Direct Enroll/ Self-Study Abroad Question

Applying to College
1

<p>I attend a major public university on the east coast and am anxious to get out of here. I am fluent in Mandarin and have lived in China extensively. My current plan is to complete my last semester (Spring 2012) by direct enrolling in a Chinese university, then transferring the credits back to my university in the US.</p>

<p>Representatives in the Education Abroad Office balked at my idea until they realized they would never persuade me to enroll in any of their absurdly overpriced exchange programs. When I told them I was not interested in any of the supposed perks of their programs, they tried to tell me the university I was interested in was "not approved". This despite the fact that the university I will be enrolling in is quite famous. <em>Queue discussion about corruption in study abroad</em></p>

<p>They eventually gave in, but with a catch. They say they will need a $400 "study abroad fee" if I am to transfer the credits back. But as far as I can tell, Education Abroad will only be doing two things for me: 1) creating a record of my study abroad information 2) collecting the Chinese transcript upon my arrival, then entering the grades into their system. As for 2), they won't have anything to do with the translation into English, and the Chinese department here determines course equivalency, so we're basically talking about 10 minutes of data entry that most simians could easily perform.</p>

<p>Question: does anyone else have experience with this? This fee amounts to four months of rent at the Chinese university and I'm very much like to save it. At the same time, I don't want to rile Education Abroad, since they have the authority to tear my file to shreds at any moment.</p>

2

<ol>
<li><p>your username is hilarious.</p></li>
<li><p>it might be galling, but I’d just do it if you’re that interested/desperate. $400 is still a lot cheaper than a semester’s tuition.</p></li>
</ol>

3

<p>I agree. $400 plus actual costs will be very little compared to typical study abroad programs. I remember being very irritated that I had to pay Columbia U. rates to take classes at the Paris equivalent of City College of NY. Now that I am a parent of a student who will want to study abroad, we will be looking for schools that allow direct enrollment. I think you are getting off easy.</p>

4

<p>Do it. If the $400 allows you to maintain matriculated status – meaning you don’t have to start paying your student loans in 6 months, etc. and you don’t have to re-apply, it is a good option. </p>

<p>Applying for credits-- you have to have your Chinese transcript – it could cost a couple hundred bucks (yes, really). A translation agency will only translate the content of your transcript. Normally you would then have to send the transcript to to a Credit Evaluation Company (there are a couple in New York) and they deal provide you with credit recommendations – note that it’s the Credits they will recommend, and not the grades. </p>

<p>If your school is willing to do the credit evaluation directly from the translation, then you are one step ahead.</p>

<p>Don’t sweat the fees you have to pay – you’re still going to save a trillion dollars.</p>

5

<p>I have been going through something similar - </p>

<p>My university wants me to study abroad through the program they offer, instead of direct enrolling like I want to. They said that to direct enroll with the university would require a petition process and that it would most likely get denied since they already offer a program in the desired location. </p>

<p>It all boils down to money - through their program it is $16,500 per semester
Where as it is $1,000 per semester to direct enroll
(non-traditional location)</p>

6

<p>Universities are very concerned about the money. You said it costs $1,000 to enroll directly (sounds right for most countries) but that your university charges $16,500 for the semester.</p>

<p>Imagine in 10 students did what you are planning to do: your university loses $165,000.</p>

<p>Yep … 10 students studying abroad in this case nets your school $155,000 … </p>

<p>Now, imagine if 500 students study abroad every semester and they also did the same thing: loss to the university: </p>

<p>$7,750,000 dollars. </p>

<p>So, direct enrollment study abroad is not at all the favorite for universities. I can understand that. Who wants to lose over $7,000,000 every semester? Seven million dollars is a nice amount of money to keep…</p>

<p>I took the direct enrollment route. I recommend it. I sat in the same classes as people who paid 16 times more than I did.</p>

<p>You can get credits for it too. Just do research. There are ways of getting creidts without even saying you studied abroad…which is a nice way of avoiding the resistance that some universities put up.</p>

<p>If you don’t study abroad through their programs, they lose a lot of money.</p>

<p>Then, if they give you credits for independent study abroad, they also lose out on you paying them college tuition.</p>

<p>Pretty cool, huh!?</p>

<p>From what I have read, no other students in the world pay as much to study abroad as US students, except those who come to the US to study and those who go to the UK or Ireland, which charge pretty hefty fees for non-resident students.</p>

<p>If you study abroad independently, you could do it longer … or several times…</p>