As Northwestern students are finalizing their summer plans, some have found easy answers in the most unlikely of places: Harvard.

Although most choose either to go home or stay in the Chicago area, a significant portion of students will journey to another familiar college town — Cambridge, Mass. — for summer school.

Their motivation? Introductory Biology.

“I wanted to go someplace else,” said Medill junior Tony Millard, a premedical student. “I looked at a couple other schools and found that Harvard’s tuition was cheaper than other places, such as Stanford.”

Students who take the eight-week Introductory Biology course at Harvard pay $4,050 for eight units, the equivalent of three credits at NU.

This price is cheaper than the tuition for the nine-week Biology 110 during NU’s Summer Session, which costs $7,101 and also awards three credits.

Although both classes squeeze a year’s worth of material into the space of one summer, NU’s tuition costs more than $1,000 more per unit of credit.

Yet NU’s Summer Session still has its benefits, said Stephanie Teterycz, associate director of the Summer Session.

“When you compare it to the price during the regular academic year, the Summer Session is cheaper,” Teterycz said.

Some students say they are intimidated by the reputation of NU’s biology sequence.

“I’ve heard of people here who had to quit halfway through,” said Weinberg sophomore Kendahl Moser-Bleil, who plans to take biology at Harvard this summer and live in an apartment with Millard. “Harvard’s seems to be more manageable.”

According to Linda Cross, director of communications and marketing at Harvard, 69 NU students took classes at Harvard last summer.

Of the nearly 5,000 students enrolled in the school’s summer term, NU was second only to Harvard in number of students represented.

Teterycz said many students take summer courses elsewhere because it gives them a different college experience. Some attend NU for the summer.

“We have a lot of students who come here from Ivy League schools,” Teterycz said.

The composition of NU’s summer class differs greatly from Harvard’s — 86 percent of the 5,980 students enrolled last year were full-time NU students.

Only about 14 percent of students in summer classes at Harvard are full-time students at the university.

NU’s Summer Session begins June 21. Regular registration runs until June 19, and late registration runs from June 21 to June 25, but students will be charged a late fee.

Harvard’s summer registration begins June 28, with regular registration available until June 4.

Students still can register up to July 2, but will be charged a late registration fee.