How to Take a Summer Course
Information for B.S.E.
Students
Note: this
information has been composed with specific relevance to students in the B.S.E.
degree program. A.B. students should consult their residential college deans or
directors of studies.
After matriculation at Princeton,
B.S.E. students may count up to four pre-approved courses taken at other
schools toward their course requirements (fewer if you elect to take a year of
advanced standing or foreign study). Such courses can be used to remove a
course deficiency or can be "banked" to offset future deficiencies.
They can also be used for general B.S.E. requirements (except
computing), prerequisites in certain departments, or for fulfillment of
humanities and social science distribution areas.
A summer course taken elsewhere
must:
A laboratory course (e.g. general
physics) should have 30 hours of lab as well. Courses with fewer lab hours will
be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but classes with substantially fewer lab
hours will not be approved. Please note that at many schools you have to enroll
separately for the lab; it may not be built into a single integrated
lecture/lab course like it is at Princeton.
On-line courses, hybrid
(semi-online) courses, and independent study courses are not approved for
Princeton degree credit. Princeton does not award degree credit for internships
or research experiences.
In the case of a course proposed to
substitute for a required prerequisite or a course in a Princeton department,
the content should be substantially similar. You may take no more than two
courses in any one summer. You may not, under any circumstances, use outside
courses to substitute for a term of study at Princeton.
After the course is over, you must
have an official transcript sent to
Princeton in order to receive credit. An official transcript must be sent to
your residential college office before you can count a course toward your
Princeton degree. It is your
responsibility to request the transcript and to confirm that it has been
received. The receipt of a transcript is currently the only way for
Princeton to know that you have completed the course with an acceptable grade.
Please note that registrar's offices at other schools are often very slow about
mailing transcripts, so take care of this matter as soon as the course is
completed.
This is important to know: outside courses are never
approved retroactively. There is a reason
it is called pre-approval. Do not expect to get credit for an outside
course, summer or otherwise, if you have not received pre-approval before
taking the course.
Here are the steps of the
preapproval process, which must be followed in order:
(1) Compile detailed information
on the course you intend to take, either from the other university's website or
catalog or by contacting the department there and asking to be sent a syllabus. The information MUST be more
than a few sentences and must provide an indication of the topical coverage of
the course, the number and duration of meetings, the textbooks used, and the
methods of assessment. A full syllabus is best, even if it is for the version
of the course taught last summer or during the academic year. The more
information you can provide, the easier the preapproval process will be.
NOTE: Please print
out the information and take it in person with the approval form to the relevant
department. Please do not send e-mail to faculty and deans asking them to look
at websites or attachments of syllabi. Doing so only makes the pre-approval
process extremely cumbersome in the long run.
(2) Obtain an Approval for a
Course Taken at Another Institution form from your residential college
office. You may also download a copy
(Approval for a Course Taken at
Another Institution) from the Office
of the Dean of the College website. Please note that the form has numbered
steps on it, 1-5. Please follow them in order. Step 1 is to complete the
information at the top of the form. Please check your math when computing the
total numbers of hours! Submitting a form showing fewer than 30 hours of class
guarantees that it will not be approved. There are also a lot of regulations on
the reverse side. Please read them.
(3) Take the form and the
supporting description to the departmental
representative of the department AT PRINCETON where the course is taught.
For example, differential equations is taught at Princeton as MAE 305, so you
must take the materials and form to MAE, even if the course is taught by the
math department at the school where you plan to take it. If you are taking the
course to match a specific Princeton course (e.g. MAT 202, MAE 305, CHM 303,
etc.), the equivalency must be noted in the space on the form labeled
"Analogous Course at Princeton".
(3a) Note that if you plan to use this course as as departmental or program prerequisite or requirement, you
must also obtain approval of your own departmental rep or program director. For example, if you are taking differential equations
as the equivalent of MAE 305 to fulfill a departmental requirement in CBE, CEE,
or ORFE, then you need to get the signature of the departmental rep in your
department in the space indicated. If you are just taking it as a general SEAS
requirement or as an elective, you can skip this step.
