<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I just wanted to know the least amount of time taken to graduate in a BA program.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this person took the least amount of time but his accomplishments are impressive:
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html</a>
He completed a double major in 1 year and 1 summer. The article doesn’t explicitly mention what subjects he majored in but it appears to be math and physics from various clues in the article.</p>
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<p>Double major in 1 year and 1 summer???
That is not what impressive would mean in an AMERICAN EDUCATION.
Universities know the amount of time and work required by students to graduate within 3 to 4 years, so to graduate in 1 year and 1 summer might not serve the applicant well especially if they are very young and applying to Grad school.
If you read graduate school thread on here, you will find various instances where applicants were denied for being too young even with EXCELLENT GRADES &TEST SCORES, most of them made it through high-school/home-school in very fewer years, and rushed through college as-well; some with the combination of several online classes - but Grad school advice them to take 2 or more years off: travel the world, find a job and get some “REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE” before graduate school. The same was not the case for applicants who took the required amount of time to graduate from college and at-least 20 or 21 years old at the time of graduation.
So this might as well be one of those times where finishing first especially under 3 years might not serve one well. WORK-HARD, follow the program plan and use extra-time to volunteer, join clubs and organizations and participate in sports etc.</p>
<p>@i<em>wanna</em>be_Brown‌ please don’t leave CC!</p>
<p>@coco2018, not necessarily. I know someone who graduated at age 17 then completed a PhD at age 21, both at top schools many people on this site are swooning over. I’m not a big fan of rushing through in such a hurry (this person eventually abandoned the field of study in favor of something completely different). I especially wouldn’t rush through college in a year like the young man in the article did. Wondering how well those B’s served him when he applied to law school, and what law schools might have thought about a college transcript that was half AP classes. APs in our school are very weak in the writing department compared to college courses and he probably really shortchanged himself. Also, he wasn’t going to be able to attend law school straight out of college because he had no college transcript to show on applications his first year, just a bunch of AP classes. Hence the masters, I assume. So he could as well have done the undergrad program over two years and enjoyed his time in college better.</p>
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<p>I knew a girl who graduated in 3 semesters + 2 summers (the one before freshman year and the one inbetween freshman and sophomore year), so they graduated when her peers were half-way through sophomore year. I think she was only 18 at this time. She went on to graduate school, though not PhD. </p>
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<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901779.html</a></p>
<p>He took 23 credits first semester, found that he had too much free time, so he took 37 credits second semester. He had 72 credits going in (presumably AP and college courses taken while in high school), but the school requires at least 60 of the 120 credits to be taken there.</p>
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<p>There are programs where you can skip a college degree and go right to gradauate school. You have to take a certain component of courses at college and maintain a certain GPA. Penn State/Jefferson Medical College have a program for Medical School. I know Michigan has the same program; Sanjay Gupta was in that program. I know my alma mater, University of Rochester had some 3/2 programs where you took 3 years of college classes and 2 years of graduate classes and received both degrees. It has not been my experience that gradaute schools do not accept early graduates. I know a lot of people who finished a B.A or B.S. in 3 years but I have no idea what “the record” is. </p>
<p>@ DEfour:
Please take some time to verify where these information come from!!!.</p>
<p>NO ONE, I repeat NO ONE, skips college to go to graduate school in the US. except you want a certificate program that is taught in grad school which is a totally different take.</p>
<p>what you are referring to is what some schools call “COMBINED programs”. Where a student is admitted to example: A 7 year MD program instead of the regular 8 years. Here the applicant is expected to cover most of his undergraduate work in 3 years and then start med school in his/her 4th year.
This program sometimes eliminates some of the general education requirements from the university for these students to concentrate in their major subjects and some school do not even issue them the BA after 3years unless they complete some extra requirements.
I am not even sure why anyone would want to complete a 4 YEAR course study under 3 years.
It does not allow you to enjoy the full college experience as you are suppose to. 30 credits a semester is quite some load and none of the selective and well respected colleges in the US allows student to go over 22 credits/semester even @ senior status.
If this is done in some online school with a brick and motor building scattered around, sure that explains it. Now try finding a good job with that degree when you graduate.
Not all the glitter is gold, so choose very carefully.
Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>@ccco2018 : You have explained it very well… I agree with u… In the long term such an “accelerated” degree may not take you far. </p>
<p>Thanks for the info as well.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, some professional schools which now require a bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite used to not have such a requirement. Law school is one example, with the senior Governor Brown of California being a prominent example of one who completed a law degree but not a bachelor’s degree.</p>
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<p>Exactly, so some law school still do allow student to come in with @least 90 college credits. So in perspective 90 college credits is earn in say 3 years. So that alone is 3 years of undergraduate education. Also, majority of veterinarian schools do the same thing as well.
However, the prior poster suggested that: </p>
<p>“There are programs where you can skip a college degree and go right to graduate school.”</p>
<p>The above post made me stop to clarify that such is not the case.</p>
<p>And she was referencing Medicine and Sanjay Gupta. That might be common in the Caribbean medical schools, but none of the US medical schools does this, except one was admitted into the accelerated MD/7 year MD track.</p>
<p>Just so that we don’t lump all Caribbean medical schools together. </p>
<p>Caribbean professional schools modelled after the UK system - law and medicine don’t require a Bachelors to enter but usually require very good A-level passes. High school is usually completed at 16 with 2 additional years of A-level study needed to get into university. A reputable “Caribbean Medical School” would grant admission to a US student only if their transcript is comparable to the A-level passes normally required. </p>
<p>Neither AP nor IB is equivalent to A-levels. </p>
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<p>don’t want to derail this thread too much but also if we’re going to bring up caribbean medical schools to US students it also needs to be mentioned that only 40-45% of caribbean students who try to get a US residency get them (compared to ~95% of US graduates) and that’s after accounting for the fact that caribbean schools often limit who they let apply for residency.</p>
<p>My dad’s friend had a kid who graduated in 2 full time years. She had all dual enrollment credits her junior year of hs and did part time while finishing her senior year classes. She majored in actuarial science and went to work in insurance right after graduation. </p>
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