"she met with three advisers prior to first semester, and is about to meet with a couple more before registering for spring.’ Say what? 5 advisors?
I don’t see this as “unfair” treatment of AP classes she took in high school, but maybe biting off more than she can chew in college. If you don’t want a 5th or 6th year, you pare back. She may be in a newish/revamped major, but the practicality of minors is something one should vet before applying. And so that applies to her grad school plans, too- make sure you know what they really want to see and how the target programs work.
“I wasn’t sure if anyone else had encountered prerequisites for required courses that are not part of the required foundation/core.” I’d guess many of us have. One set is core, the other is her specific major.
My oldest son is graduating early with a double major in Economics/Mathematics. He had 30 AP credits.
He was able to use the higher level calculus required for his Math degree to satisfy the lower level classes required for his Economics degree. Since he already satisfied his history/science through AP classes he was able to get a semester ahead in Economics by taking both foundation classes in his first semester along with Calc 2.
My middle son is not able to graduate early with Music major at a different university. The Music sequence takes whatever time it takes and AP classes lighten the workload along the way but the sequence takes 4 years because of the schedule of prerequisites.
I think it varies by school. I agree with others that minors are useless.
In our experience, one child was able to use AP credits to graduate a year early and do an accelerated Masters in the fourth year. Other child’s major requirements plus honors program (small program within larger honors college) made scheduling within 4 years a bit challenging, despite having over 200 credits by graduation (limited sections of required classes and stacked prereqs). Both benefitted from earlier registration times because of the AP credits they had. Both evaluated the value of specific AP tests senior year after college decisions were made and determined that only 3 of the 7 would add any value at their chosen schools. Made graduation time a bit less stressful to take fewer tests.
Without understanding the actual major or knowing the school, it is hard to make blanket statements. It is untrue that minors are never required/are useless or that study abroad is never required. Those might be true statements for the OP’s dd’s major, but they are not necessarily always true.
My dd has investigated numerous IS/IR programs where study abroad and a minor in a foreign language are both degree requirements for the major.
Mom- your point is well taken. But if the OP is aggravated that her D can’t graduate in four years (assuming that her major is IS/IR) a simple solution is to major in political science and just take a bunch of classes in the desired foreign language, make sure to include a few courses in the other relevant areas.
Majoring in IR is nice but if the major requires an extra year JUST FOR A BA I’m not sure it’s worth it- study what you want and get out in four years. Especially since this kid plans to get a graduate degree anyway. No grad program requires an IR major- you can get a Master’s in IR with an undergrad degree in econ, poli sci, global studies, government, urban planning, etc.
We don’t even know if it’s IR. That high school AP stats class may not erase the need for a specific college stats class related to the major, eg, one of the research stats classes. My girl’s APWH wasn’t accepted for her major
The major is not IR and there are no required minors, although this is all interesting input. My daughter just has lots of interests and wants to study many things – including an obscure language related to her heritage – as well as participate in honors. Clearly she will need to make some choices. Hopefully her choices will allow her to pursue more of her interests in graduate school.
My honest reaction to the original situation is that the school was not thoroughly investigated in order to ensure that the student’s needs would be met by the desired program. Knowing the frequency of course offerings, where the student is entering in the course sequence, how the dept will meet the needs of the individual student are all answers that should be determined prior to acceptance and enrollment. These should not be surprises sprung on a student during their first semester freshman yr.
Yes, the student can change majors if the major still fits her long term goals. I know that switching away from IR/IS to a different major would not satisfy my dd bc her primary love (as an 11th grader anyway) is actually the foreign language and IR/IS is one way she is investigating to create a world where that foreign language is marketable. Yes, she could get there by different routes, but those would not me ones she would want to take.
If it were my child, I might ask if transferring to a different university might make more sense. But again, the given info is so vague it is hard to decipher.
“For example, one course alone has five prerequisites that will not count toward the major or core requirements. Her major requires 21 courses on top of an extensive core (most of which she has fulfilled with AP), but that is deceiving because it is much more with prerequisites.”
Has she called attention to this to the dean? I have never heard of this and I have looked at many degree plans from several universities. This doesn’t sound right. Are you sure that particular course is required for the major? I have never seen a class with five pre-requisites, except the fifth class in a sequence and all the classes in a sequence counted toward the major.
