<p>Faux…so she is taking THIS semester off?</p>
<p>Yes, she is taking off THIS semester .</p>
<p>So her current college (Harvard I guess) will allow her to come back in the fall? I’m assuming this late in the game they won’t offer a refund of any type on tuition/expenses; $25K+ is a lot to bite. I’m assuming you and her feel this is her only viable option?</p>
<p>Actually ,it wasn’t so bad . She doesn’t live in a House ,so there wasn’t a problem with paying for a meal plan . It will be prorated at around 3500-4000 that we will pay for the time so far .Her new landlady adores her ,and said she could leave her stuff in the new place , without paying rent till she returns in Sept .Pretty nice !</p>
<p>Are you saying that Harvard is only charging you $4000 ish for this semester? Isn’t it far past the date for refunds for dropping courses for the term?</p>
<p>My D talked with her adviser and that is what he said would be the approximate cost for us .It would be a lot more if she was in a House !</p>
<p>Her house cost is a fraction of her tuition cost. If it were me, I would want to have IN WRITING the amount I was going to be paying for this lost term.</p>
<p>At both of my kids’ schools…if you didn’t drop the term by the end of the FIRST week of classes, you did NOT get a full refund of your tuition costs. If you didn’t drop the courses by the end of the second week…you got NOTHING back in tuition refunds…not a nickel.</p>
<p>Well, I’m sure what’s done is done, but her school requires students to take only 16 courses (an average of four per semester) to graduate, and some can be taken pass/fail.</p>
<p>She did not need to scrap the entire semester because she dropped a course.</p>
<p>All she needed to do was pick up fifth course in a future semester–an easy one, maybe taken pass/fail, if she thought five would be too hard to juggle (although I believe many students do it).</p>
<p>I’m surprised her advisors thought this was the best course of action if that’s all that was going on.</p>
<p>hmm … Harvard has a pretty student friendly refund policy … although depending on the date of the OP’s daughter’s withdrawal the tuition hit maybe more like 8K … [Students</a>? Financial Obligations in the Event of a Leave of Absence or Requirement to Withdraw](<a href=“http://webdocs.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/ugrad_handbook/2009_2010/chapter7/finobligation.html]Students”>http://webdocs.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/ugrad_handbook/2009_2010/chapter7/finobligation.html)</p>
<p>Hmm…I would have thought that taking 5 classes one future semester or taking one class during the summer would have been my first thought before bagging the whole semester. Nice that her summer Sweden gig could accommodate her early arrival.</p>
<p>oldfort:
</p>
<p>fauxmaven:
</p>
<p>Are you serious? I suspect very strongly that this is almost totally about Sweden. And I’d bet my house that this is not, first and foremost, about having dropped a course. As others have told you, bagging a semester because you’ve dropped a course is totally unnecessary. It’s akin to amputating your foot because you have an ingrown toenail. As others have told you, students at your daughter’s college find themselves a course short all the time, for a variety of reasons, and students take five classes in a semester all the time. The story as you’ve related it here just doesn’t hold water.</p>
<p>Now, I think calmom may well have been right that your daughter lacks some clarity and focus right now, and that continuing to pay for college under these circumstances may be only slightly more productive than setting huge piles of cash on fire.</p>
<p>But I don’t agree that you should support your daughter, whatever she decides, which seems to be the advice some other posters are giving. I think this leave of absence thing is all a canard designed to get her to Sweden sooner and for longer. If that’s so, then her priorities are all out of whack. And she should be using her time away from college to develop the focus and clarity that she’s missing; that’s an endeavor her parents should support. But IMO gallivanting off to Sweden to be with her European maybe-former boyfriend is definitely not. </p>
<p>And given the way she has unilaterally made some highly unorthodox decisions (living arrangement, leave of absence), and then announced them to you as fait accompli, I would be reluctant to give her anything like the level of autonomy she seems to have enjoyed this year when she returns to college. At least, not until I could feel confident that she had a plan and was making measurable progress toward carrying it out.</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, your husband is an alumnus of your daughter’s college. What’s his take on all this?</p>
<p>Hmmm, scrapping an entire semester because of dropping one class seems to be a little hasty. My D dropped a class one semester and because of AP classes and taking a full load every semester she was able to pick up that class (it’s a required class) and graduate on time. Many kids are not taking a full load of classes their last semester to concentrate on finding a job. </p>
