Couple of questions about US college system, pls anwser

<p>Hi I’m about to start college in spring 2009 and I’m from Poland. If anyone here is from Poland and currently is studying in United States pls contact me privately. If you are an american student please try to anwser these questions, I couldnt find the anwsers myself somehow.</p>

<li>What are the consequences of starting college in spring instead of fall? </li>
<li>If later I would like to transfer to another school I would need to pick one that also offers spring semester admission?</li>
<li>What is the best time to transfer? How should I prepare?</li>
</ol>

<ol>
<li>You may not walk (ie graduate) in spring, as you may not have completed the necessary classes by then. Also, colleges don't take in many students for spring term (except some competitive schools who take in spring admits, so as to accomodate more)</li>
<li>International transfer is very difficult.</li>
<li>Admission for international transfers is very very difficult. In general, transfer admission is far more difficult than freshman admission. In addition, many schools do not offer Financial Aid for international transfers.</li>
</ol>

<p>Note: I'm a Singapore student, and we graduate in December. However, few Singaporean applicants seek admission to the spring term. Instead, most Singaporean applicants just spend the eight months from January to August doing other activities like jobs, internships, research attachment, etc. It's not really a long time.</p>

<p>I was saying that I'm already accepted for spring 2009 in united states. So I will be transfering from us college to us college, not from Poland. And I'm not worried much about money because I play basketball. I just dont know how it works, question nr 2 is the most immportant.</p>

<p>I am confused.... You say that you are already accepted to a college for the spring semester, and then you ask us which colleges accept spring transfers?</p>

<p>To answer your original question, starting college in the spring instead of the fall might have several unintended consequences:
- It might be harder to make friends if you are not a very outgoing person.
- Your class options might be more limited because many language and science classes are set up as two-semester sequences that you cannot start in the spring semester.
- You probably won't get to play basketball until next fall. Why? Because coaches are only allowed to have one player play for 4 years total, and chances are that your coach wants you to practice only for the spring and then start the clock in the fall. It's called redshirting a player.
- For reasons (2) and (3) and the burden of varsity athletics, you might need 9 semesters to finish college instead of the usual 8. </p>

<p>Do you want to transfer again? Sorry, I am confused. You are saying that you will transfer from a US college to another US college in the spring, and you are asking us that if you transfer yet again, what would you have to pay attention to...? Why are you transferring so often???</p>

<p>Anyway, to answer your questions:
If you transferred again, I would recommend you do it after 3 semesters so that you would transfer in the fall instead of the spring. Transferring after 3 semesters would give you 2 semesters to get to know professors who can write letters of recommendations on your behalf, and you would still have plenty of time to enjoy your new college after the transfer.</p>

<p>And are you sure that finances would not be an issue if you transferred yet again? I am just wondering because most universities aren't even allowed to award significant athletic scholarships, and those who do (Div I universities) have a very limited amount of scholarship money by NCAA regulations. I would assume that all of those scholarships are awarded to incoming freshmen and not held for transfer students, but I guess if you are a start athlete, some colleges would go out of their way to find money for you.</p>

<p>"I would recommend you do it after 3 semesters so that you would transfer in the fall instead of the spring. Transferring after 3 semesters would give you 2 semesters to get to know professors who can write letters of recommendations on your behalf, and you would still have plenty of time to enjoy your new college after the transfer." </p>

<p>This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much. That means I can pick any school I want, not just those with spring admission.</p>

<p>And to clear things, I dont want to transfer several times, I'm not stupid. I have only one tranfer in mind. Its hard for me to explain this in english, it looks something like this:</p>

<p>may 2008 - graduated from polish high school, took TOEFL
june 2008 - took SAT
september 2008 - college said I'm accepted but I will start in spring, not fall because there was too little time left and I still have things to take care off like visa.
january 2009 - I will start college (normal freshman, no transfering involved)</p>