- Calendar
- The way a college or university divides its year for teaching and credit
hours. A semester calendar divides the academic year into two terms. A
quarter or trimester calendar divides the academic year into three terms.
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- Catalog
- A college or university publication that gives detailed information
about costs, courses, faculty, admissions, governance, etc. Long considered
the “official” record of an institution, colleges and universities today
send it to high school students less frequently. Information may be obtained
at the institution’s web site.
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- Certificate
- The award usually given for completing a college program or vocational
specialty requiring less than two years of study.
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- Charter Schools
- A charter school is a school affiliated with a school district but is
not subject to many of the same rules and regulations as a traditional high
school in hiring faculty, and designing curricula and course offerings. As
such, they offer individuality and opportunity to students whose educational
interests and abilities are best met by a non-traditional environment.
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- Class Rank
- The position of a student in his or her graduating class.
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- College
- Usually this is an institution of higher education that offers only
undergraduate programs and limited graduate programs, but it also can be a
separate unit within a university like a college of business or college of
arts and sciences. Often colleges within a university have different
admission requirements.
- College Fees
- These are charges associated with college that cover costs not associated with the student's course load. Examples may include athletic activities, campus clubs and other special events.
- College Grant
- A grant is monies given to a student for the purposes of paying for all or part of college expenses. A college grant does not have to be repaid by the student.
- Candidates Reply Date Agreement (CRDA)
- If admitted to a college, a student does not have to reply until May 1. This allows time to hear from all the colleges to which the student applied before having to make a commitment to any of them. This is especially important because financial aid packages vary from one school to another, and the CRDA allows time to compare packages before deciding.
- College-preparatory subjects
- Courses taken in high school that are viewed by colleges and universities as a strong preparation for college work. The specific courses are usually in the five majors area of English, history, world languages, mathematics, and science. The courses may be regular, honors-level, or AP offerings, and the latter two categories are often weighted when calculated in the GPA.
- College Scholarship Service (CSS)
- When the federal government changed the FAFSA form several years ago, the College Board created this program to assist postsecondary institutions, state scholarship programs, and other organizations in measuring a family’s financial strength and analyzing its ability to contribute to college costs. CSS processes the PROFILE financial form that students may use to apply for nonfederal aid. This form is submitted to some 300 private colleges and universities along with the FAFSA when seeking financial aid from these institutions. Participating colleges and universities indicate whether they require this form.
- Common and Universal Applications
- These college application forms can save students hours of work. The Common Application is presently accepted by about 190 independent colleges, while the Universal is used by about 1,000 schools. The colleges and universities that accept these standardized forms give them equal weight with their own application forms. Students complete the information on the standardized form and then submit it to any of the schools listed as accepting it. Some schools will return a supplementary form to be completed by the applicant, but most schools base their decisions on these documents alone. The Common Application is available on disk or as a hard copy and can be obtained from your guidance department. The Universal Application is available on the Web.
- Community College
- This type of college offers a degree after the completion of two years
of full-time study. They frequently offer technical programs that prepare
you for immediate entry into the job market. Many people also attend
community and junior colleges to prepare and save money so that they can
transfer to a four-year university.
- Transfer Programs
basic freshman- and sophomore-level courses, with credits you can transfer
to a four-year college toward an eventual bachelor’s degree. In addition,
community college students who complete about 60 hours and meet certain
requirements may receive an associate in arts degree from the community
college.
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Terminal Programs -
offer education in technical fields, such as nursing, cosmetology or
airframe mechanics, that culminate in a certificate (one-year programs) or
an associate in applied sciences degree (two-year programs). Students who
complete these programs move directly into the job market, although some
fields first require licensing examinations.
- Compressed Term
- A normal semester term is about 15 weeks; a quarter term is 10 weeks.
Some colleges (especially on-base schools) compress their terms into a
shorter time frame, for example, 8 weeks or on weekends.
- Consortium
- A voluntary association of colleges or universities that provides joint
programs and services to enrolled students.
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- Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
- Many colleges have a Continuing Education Division or a College of
Extended Studies. It consists of coursework that meets community needs at
times and locations convenient for working adults. They may or may not be
for credit.
Subjects vary -- they can be leisure and recreational courses, such as
square dancing, cooking, yoga, furniture making, genealogy, or photography.
Or they can be courses that meet professional education needs, such as
license renewal, a professional certificate or keeping up-to-date in a
career field.
Noncredit courses are usually taught by experts in the subject matter, not
faculty members. Upon completion, students are often awarded CEUs, based on
the number of clock hours he/she attended class. Ten clock hours equal one
CEU. CEUs do not equate to college credit nor can they be transferred into
another college.
- Control
- A college or university can be under public or private control. Publicly controlled universities are dependent on state legislatures for their funding, and their policies are set by the agencies that govern them. Private colleges and universities are responsible to a board of directors or trustees. They usually have higher tuition and fees to protect the institutions’ endowment.
- Cooperative Education
- A college program that alternates between periods of full-time study and full-time employment in a related field. Students are paid for their work and gain practical experience in their major, which helps them apply for positions after graduation. It can take five years to obtain a baccalaureate degree through a co-op program.
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- Correspondence Courses
- Courses taken by mail or via internet. Colleges may give limited credit
for correspondence courses.
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- Cost of Attendance
- The total of all costs a financial aid office estimates students will
incur during attendance at the college or university
- Cost of Education
- This includes tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses. A student’s financial aid eligibility is the difference between the cost of education and the Expected Family Contribution as computed by the federal government using the FAFSA.
- Course Load
- The number of course credit hours a student takes in each semester. Twelve credit hours is the minimum to be considered a full-time student. The average course load per semester is 16 credit hours.
- Credit Hours
- The number of hours per week that courses meet are counted as equivalent credits for financial aid and used to determine you status as a full- or part-time student.
- Cross-registration
- The practice, through agreements between colleges, of permitting students enrolled at one college or university to enroll in courses at another institution without formally applying for admission to the second institution. This can be an advantage for students in a smaller college who might like to expand options or experience another learning environment.
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- Curriculum (plural Curricula)
- All the courses offered by a college or university. Also, the course of
study required for a specific degree.
- Custodial Parent
- If a student's parents are divorced or separated, the custodial parent
is the one with who the student lived the most during the past 12 months.
The student's need analysis is based on financial information supplied by
the custodial parent on the FAFSA.
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