Please advise. Thank you!
You are filling out a W-4, not a W-2.
If you graduated in May, then you were probably a full time student for the first five months of the year. If you have not already moved out, then you probably lived with your mother for more than 1/2 of the year (including both any time that you were actually with her and any time that your permanent residence was her house but you were absent for school). Therefore, if you alone provided less than 1/2 of your own support for the year, she probably can claim you. If she alone provided more than 1/2 of your own support for the year, then she almost definitely can claim you.
Claim 1 for now.
However, for 2010, since you will no longer be a full time student, and are expecting to live with her less than 1/2 of the year, she will probably not be able to claim you. Switch your W-4 from 1 to 2 in January.
Very unlikely this year, since with that kind of income you are most likely providing over half of your own support.
you make 50 K? omg no, your mother cannot claim you
your W-4 can be completed as single, 2
and you will file your 1040 as single
Short answer, NO, there's no way the IRS would let your mother claim you if you make $50k.
Your W-4 sounds correct. 1 for yourself since nobody else can claim you, and 1 for having only 1 job. Total, 2 allowances. You should expect to get a small refund or possibly owe a nominal amount at tax time. If you want a little more buffer to ensure that you don't owe, you could claim 1 and not see a big difference in your take home pay.
The long answer is that it would still be possible for your mother to claim you if you meet all the criteria. Since you're under 24 and you were a full time student for some part of 5 calendar months (Jan-May) you meet the age test for a qualifying child. The big hurdle is the support test. The support test for a qualifying child is that the child cannot have provided over half of their own support. Technically, if you could prove that your $50k income was less than half of your cost of living for the year, and your mother provided the rest of your cost of living, you could pass this test and be her dependent. But the IRS is never going to believe that a person making $50k is not providing half of their own support, so you'd have auditors all over you if she tried to claim you.