(4) Take the form to the SEAS
Undergraduate Affairs Office and obtain the approval of the Associate Dean for
Undergraduate Affairs, who will also make sure that the course meets the
minimum number of class/lab hours and weeks and that the course meets all
Princeton criteria. Please make sure
that you have approval from the relevant department at Princeton before
seeing the SEAS associate dean.
(5) Return the form to your
residential college office (freshmen, sophomores, and juniors). Note that if
the course is going to be taken abroad, it also needs the endorsement of Dean
Kanach in the Office of the International Programs at 36 University Place.
(6) Take the course, receive a
grade of C or better (note: a C- is not acceptable).
(7) Have the transcript sent to your
residential college office immediately upon completion of the course.
Transcripts for courses taken abroad must be sent to the Office of
International Programs for credit approval.
SPECIAL RULES FOR MATH
COURSES
The Math Department has developed
special procedures for the approval of Math courses which they have defined on
the following web page: http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/forms-procedures/summer-math-courses.
Basically, these procedures are a more explicit version of what is outlined
above, so save yourself a hassle and just follow the
procedures closely. Remember, differential equations is
approved by MAE as MAE 305, not by Math.
OTHER Special POLICIES
The University writing requirement
and the B.S.E. computer science requirement (COS 126) cannot be satisfied by
courses taken elsewhere. They must be taken at Princeton.
Language courses have special
rules:
(1) A course or
set of courses proposed to substitute for a course in a foreign language must
meet at least 60 hours.
(2) One course credit can be granted for a beginning language course
(i.e. 101-102) provided the course/s are (a) preapproved by the department and
(b) the department determines at the conclusion of the preapproved summer study
that the student has progressed beyond the 102 level. In other words, if you
are doing a beginning language course over the summer, you have to go far
enough to convince the relevant language department here, on the basis of
whatever assessment it uses, that you can place into the next course beyond the
102 level.
(3) Credit for 100-level language courses
above the 102 level may be granted if (a) preapproved by the department and (b)
the department determines that the student has proceeded beyond the expected
language level for that course. In other words, if you take the equivalent of
Russian 105 elsewhere, you need to demonstrate that you can place into Russian
107 upon your return. Credit will be given for the final course in an
introductory sequence only if the student passes the department placement test
that demonstrates satisfaction of the A.B. foreign language requirement.
Remember, all language courses must have 60 contact hours and meet for a
minimum of 4 weeks.
This doesn't apply to our own
language programs (e.g. Princeton-in-Beijing/Munich/St. Petersburg, etc.) that
are offered through Princeton language departments and teach courses that are
credited as Princeton courses, and you don't need separate approval for them in
any event.
Courses taken at non-U.S.
institutions must also be approved by Dean Nancy Kanach in the Office of
International Programs. In general, outside of language programs, very few
overseas institutions offer acceptable summer courses, so please consult with
Dean Bogucki before starting on the preapproval process. After you take the
course, the transcript must be sent to the Office of International Programs for
credit approval.
If you are on financial aid and are
unable to meet your expected summer earnings contribution because of summer
study, you should see a financial aid counselor, 220 West
College, to discuss whether your savings shortfall can be replaced. Student
loans could be available to qualified students to meet tuition costs of
approved courses.
Normally, summer
courses must be approved by Dean's Date of the spring term in May. If your circumstances at the end of the spring term suddenly
require you to take a summer course (e.g. you find yourself with fewer than the
required number of courses to advance to the following year or you fail a
required course), then it is possible to obtain late preapproval BEFORE THE
SUMMER COURSE BEGINS by faxing the relevant documentation to the Associate Dean
for Undergraduate Affairs of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at
856-504-0060 (fax only, do not call this number) or scanning and sending as a PDF (not JPG or other graphics format)
attachment.
Updated by Peter Bogucki
12-19-16.