will it look bad being in undergrad for 2 years after i had enough credits to graduate?

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I understand that some people take longer to complete an undergrad degree than other people, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Some people might take classes part-time for 6 to 8 years while holding down multiple jobs in order to get their degree, while other people might finish in 2 years because they didn't work and had credits from high school. That's not what I'm asking here. I'm asking about how it would look if someone spent a few years in college after it looked like they were able to graduate. 

 

Here is my situation: I'm going into the second semester of my fifth year of college and I'm not going to apply to grad schools until next year, so if I wanted to, I wouldn't need to graduate until next Spring (which would give me 6 years of undergrad). I took a full-time course load every semester and was on pace to graduate in the traditional 4 years. After my 4th year, I had enough credits to graduate with a general humanities degree, but I wanted to get a more specific degree on top of that, so I decided to major in one of my minors (linguistics). I realized I'd be able to get a degree in linguistics by taking summer classes and classes in the Fall (the semester that just wrapped up). That's exactly what I did, so I now have enough credits to get degrees in both. However, I decided to stay for this upcoming Spring semester as well because I was only a few classes away from a certification in TESOL (teaching English). Over the past few months, I've been thinking a lot about grad school and I've decided to delay my plans to start grad school until Fall 2014. I was thinking of waiting to graduate until Spring 2014 so that I can take some math and computer science classes for two reasons: 1) I feel guilty that I didn't take more math classes in my undergrad, and 2) I was interested in getting into computational linguistics, and I would need to take a lot of math and computer science pre-reqs in order to do so. 

 

Of course I would have preferred to graduate when I had met the requirements to graduate over a year ago, but I kept delaying graduation because I get paid to be a student. I was in the military so I get free tuition and a living stipend of 2 thousand a month. If I were to graduate now and still wanted to spend the next year taking math classes, I would have to pay the tuition out of pocket and wouldn't receive $2,000 a month for living. 

 

I just don't know how that might look to schools. It's not like I stayed a few extra years because I drastically changed majors or that I was a part-time student for 6 years. I don't know if it'll look like I'm afraid of graduation or something--like I'm afraid to "go out into the real world." I have very practical reasons for staying in college. What's the sense of graduating when I want to do some post-bacc courses and I get paid to be a student? Of course, I'd prefer to graduate now because I'll have Summa Cum Laude on my transcript, but I don't know if that is a good enough reason to do so. Is having Summa Cum Laude on my transcript worth losing out on $2,000 a month and having to pay tuition out of pocket? Also, I'm sure they can see my GPA and deduce. 

 

Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback. Sorry for such a long post. 

Edited December 31, 2012 by JoeyBoy718

[vertices]

I think most professors reviewing your application aren't going to know what the graduation requirements are at your school and might not even notice how many years you took. They'll look at your GPA and they'll be interested in what skills and experience you highlight in your SOP. I don't think you need to point out the specifics of how long you took and why, but you will talk about how you became interested in linguistics and then computational linguistics and then how that led you to pick up the knowledge (through the courses). Your path will seem quite natural. There's no need to emphasize the mechanics.

 

You can also show how you know you're going into the right field for you because you've made sure of it by getting all the foundation you need. Also, since you have another year before you apply, see if you can get some research experience in computational linguistics through your professors.

[TakeruK]

A friend of mine took a full year of credits extra and graduated a year later after taking pretty much every course the department offered. He definitely could have graduated in 4 years, or even less due to high school credits. I don't think this extra year hurt him at all, and he believes it's been helpful to demonstrate he has the right background. He got into and is attending a top 10 university for his field so he's probably right!

 

I think that you are making the right decision for both financial and academic reasons. Your current stipend is more than some graduate programs and you don't even have to do more than take classes You also have a sound reasoning for taking these courses (it's not like you are just taking fluff courses now) so it sounds like a good foundation for your future graduate work as well as a logical progression if you talk about your courses in your SOP.

 

I would only suggest that you try to get more research experience during this extra time. Maybe in the summers or alongside your courses. Maybe consider taking only the minimum courses to maintain full time status (and receive your military support) if it still allows you to take all the courses you want. It would be better use of your time to get additional research experience than a course you might not need. In addition, check carefully with  your school's policies about staying longer than needed to graduate. Some programs have a maximum credit limit so taking the minimum courses might help you stay under that limit as well.

[StephanieM]

My school is very very cheap in comparison to US schools, and almost everyone I know has done exactly this. It's never affected them in terms of grad school, in most cases it helped them out professionally or academically as they were able to narrow down their interests and thus pick better grad schools/research areas for themselves.

 

In fact I'm doing the very same thing myself.