There are the occasional instances where a student may think that their degree is in the mail, but upon its arrival, a letter from the department office states that there are still one or two requirements not met.

Everyone has to have a degree evaluation done before receiving permission to graduate according to Sacramento State graduation guidelines.

Students check and recheck their evaluation to make sure that everything is in order so there are no surprises when graduation day arrives.

No records of the number of students affected by these requirement flukes have been recorded, but it is something to be considered in the future, said Sutee Sujitparapitaya, director of institutional research at Sac State.

The graduation rate of students has gone up over the past five years, said Degree Evaluation Coordinator Vivian Llamas-Green. There used to be a large number of students having the problem of not graduating when they are supposed to.

In the past, two-thirds of the schools students did not receive their degrees because of missing requirements.

This statistic has seen a tremendous turnaround since 1998. Nearly 88 percent of graduating students are receiving their degrees and are not running into any problems not meeting graduation requirements, Llamas-Green said.

Some of the reasons the percent of students graduating has increased so much are from some new pre-graduation steps that Llamas-Green implemented in the spring semester of 2002.

Students have to apply for graduation nearly one year prior to their scheduled graduation date.

Those who are scheduled to graduate this fall had to apply by early November of 2002. Hours that evaluators are available have been extended so that students are able to receive more advising, as well.Llamas-Green said she thinks that during the time when students were running into problems graduating, they were being misadvised by academic advisors or department advisors.

Students may have been reading their degree evaluations improperly and not asking the right questions in regards to graduation requirements.The problems of meeting graduation requirements on time are being solved as the number of students graduating on time increases.

As long as students meet with department and academic advisors prior to graduation and review and follow their degree audit, then they’re more likely to graduate when they expect to, Llamas-Green said.

Students who have questions about their audits should seek advising from the degree evaluations office.

May 1 and Nov. 1 are the deadlines for filing for graduation.