<p>Objectively: About 200 of the students at Oberlin are enrolled in a five year double-degree program, earning a BA from the college and a BM from the conservatory. That obviously lowers the four-year graduation rate, because those students aren’t expected to graduate in four years to begin with. In addition, Oberlin doesn’t separate its two divisions in the Common Data Set - so about a quarter of the students represented by those data were in the conservatory, and music schools tend to have lower graduation rates than LACs.</p>
<p>Subjectively… I think Oberlin tends to attract high achievers, who take on a rigorous curriculum that requires an extra semester or two (e.g., a double or triple major in unrelated subjects). There are also a lot of students who take time off to travel, volunteer, or intern; one of my friends is postponing her senior year to take an internship at a museum. I also know of several people who are very politically engaged and left because they felt that college was not the best place for them to make change, or because there was a pressing cause that they wanted to work for - then returned to Oberlin and finished their degrees. It does decrease the four-year grad rate, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing, for them or for the college. It gives them the opportunity to do something valuable personally and educationally, and they deeply enrich the climate on campus when they come back.</p>