Now I have some questions.
How likely is it that she will change her mind once she returns to school and readjusts to the environment?
What are her plans for living next year, e.g. will she be sharing a suite with friends? If so, have they too been abroad? Will that help her to readjust her focus from getting out quickly to living her senior year to its fullest?
Is there a special study abroad adviser who works with students coming back from their study abroad semester or year? If so, would that person help in going over the reactions experienced by many students on their return and dealing with the reverse culture shock?
Will she listen to you if you tell her outright it’s a bad idea? (Mine would not.) Will she listen to her academic adviser? Can you communicate your concerns to that person? Can you insist that she not take any steps before talking to (insert person or people)?
Will she be writing a thesis? (Sorry if I missed this.) I cannot imagine how she’d manage to do that and manage a heavier courseload on top of it. If graduating with honors is something she wants, she needs to factor that into the mix and also coordinate with the person supervising the thesis.
Unless there’s some unusual exception I’m unaware of, most colleges including this college if I’m guessing correctly(topflight women’s LAC) require one not only meet a higher than satisfactory minimum GPA overall and in one’s major, but also have already proposed, submitted, and had the adviser(s) approve the honors thesis topic by sometime in the first semester junior year or around a minimum of around 2-3 semesters from graduation.
If one has wanted until one only has had 1-2 semesters from graduation to even start thinking about doing an honors thesis, that boat has likely already sailed.
Also, doing an honors thesis tends to greatly add to the workload and pressure of one’s late junior and/or senior year(s) unless one enjoys intensive research and juggling that along with other courses, daily life/errands, allocating time for job search/interviews, etc.
Knew several undergrad classmates at my LAC who dropped their honors thesis during their senior year because the workload and pressure from the honors thesis became too much for them.
Might it not depend on what 5 courses are needed to graduate? If the student just needs 5 classes, any 5, it may be possible to find 2 of the 5 that are easy, or at least easy for this student. The student has just spent a year in France, so maybe some of the French courses or art history courses or basket weaving courses would be easy for her. Maybe 1 or 2 courses that didn’t require extensive research papers, or reading 20 books in a semester. Yes, 5 courses of super advanced math or translating manuscripts from the 12th century may not be do-able, but 5 others may work.
I had to make a decision whether to graduate or take an extra semester. Money was an issues, so I took 18 credits one semester and 21 another. Yes, I was busy, but I had an internship that took physical time but not a lot of studying, and I took a few other courses that were interesting but not, for me, that difficult. I’d completed most of the courses for my major so could just pick what I wanted. Some of those classes were the most interesting I took in college and I use what I learned in them all the time.
I do think parents should advise, but this ‘child’ has now spent a year abroad, is approaching graduation, wants to move on. If she thinks she can do it, and the school allows it, it might be time for the parent to let her make that decision.
If this is the college I’m suspecting, there are really few/no courses one can consider “easy” in the sense of being able to slack off without risking one’s grade…and I don’t mean getting “only” a B.
Also, unless OP’s D was an exception in skipping straight into 200 and higher level courses from the start of her first year, it’s very likely she’s exhausted all her ged/ed elective requirements and the last few courses are intermediate(200 level) or even advanced/capstone courses(300 level and up) necessary to complete at least one of her majors.
@massmom fwiw, I totally agree with finishing both degrees. While some can argue they are not strong “practical” degrees in the business sense, I think two make a much stronger statement than one. I have one considering french as a possible major and it would be a first or second major, not an only. There are many companies that hire students with a less practical fields of study, but bring in a rich mind with unique perspectives. It takes more than engineering to make the world go round.
I haven’t read every post in this thread, but re the BF thing… I don’t know how much that is influencing her change in plans, but is this something that could scare him off? Many men are known to run when the woman puts the cart before the horse. (And of course that could occur vice versa. Gotta be PC in this gender- neutral society of ours!) 
When having the opportunity to graduate early one could always
- Do a Co-op//internship
- Study abroad
- Do a 3-2 Master’s program
- Do research
- Take lab courses
and take the 4 years.
