I’m a junior in high school who was planning on applying to Summer Sessions/Programs at the UC’s and Stanford. However, I just found out that the cost would be around $10,000, large enough that even somehow receiving financial aid wouldn’t really help. I especially wanted to attend the Summer Session at UCSB, which is my dream school.I was planning on doing a for-credit course in communications.
Is going to a Summer Session really worth its money during college admissions time, or should I just take a course or two at my local community college? Would going to a community college in the summer be good enough, instead of spending thousands at a Summer Session/Program?
“Good enough” for what purpose?
You can check transfer equivalency of California community college courses to courses at UCs and CSUs on ASSIST.org .
Taking a summer course at any specific UC will not give you an admission bump there. However, a college course either at the UC or Community college (if UC transferable) will be calculated into your UC GPA and receive an extra honors point in the GPA calculation along with showing good academic rigor.
If money is an issue, I would recommend that you take some courses at the Community college.