Ivy League son just disclosed he's taking five years to graduate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the five-year plan was normal nowadays, especially for engineering.

He is not an engineering or computer science student. I genuinely don't think it's common at all. It's giving me anxiety for him.

Your anxiety is not goin to help him. Find out what needs to happen going forward and make a plan and support him in sticking to plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought the five-year plan was normal nowadays, especially for engineering.

I was in a sorority at a state school in the 90s and none of my sisters took more than 4 years, even the dullest frat boys graduated on time. Sticking around the college town for another 12 months when everyone moved on would have been really, really awkward and frankly, depressing.

[Anonymous]

~15% of students take 5-6 years.

I don’t think it’s a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the five-year plan was normal nowadays, especially for engineering.

I was in a sorority at a state school in the 90s and none of my sisters took more than 4 years, even the dullest frat boys graduated on time. Sticking around the college town for another 12 months when everyone moved on would have been really, really awkward and frankly, depressing.

You were in an engineering sorority?

Or were you mostly education majors.?

[Anonymous]

If it's not a $$$ issue for you, I don't think it's too much of a problem.

I feel really bad for college students who missed out a year of in-person college due to the pandemic. I wish they could all do another year and get a year of real college back.

[Anonymous]

It's not just the tuition, room and board, it's also the opportunity cost of a year of lost salary. That's at least $50,000 if not upwards of $100,000. It is not defensible, unless he's got some start-up in San Fran, it's super weird and sketchy, no matter how "nbd" people here try to make it seem.

[Anonymous]

Shouldn't you be more concerned about finding out what happened? If you have $, one more year doesn't sound like a big deal to me but I'd def want to know what happened or what's going on...

[Anonymous]

This is no big deal. Almost all of my relatives who are in their 20s have taken 5 years to graduate college for a variety of reasons - and that was before the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:~15% of students take 5-6 years.

I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Not at Ivies, not at any top private university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a big deal in terms of peers or future prospects. I'm sure he doesn't only have friends from his incoming class-and having fewer people around may help him buckle down and focus on coursework. I would only be upset about the additional costs.

This. As long as he’s not weird about it or hiding it from his friends, it’s fine. Covid means a lot of people are taking detours and doing things outside the usual lockstep. If money isn’t your problem, you’re lucky. And good for him for recognizing he needed to drop, instead of struggling and getting crummy grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the five-year plan was normal nowadays, especially for engineering.

He is not an engineering or computer science student. I genuinely don't think it's common at all. It's giving me anxiety for him.

It’s not “normal” (>50%) but it’s “common” (~15%).

He could probably catch up in the summer taking stuff like English and Calculus at the community college.

My son could not find a job in summer of 2020 and he took community college classes. There were a bunch of Ivy kids in his Calculus and Econ class.

Did you go to college? This is not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:~15% of students take 5-6 years.

I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Not at Ivies, not at any top private university.

That is actually numbers quoted for Ivy’s. Look it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the five-year plan was normal nowadays, especially for engineering.

I was in a sorority at a state school in the 90s and none of my sisters took more than 4 years, even the dullest frat boys graduated on time. Sticking around the college town for another 12 months when everyone moved on would have been really, really awkward and frankly, depressing.

You were in an engineering sorority?

Or were you mostly education majors.?

Some of my sisters were engineering majors, most were marketing, English, communications, political science and pre-med. More of the fraternities were engineering majors, but even among them, it would have been abnormal to not graduate with your class. I know some of the engineers stuck around an extra year to early their master's — but they didn't delay graduation, they walked with their class and partied with everyone graduating.

[Anonymous]

4 year graduation rates

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate

[Anonymous]

He needs to work on his skills of accomplishing tasks in. Remote environment. This could be with us all forever going forward in some capacity. Why can't he work remotely nd why can he do to improve those skills?