<p>DS is an engineering freshman at an OOS college and would be home for summer. He started with a lot of credits and would like to graduate early. In order to make that a reality and to ease it a bit, we are considering having him enroll for a summer course at a nearby college. I am an immigrant mom and do not know much about colleges. So please help me help him choose a course (preferably a non-core course) and college that he can go to over the summer and would make him eligible to transfer the credit. Also, does he get any financial aid for summer enrollment?</p>
<p>Different colleges have different procedures for transfering summer course credit. For example, my daughter had to give her home school a copy of the course syllabus and get all courses approved in advance. Your son’s school should have information about his particular college’s policy in his online college catalog. He might also need to talk to his advisor at his home college.</p>
<p>As for advice about what nearby college to attend, you would need to tell us what city you are in. As for what course to take, only your son would know the list of requirements for his school and what requirements he has already fulfilled.</p>
<p>As for your question about financial aid, that is a question for your son’s college financial aid office. I know that financial aid is sometimes allotted for summer courses at a student’s home institution, but aren’t aware of any aid for other schools. I know that community college courses are much much cheaper than those at 4 year schools, so maybe aid wouldn’t even be an issue if he could take a course at a local cc.</p>
<p>Generally you will not get FA for summer classes at a different school. To be eligible for FA you must be a degree seeking student at that school. </p>
<p>As far as federal aid is concerned there is no extra aid for summer classes, even at the student’s main school. If the student has not used up their full eligibility for the year, then the unused aid may be used for summer if the student is enrolled half time and is a degree seeking student.</p>
<p>In order to make sure that the summer course can be transferred back, have your son go to the academic affairs office of his school with the details of the course he plans to take over the summer. They will be able to tell him if it will transfer or not. If this is done in advance, there will be no surprises.</p>
<p>University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee would be my best bet for summer courses. You might also look into Milwaukee Area Technical College, which appears to be a community college and lists a cost of about $500 for a three credit class, while University of Wisconsin lists a cost of about $1000 for a three credit course. Remember, you probably need permission from your son’s home school in advance for any course.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom,
Thank you for the information on financial aid.</p>
<p>xraymancs,
I will have him talk with the academic affairs office. </p>
<p>parentoftwo,
That you for the info. That fee seems reasonable. We really want to pursue this. The technical college is nearby but I am not sure if the credits from there will be transferable. I will have him find out.</p>
<p>btw, How soon should this be happening? I don’t want to bother him until the finals are done. Would it be too late if we start the process in January?</p>
<p>I would start planning for summer classes now, but with the realization that many schools do not start enrolling students for summer courses until March or April.</p>
<p>The main thing to do by the end of January is to get documentation about which courses from the other schools are transferrable and how you will pay the costs associated with the summer courses,such as tuition, books, transportation, food, and housing. I actually found that it was less expensive for me to attend school in a different, non-adjacent state that granted in-state tuition to everyone during the summer rather than attending a school in my home state. It ended up being a lot like a 5 week domestic study abroad in that I was able to experience a different part of the country and take classes needed for my degree at the same time.</p>
<p>He should check with the school to see what its rules for transferring credit from summer classes at other schools are. Then check which offerings at the nearby schools can be usefully used against graduation requirements (perhaps fairly standardized math and physics courses, or humanities and social studies breadth courses; the latter is probably a safer choice if there is any concern about whether the material taught in math and physics courses at the local school is the same as at the main school, or if they use different semester versus quarter systems).</p>
<p>MATC does look like a community college with freshman and sophomore level courses that should be transferable to a four year university. For junior and senior level courses, you would have to look at a four year school like UW Milwaukee.</p>
<p>SEA_tide,
He will be staying home and commuting from here. Even UW is at an easily commutable distance from where we live. So, only tuition and books will be costs that we need to consider. </p>
<p>jvtDad, Special thanks for posting that link.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the valuable comments. I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>He would have met all core requirements for Math and Chem by end of freshman year along with one Physics and Humanities. He may have some credits that can be used to meet the other Humanities requirement. That leaves him with Physics II. May be he can start fulfilling the requirements for general electives, I don’t know. I will let him figure that out.</p>