<p>It would be great to do 3 semesters abroad(during school year/not summer) becuse it costs the same as ateending the school, rather than racking up 10,000 more per summer....but is this possible? It seems cool to do that and then stay and take classes over summer to make up for classes</p>
<p>Two is certainly more typical than three… colleges do have some limitations for a variety of reasons. Some of them include:</p>
<ul>
<li>There are limitations to how many classes you can take off campus, particuarly as you get later in your years of attendance or further in your major.</li>
<li>It can be hard to get the classes needed in your major if you are gone for too many semesters (because they are not available abroad, or your college won’t accept some specific classes from another university, or because you can’t get the classes you need to graduate in your major due to scheduling issues for classes not taught every semester).</li>
<li>The colleges often limit how many students can go abroad in the spring because it is the most popular time to go. They may specifically limit people who have already gone a different term, or you might just lose out in whatever process they use to select students for the spring semester abroad.</li>
<li>Some colleges just have overall limits on how many students can study abroad. So if more students want to study abroad than they have space for, you aren’t likely to be allowed to go three times.<br></li>
<li>Some colleges require that you speak the language of the country you are visiting – that could practically limit you in some ways.</li>
<li>It is not free to take classes in the summer, so you would still have to pay for that experience. If your college has summer classes at all (a lot of LACs don’t, not sure where you are attending).</li>
<li>I personally think you would find yourself kind of isolated when you got back to campus after that long away from it. D1 was off campus two semesters (abroad fall of junior year, then at a DC program spring of junior year). She had lost touch with some of the clubs she was active in freshman & sophomore year, and some of her friends. She missed seeing some friends a year older altogether as they were seniors while she was off campus.</li>
</ul>
<p>Honestly, at many colleges you are paying MORE to pay tuition to the college for your abroad experience than you would studying directly in that country. D1 studied in a country with very few programs, and her US LAC let her enroll directly in the foreign university where tuition is free. Even with travel and living expenses, we probably paid 50% of what we paid for a US LAC semester. It was a major pain in the you-know-what to organize, though.</p>