Hello, I have a question that I can’t seem to find a direct answer to.
So, my question is if you are in college, such as UCLA, and decide to take a break for a year. Do you still pay the tuitions or anything? Do they kick you out? Or do you come back, after a year not attending any classes, like nothing happened?
Just wondering how the system works and if its a good idea to take breaks in between.
Sorry if it is on the wrong section, I didn’t know where it should go.
I think the UCs have a different policy than most schools in the way they treat people who take a break from school. Because of this, DO NOT assume that what I say below applies to most of the California, non community college, publics. Contact whatever college you attend for more details (this includes schools besides the CSUs and the UCs).
In general, at most schools a student is not kicked out, assuming he or she maintained satisfactory academic progress. For fairly obvious reasons, a university treats a student with a 3.2 GPA who takes a year off differently than one with a 1.2 GPA. The former student has passed most of his or her classes, the latter has not.
A university certainly will not charge you tuition since you will not be attending school there, although they may force you to pay a small convenience fee which goes towards maintaining appropriate records.
Once the student is done with the gap period, he or she contacts the college to let the appropriate administrators know the student is re-enrolling, and then goes through all of the needed steps.
When I took a gap semester last year I told the school I was taking a break at the beginning of the summer, and when I was ready to go back, called the main admissions office to inform them that I would be attending in the Spring 2015 semester. Because I was out of state, I was advised via a combination of phone calls and emails. After that I enrolled in the appropriate courses, subletted an off campus apartment, and a few days before the semester started, moved in. Apart from an unnoticed fee and a bit of miscommunication between my apartmentmate (she had no idea the original renter decided to move out) and myself, everything went smoothly.
It is VERY important to find out what YOUR school policy is. There will be a procedure for taking a leave and a procedure for applying to return. Also if you have loans, you will need to start repaying them.
Oh I see, so its different in each college. Ok thank you, I’ll make sure to ask the counselor about it before a break.
I took a semester away from my university to attend a community college. I didn’t go to UCLA, but my situation pretty much went like this, I didn’t register for classes the upcoming semester at the university, and I didn’t get charged tuition. My advisers didn’t email me asking me where I went or anything, I just ghosted. I got accepted into a program at my university which began after the semester I spent at CC and I assumed I was still considered a student because of this (you have to be accepted into the university before you can be accepted into the program). That was not the case, and I actually had to apply for re-admission as a transfer student. I was in good standing with the university before I left, so the application was processed and I was re-admitted after around 30 hours. Pretty scary to think my program admission could have been revoked because technically I wasn’t even a student, but I do suggest you call someone at your school and find out what you need to do.
I agree…the most important thing is to TALK TO A DEAN or somebody and make sure you understand the process. Like other posters, you don’t want to lose any programs/scholarships that you have by just leaving.
Also figure out why you want to take a break and see if there is a way not to have to do that.