<p>[How</a> to make colleges twice as productive - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/07/double_u/?page=1]How”>http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/07/double_u/?page=1)</p>
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<p>Go Dartmouth! = D</p>
<p>The d-plan really is a problem for dartmouth if anything.</p>
<p>Why So Pawn?</p>
<p>It just creates rushed classes that don’t have time to go into enough depth.</p>
<p>There’s plenty of time during the summer for classes. They run from about the third week of May to the end of August and you have enough time for a 14-week class in there. Barely. I do think that most kids need a break from the heavy mental work and stress of college. One can see or hear that in their kids as finals approach right now.</p>
<p>The summer also provides time for internships and jobs to earn money for the following year.</p>
<p>Most of the article is not suggesting that students entirely give up breaks, just that they stagger them, to distribute the number of students in class throughout the year. That way a larger number of students can attend the college with the same number of classrooms and dorms. However, either teachers would have to teach year round or more teachers would have to be hired (and also take staggered breaks). Personally, if I were attending school in the north and lived in the south, I might find it nice to attend during summer and fly home for part of winter! This may not be the best plan, but it is not unworkable. Not sure about how much cost savings there would be.</p>
<p>^ I believe the current argument is not that the individual students attend classes year-round, but that the school operates year-round. They will then be able to support more students.</p>
<p>We may wind up with a capacity glut in a few years.</p>
<p>Let’s say that the calendar year included three groups of fifteen weeks. You would have the standard end-August to mid-December, now early-January through late-April, and early May through mid-August. Students enrolled would be on an August-to-April, January-to-August, or May-to-December attendance schedule at a campus. Yes, housing is complicated with three moving periods as opposed to just the classic move-in/move-out, but you would increase the number of student positions while decreasing per-capita fixed operating costs. Interesting idea : can you imagine offering a decreased rate based on the less desirable sessions (like May-to-December)?</p>
<p>Couldn’t disagree more Pawn. Many schools successfully operate on the quarter system.</p>
<p>The D plan and that it allows for more and better internships and study abroad opportunities was a major plus for DS.</p>
<p>For a school in a northern climate, many might prefer May to December! This option might make my D consider some schools she has currently dismissed as too cold/snowy…</p>
<p>BCEagle: Are you sure that Dartmouth College’s Summer Term begins in May? I thought that it starts in June, similiar to Stanford & Northwestern Universities. Also, aren’t the terms at Dartmouth 10 weeks, & not 14 weeks, as suggested above in one of your posts?</p>
<p>Dartmouth is on the qtr [ 10 weeks] , not the semester system. And the beauty of the D system is that it allows internships at times other than just in the summer, hence there is less competition for internships from students from other colleges.</p>
<p>Pawn, we go through the same amount of material as other schools do.</p>
<p>BCEagle, the summer term begins late June.</p>
<p>I was commenting in general. Our son has taken several university courses during the summer at a variety of institutions and many do start in May.</p>
<p>While the pace in each class is faster, we have less classes to focus on. We also have more hours per week of each class. It works out to be the same.</p>
<p>BYU has done a great job in utilizing its facilities year round. BYU Idaho does split its students into different groups–some go to school in the fall and spring (traditional), others go spring-summer, others go summer-fall, etc. </p>
<p>BYU (Provo) splits the summer into two half semesters, each half semester covering a semester’s worth of work. What makes the system work is that A LOT of classes are taught in the summer (course pickings are good, especially in classes you might take in your first two years). Also helpful that all classes in a series are taught all year round. For example, if you took Organic chem 1 in the summer, you could take Organic chem 2 in the fall. At the UCs, sometimes a series might start in the fall, and if you missed the start of the series, you’d have to wait till the next year to start the series.</p>
<p>It might look like colleges shift into “low gear” during the summer, but at least from my experience the campus does not sit around empty! Swarthmore, I know, rents out their dorms and facilities to several summer camps and other programs–an additional revenue stream that would not be possible if classes were in session over the summer. And because these are outside, for-profit groups, the college can charge substantially more than it would charge its own students for use of the facilities. </p>
<p>There’s also the social disadvantages to consider–if I come in for a new school year and make friends, do I really want a third of them to disappear every three months? Do I want to hardly ever see my high school friends because I don’t have the same breaks they do? It might sound petty, but that can make a big difference in someone’s college experience. Personally, I think that offering summer terms is great, but completely dismantling the traditional school year doesn’t sound like a good idea.</p>
<p>I live in New England, and I agree with EngrMom that summer study allows students to take advantage of Northeast campuses at a lovely time of year. I’ve been to Hanover, NH (home to Dartmouth) many times in the summer, and it’s beautiful there. I’m not suggesting that Dartmouth students should be in school EVERY summer, but the summer term definitely lets them see their college town in a new light–both literally and figuratively. Summer in New England also typically gives students access to seasonal cultural events in the region that they miss out on during the fall and winter. </p>
<p>I also agree with menloparkmom, who cited the pluses of doing internships when there is less competition … and when there may even be more options, too.</p>
<p>So I’ve long been a supporter of the Dartmouth plan and would like to see more schools follow suit.</p>