Expiring Undergrad Credits

[amy.will]

I was wondering if an older students had experience applying to grad programs with undergrad credits over 10 years old. I graduated college in 2009, and some of my pre-requisite courses were taken in 2007 or earlier. I was informed by one of the schools I applied to this year (Idaho State) that this was probably going to be a problem. 

I'm still waitlisted at Idaho and a few other places, but at this point it's looking like I'm not going to be accepted anywhere this year. I want to apply again next year, but I'm wondering if anyone will even consider my application since my credits are so old. I have a lot of more recent experience...I took classes as a post bacc student two years ago, and I'm currently working as an SLPA. I actually use a lot of the knowledge I gained from those 10 year old classes in my current job, but I'm not sure if my continuing experience in the field will be taken into consideration. I'm sure it depends on the school, and I do plan on calling around asking about different program's policies, but if anyone has experience with this issue I would really like to hear about it! 

 

[tonguelover]

I graduated a lot more than 10 years ago and I've never heard of undergrad credits expiring. I have heard of graduate credits expiring. But I could also see where undergrad credits in a semi-medical field such as Communication Disorders might expire, because medical advances occur so rapidly. Is that your situation, with a BS in CD? I was accepted into a leveling program with ancient, almost fossilized undergrad credits in Biology, but I haven't applied for a formal graduate program.

[ElKel87]

@amy.will I graduated in 2009 as well and I didn't have any issues. I heard the 10 year rule from a few schools but the impression I got was that it was flexible, especially if you're only a year or two off. I'm a career changer, so my expiring credits were for the foundational courses in statistics, chemistry, psychology etc. and I took most of those my freshman and sophomore years so they were definitely older than 10 years. I'm not sure if there would be the same amount of flexibility for any CSD courses you may have taken in undergrad, those I think would vary by school, as you said. The school I'll be attending doesn't have any CSD pre-reqs because their graduate courses cover everything.

FWIW - I just looked up the foundational courses on ASHA's site and they don't mention the 10 year rule anywhere, just that you need to have taken them before you receive your CCC and that they may be incorporated into your graduate level courses. So sounds like that 10 year rule is something set in place by the individual schools, not ASHA.

[Afternoonprogram]

I got accepted into 3 grad programs and I went to school WAY longer than 10 years ago.  I checked and didn't see anything about my bio, chem, statistics or psych expiring.  This may be a school specific rule.  Not much has changed in basic biology or chemistry.  I could understand if you were using these classes to take more advanced bio or chem classes but that's not the case.  I retained enough knowledge to get a 101% in speech science!   

[cowgirlsdontcry]

When I returned and got an undergrad degree I had about 22 credits that were 28 years old and they took them. Entering the MA program I attended I did read that grad credits expire after a certain amount of time. They also do not want the last foreign language class to be taken to be over 5 years old in areas of humanities that require them.

[tonguelover]

1 hour ago, cowgirlsdontcry said:

When I returned and got an undergrad degree I had about 22 credits that were 28 years old and they took them. Entering the MA program I attended I did read that grad credits expire after a certain amount of time. They also do not want the last foreign language class to be taken to be over 5 years old in areas of humanities that require them.

 

But English is a little different. English literature doesn't go out of date like medical knowledge and technology, it just ages and becomes classic.

[cowgirlsdontcry]

42 minutes ago, tonguelover said:

 

But English is a little different. English literature doesn't go out of date like medical knowledge and technology, it just ages and becomes classic.

It was not English except in the sense it was rhet/comp and other Freshman core classes, necessary for graduation. Thinking about what you say about literature not going out of style is true, but at the same time, critical essays have changed pretty drastically in the last 40 years because social and cultural objectivity has changed. We look at and analyze literature differently from ways in the past. I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, but I think it would mean having to learn a different way of thinking about the texts themselves, which might lead to some difficulty in grad school.

[amy.will]

Thank you all for your input. I found out a few days ago I got accepted at Idaho State! They were particularly concerned that I learned IPA over 10 years ago, but I assured them that I wasn't feeling rusty...I used it in post-bacc a few years ago and occasionally in my job as an SLPA. Apparently that was a satisfactory response!