21 courses for a major on top of a core is about right. Most plans I have seen are roughly 20 courses core and 20 courses major. But there are usually no pre-requisites in the core (except for calc 1 being a pre-req for calc 2 and both counting in the core and same for sciences). In the 20 in the major, it is usually similar in that a pre-req is the first class in a four class sequence and all four count.
if the school cares about graduation rates enough to have a special program, then they care about graduation rates and they will care about getting her out in time.
Actually, 21 courses at a semester system school where students typically take 32 courses over 8 semesters is a high volume major (perhaps an engineering major). A typical liberal arts major would probably need 12 to 16 courses at such a school (some, like music, may tend to require more, though).
Now, if the school is a quarter system school where students typically take 48 courses over 12 quarters, a 21 course major would be in the typical range for a liberal arts major.
Since the OP has not named the school or major or given any other details, everyone else is just making wild guesses about the possible scenarios, including speculation about hard-to-believe claims like one course needing five prerequisites that are otherwise not specified for the major.
@ucbalumnus It is the semester system. The major plan lists all the courses and makes a note about how the courses may have additional prerequisites that are not met through the major. That started me on my research, and I discovered that several courses had prerequisites not met in the major, including the one with five prerequisites. It is ridiculous. I believe that with it being a new major that no one has gone through yet, they don’t realize the problems they have created.
After seeing everyone’s advice, I am convinced that they will make some adjustments when my daughter points out the issues – if she still wants to continue with this major. She is weighing her options knowing that courses are not offered regularly. Also, I discovered that some required courses that say they are offered “every spring” or “every fall” are not in fact offered at those times, because more than one course offered “every spring” is not in the course offerings for this spring, and registration is in a couple of weeks. Looks a bit problematic to me, and inherent in the major itself (I hope this is not the case with other majors, but it doesn’t seem to be from my research).
Sorry everyone about the vagueness. My daughter has a stack of scholarships including departmental and major area scholarships, and in her small niche would be easily identified if I said her major and gave other details. I’m just trying to protect her privacy. I appreciate all the advice and input.
I can completely empathize with OP. My DD’s original major flowchart, available online, failed to include one of the requirements, just omitted it altogether. At least we realized it when planning her 4 yr class plan before freshman year. That one class is a prereq for another required class, which is a prereq for another – so the ripple effect of that one mistake became significant. Another requirement is offered in only one section a semester, with many prereqs needed ahead and MANY major requirements depending on its completion. The result is quite a puzzle. 60 credits of AP had zero effect on making the puzzle work.
I know she has probably done this, but have her double check and make sure the prerequisites are listed as AND and not OR. Perhaps only one of the five classes listed is required. She should definitely map out a 4 year plan with her advisor.
I just double-checked the four-year plan online for my DD’s major, and it does not show any of the prerequisites or even mention them. That is the document we used last year to analyze how she would fit in her honors courses, language electives and a minor. We had put together a complete four-year plan based off of that document. It is disappointing to discover it left out so many required courses and was completely deceptive. I only found out about prerequisites through a different document and the course catalog online.
Also, the honors program information was misleading because there was every indication that requirements could be fulfilled by honors courses offered in a student’s major. It was not spelled out that this depends on the major, and that some majors don’t really offer any honors courses, like my daughter’s major.
For everyone out there who thinks we did not plan or think ahead, we actually did make a four-year plan on available information last year, and my daughter used that in making her decision to attend this university and enroll in the classes and programs she chose. She is so disappointed right now that she can’t do all the things she planned to do. She’ll have to make some choices now and that’s that.
Everyone should be warned that the four-year plans and other information provided by universities can have serious errors, like another parent also pointed out. I’m glad we are discovering this first semester of freshmen year rather than down the road so she can make adjustments in her plans going forward.
Mommyrocks – check if your daughter can create an “honors by contract” class in one of her major requirements. Some schools will accept such an arrangement if the professor augments a regular class with an extra project or research, making it honors.
Just as a note, there is no such requirement that one has to take an AP class in order to take the AP test and get AP credit. There is a thread on CC about AP ‘self-study’. I know some kids who took several AP tests and still got ~4’s with very minimal study at all and not taking the class, there is a thread on CC about it.
@mom2collegekids Yes. At UMN only honors students completing honors requirements can graduate summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude. Students who are not in the honors program can graduate with high distinction or with distinction for having a high GPA.
Several colleges that my D had considered were similar: they had a Univ-wide Honors program, but you had to take specific classes only, and in one case, almost all of the courses offered were lit/hume. Since she had AP credits for several of these classes, and she was a budding science major, she passed on the Honors program and instead, went after Dept and Latin Honors.