Currently my marks will have me on the Dean's List for this year, however a course I am in may severely bring my mark down and could potentially take me off of it.

That's not to say that continuing with the course actually WILL keep me off the list, but there's always a risk.

If I were to drop the course, and take a course during the summer, would that summer course count for this current year, or only for the following year?

It's my understanding to qualify for the Dean's list you have to have a minimum 9.5 in 30 units from Sept - Apr, so the summer will not help you here. I might be wrong on this but I believe summer courses are listed separately on your transcript and not part of the fall/winter grouping of courses.

Just based off a quick google search, you can find that while you are past the add/drop date for financial penalties, you can still drop courses up until March 13 without academic penalty. I would quickly drop by an academic advisor to confirm this with the Dean's list, but i dont see why that should be affected if no academic penalty is incurred.

I can see instances where it may be a problem. Why would the Dean want to reward someone for dropping courses? That seems a little counter intuitive doesn't it? Again I might be wrong, so as previous poster suggested, best to ask an Academic Advisor from your faculty what the deal is.

Summer courses count towards the following year. You are reviewed at the end of each session (fall/winter and spring/summer) to determine eligibility, but only once 30 units have been taken since the last review (I think the number is 30 - I could be wrong though, so double-check that). If you've got enough units to be reviewed at the end of the fall/winter session, then there's no way you'll earn enough units to be reviewed again at the end of the spring/summer session, so the credits earned there will count towards your average for the Dean's list the next time you are reviewed (i.e. the end of the following fall/winter session).

I actually (accidentally) did the opposite of this. In my second year I would have fallen just under the average required for Dean's list if they only looked at the fall/winter session, but the previous summer I had taken a course and got a 12 in it, so that was enough to boost my average and put me on the Dean's list.

If it counts for anything, I have transfer credits still, so I would still technically have 30 units.