<p>Also my D knows someone who has dropped classes. He was able to talk to the university and take the class at another university and have it transfer. Maybe she could take a class in Sweden this summer and have it transfer, they have study abroad programs and kids graduate on time.</p>
<p>I know that the decision has been made and nothing anyone on here says is going to change things. But kids have classes that they drop and have bumps in the road without chucking an entire semester.</p>
<p>Another thing is if she is receiving any financial aid. At my D’s university you will receive 8 semester’s of FA. It should be found out if dropping this semester is going to count as one of her 8. If she isn’t on FA, disregard.</p>
<p>Dropping an entire semester because of the need to drop one class? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Are students at Harvard not allowed to take an extra class in a semester? Summer school is not an option? So now, she will graduate a semester late? So why didn’t she just stay, and if by the end she can’t fit in the course, she still takes it the summer or semester after she would have graduated? Many schools allow the student to walk with their class, then take the one course. The end result is the same, the degree being granted one semester late, but the difference is the student could be working full-time or nearly so while taking the one course. No, this choice does not hold water.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So she dropped ALL FOUR CLASSES… now she will be short FOUR classes needed to graduate. </p>
<p>Most students who WANTED TO GRADUATE…would continue the three remaining courses…and take the fourth course during the summer…perish the thought.</p>
<p>My prediction…this student will NEVER return to this college.</p>
<p>So she dropped a class,( btw- many- many students do this at least once during college- * one class* not a whole semester & not after it was already registered & paid for) but instead of making it up during another semester or the summer, she decided to drop the whole semester worth of classes. 
</p>
<p>( I also want to add that 3 weeks into the semester is plenty of time to find tutors & study groups for tough classes. Its not an admission of failure to ask for help))</p>
<p>" Oh, look! now I have nothing to do! Guess I better go to Sweden to see my adolescent boyfriend!"</p>
<p>Fauxmaven, Im sorry to say, I think Thumper is right.</p>
<p>Fauxmaven: I was surprised when you supported your D’s decision to move off the Harvard campus. But to support her decision to drop the entire semester because of one class and then head to Sweden takes permissiveness to a new level. I think you’re letting your child be the Alpha Dog when that should be your role at this point. I would cancel Sweden and shift to getting her the professional help she needs to figure herself out. She’s obviously a very bright and talented young woman. Please help her reach her potential by not letting her unilaterally call every shot and do exactly what she wants at every turn.</p>
<p>Thumper:
</p>
<p>And that’s not necessarily tragic. I knew people who left and never returned. If this college isn’t for fauxmaven’s daughter (which, based on her history there, I think might be the case), then it isn’t for her. This particular college happens to be pretty extraordinary, but it’s hardly the only path to satisfaction and self-sufficiency in adulthood.</p>
<p>If fauxmaven’s daughter were my daughter, I’d probably be sad to think that she might never return to this college, but that would be pretty far back in the queue of things that kept me awake nights worrying. I’d be more worried about the daughter’s apparent aimlessness. I’d be worried about her apparent lack of candor with big decisions during the past year. And I’d be quite worried about those two things in combination.</p>
<p>Clearly this young woman does not want to be in college right now. Let her work, make a bit of money, and think about her own goals fir herself. If your family can afford it, let her travel a bit. Then just step away. She is the one who will be attending college (if that us what she wants to do), so she needs to be the one who commits to college. Not you. Not her other parent(s).</p>
<p>The parent(s) get to decide how much they are willing to chip in for traveling, studying, etc. It is perfectly fine to put limits on your financial support if you need or want to.</p>
<p>Agreed with above poster who says the college just might not be the right place at the right time for this young woman. The OP “says” her daughter loves the school. That may be true too…but it doesn’t translate into wanting to get a degree from the school.</p>
<p>I hope the whole family finds the best path for the future.</p>
<p>Time to scrape the Harvard decals off all the family vehicles and replace them with one of those oval Swedish flags! Maybe she’ll get this Swedish boyfriend thing out of her system in a few months and figure out what she wants to do.</p>