My daughter graduated in 2.5 years (HS Credits + some summer courses) but then finished her masters in 1.5 years…since we would pay for 4 years of college, she got a second degree within that time. We also told her not to rush but were not going to prevent her.
If you graduate early, you will be younger than others at work/grad school…my daughter wasn’t even 21 when she started grad school. Now she is a teacher at just barely 22.
She could spread out the courses and do other things (research/internship), take 4 courses plus a summer course, or take 5 courses.
She could. But she wants to drop one field, finish in one semester by enrolling in an overload, despite a history of not dealing well with stress. Crashing under some stress situations. OP’s problem isn’t simple.
What does your D want to do after graduation? It doesn’t seem like she is going to a graduate school, so she will need a job when she graduates. Depending on the kind of job she is looking for, in general there are more entry level (training programs) for June graduates. If she is happy with admin assistant kind of job then it doesn’t matter as much.
D2 is a senior this year. She took easier loads last fall to focus on LSAT, applying to law schools and jobs. It was not an easy semester. Now she is pretty much set with what she will be doing next year, she is taking fewer causes (3) and finishing up her honor thesis. She is working out more, connecting with old friends from freshman year, and putting a lot of effort into her thesis.
If your kid is prone to anxiety, having to come up with “life after college” in a short period of time and then possibly having to work/live on a low paying job may be too much for her. My kid tends to get anxious, and I saw it in her last fall.
Sorry if I missed a reference to this somewhere, but does the school have a policy about a minimum number of credits “in residence” in the year of graduation? If so, that could mean a student HAS to be on campus two semesters before graduating. For a student away now, one semester “in residence” might not be sufficient.
I know that can be required at some big schools, no idea if that might be a requirement here.
@SlackerMomMD, that is exactly what I am hoping. I have expressed my opinion to her, but with this, her advisor, whom she greatly respects, may be better.
Also something to consider is “interviewing” season…is there a certain time of year that most companies/organizations come to the college to interview for that major?
Thanks, all, for your thoughtful responses. I am actually going to share them with my daughter during our next Skype/Messenger talk. Even though she is very opinionated, she does listen to wisdom.
And for those who think this is all about the French boyfriend, no, it really isn’t. But I do think you’re right about her realizing she is tired of the pressure of her school. It is a great place, and she does have some close friends and faculty, but her time in England (last summer’s fellowship at Leeds University) and France has made her realize that academia doesn’t have to be such a pressure cooker.
And yes, she does want to go to grad school. Just not yet. I, for one, am very glad that she’s not talking so much about wanting to be a nun. 
UPDATE I shared your views with my daughter when we spoke this morning. She says she is willing to consider taking 3 classes one semester (the minimum) and 3 the next, so that she’d get both degrees and finish with her classmates in May. I am very relieved that she is open to suggestions, and I thank you all again for providing them!
That would give her more time for job searching, working part time or some other interesting activity. Sounds like a good plan.
Thanks for updating, always good to know how things progress and work out! Funny how kids will listen to anyone other than their parents sometimes. Will confess to doing the same thing - validating my opinions (or trying to steer them) by showing them posts from CC!
@Cobrat, I did an honors thesis at the school in question. A B+ average in the major was required–and this was not so easy to get at a time when the average grade given in any class was a C–and one had to receive an invitation. This, plus the selecting of a topic and an advisor, all happened at the end of junior year.
I misspoke earlier: I meant to say that some people took 2 regular courses plus the honors thesis senior year, not 3, which would have been a normal workload. They racked up extra courses during the second or third year in order to do this.
Unless things have changed a lot, there is no such thing as a “gut” at this school. No rocks for jocks. No basketweaving. Art History is one of the top departments.
I just can’t see any employer not impressed with a French major being bowled over by Medieval Studies. I can’t see either as an obvious path to a career but many majors are not. I can see advising someone not to leave college a semester early but the argument that a Medieval Studies Major will somehow help her is not very credible to me.