Approaching registration dates may cause many students to take advantage of resources such as four-year plans to prepare class schedules for next semester.

The graduation program, Soar in 4!, was started in fall 1995 under the recommendation of the Iowa Board of Regents and is in place to ensure students are capable of graduating in eight semesters.

“At that time, there was a perception in the general state that students weren’t getting into classes, and that was causing them to delay their graduation,” said Karen Zunkel, Soar in 4! coordinator.

Iowa State, along with Iowa and Northern Iowa, created four-year-plan programs to give students the ability to graduate in four years.

“Although we call it the four-year plan and Soar in 4!, the agreement is really written for eight semesters,” Zunkel said.

She said this allows students to participate in semester-long activities, like internships and study abroad, without being set back.

“There’s no penalty to the student. It’s to benefit them and to help them realize that they can graduate in four years or eight semesters if they want to,” Zunkel said about the plan, which she described as a way to hold students accountable for their education.

Participation with Soar in 4! has varied through the years.

“Right now we have between 8 and 10 percent of our students, roughly, that will sign up for the four-year plan in either orientation or during that first year,” Zunkel said. “What we’ve seen is that the students who sign up for it are a little more motivated; their parents are motivated financially or the students are motivated financially.”

Jason Chrystal, political science academic adviser, defined students who have signed the Soar in 4! agreement as self-selecting.

“They’re the ones that are going to be very adamant about taking particular courses to satisfy a degree requirement,” Chrystal said.

Since its start, Soar in 4! has caused some change on campus.

“One of the first things that had to happen is that faculty had to go back and look at their curriculum and see how many credits were required for degree programs to make sure they weren’t asking too many credits from students,” Zunkel said.

This rethinking caused some degree programs to reduce the number of credits they required, making it possible for students to graduate in four years.

“I think the most positive thing is that when we started the program, each major had to come up with a four-year plan template,” Zunkel said. “Those didn’t exist for all majors up until that point.”

Zunkel said she believes this to be one of the program’s biggest benefits for students, and she stressed that the templates are available to all students, whether they signed up for Soar in 4! or not.

“The four-year plan is a nice little tool that students can use,” Chrystal said. “It is just a mechanism to give you an idea of the requirements that you should be considering every semester.”

Chrystal said that four-year plans provide students with guidance.

“Every department that has a four-year plan allows students to get an idea of the requirements,” Chrystal said. “But the other thing that is great about a four-year plan is that it shows students that want to get out of here in four years the work that they should at least prepare for, but also expect.”