<p>(if you don't like a bit of a short rant and silly worries you may want to avoid this)...to avoid people from your high school in college? It probably sounds like a really dumb question, but I'm going to a large college soon (20k+ undergrads) within the city that I went to high school in. Long story short, a lot of rumors got around my senior year and I didn't graduate on the best terms with some people. Although I know not to worry about it, it's an unconscious worry that I won't be able to distance myself or be able to avoid people that I want to avoid in college. </p>
<p>Basically... do you think it will be difficult to avoid high school peers and crap/rumors that went on right before graduation. I think I just need reassurance.
Thanks so much.</p>
<p>There are over 20,000 students. Let’s assume that there are like 100 students from your high school going to this school. There are still over 20,000 students not from your high school. You may be in a class with a few of them the first year or so, but chances are those classes will be GenEds and will be way to large for either of you to care. Sure, you might run into them on campus a few times or maybe not at all. If you don’t want to hang around them there will be plenty of other people for you to hang out with.</p>
<p>20k+, and that’s only the undergrads - there’ll be thousands and thousands more staff, profs, and grad students as well. You’ll have no problem avoiding them. And think about it – if these people tried to spread rumors about you to people who have no idea who you are, how petty would they look? Worst case scenario, you report it to the administration, and get it sorted out that way, but there’s about 0% chance of that ever being necessary.</p>
<p>I attend university 8 hours away from where my high school is, and only 5 people from my graduating class attend UC Davis, two of whom I actually knew. None of them are in the same major as me and they entered when they were freshmen whereas I transferred in, so the chances of me running into them AND recognizing them after 5 years is very, very, very slim.</p>
<p>You can completely avoid anyone you want. Maybe you’ll see them walking around (I awkwardly run into people I would rather not see somewhat often, like on the street or whatever, and I go to a huge school) but you will almost certainly not have to interact with them in any way. The only thing I could think of would be if you somehow got unlucky and they happened to live on the same floor as you or something, but the odds of that are super small. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>I go to a school with about 26000 undergrads and I believe about 600 came from my high school. Given, I never knew most of them, but I don’t feel like I run into many of them much. There’s been a few I’ve had multiple classes with, but other than that, I just don’t see many that often.</p>
<p>I go to a large in state university. There are over 40,000 students at my school, and there are about 30 kids from my high school at my college. I’ve seen a couple of them at parties and wave say hey to them. I have friends in one of the guy’s fraternities, and we’ve hung out a couple of times. And then I don’t see most of the other people. I’m an engineer, and almost all of my classes are with engineers. Only two of them are in engineering, which is a large college with many specialties, so I don’t see them much.</p>
<p>Presumably very easy. I go to a school with 50,000 undergraduates and there were two other kids from my high school graduating class who went there. I never saw either of them my entire freshmam year.</p>
<p>If you DO see them walking or see them in passing, usually everyone’s going somewhere and is in the zone and there’s a very low chance they’d flag you down to chat.</p>
<p>Unless they live in the same dorm area you will probably rarely or never see them. You could even have a class with them in a 200 plus people lecture and never notice they were in your class. You will be fine and no will care about the rumors and gossip from high school, college is a new life essentially.</p>
<p>There’s 20,000+ students, so not a huge chance, except for what other people mentioned that if you’d end up in the same major or dorm/floor as someone, but it’s highly unlikely. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>When I started going to a CC after HS. I wanted to avoid going to the local school that was 2 miles from my house at all costs because 1 they didn’t have the program I was going into and 2. I would run into almost half of my senior classes mates. So I went to the school 5-8+ miles up the freeway and stayed put there. 3 years later I’m still there, I met a few interesting people.</p>
<p>I graduated in a class of 43. Four kids (including me) went to my college of 30,000 students.</p>
<p>I saw the other three on a weekly basis in passing. We ended up having mutual friends. The other girl from my school was actually friends with my suitemates and I remember hearing her talking in my bathroom and being very weirded out.</p>
<p>One of the kids actually ended up living directly across from me. I mean. There are 4500 freshmen who are all required to live on campus and we ended up not only in the same building, but also the same hallway with rooms facing each other.</p>
<p>That being said, me and that last kid did NOT get along at all in high school and we became good friends this past year in college. The girl ended up transferring so I never saw her second semester and the other kid was a quiet dude who I always was fine with.</p>
<p>Another story: Two guys from my class decided on the same college that requires random student housing and doesn’t allow people to live with someone who went to their high school. They ended up being assigned to each other in the rooming process (but they called and had it changed.)</p>
<p>And finally: There’s only one girl from the class of 2012 at my high school going to my university. And we have a class (by chance) together in the fall. The class is only like 30 students and there are probably 50 or more sections. So yeah.</p>
<p>So can people be avoided? Yeah. Does the universe have a weird sense of humor? Oh yes.</p>
<p>I got to a school of about 3,000 and there were 10ish people from my high school that came here. During orientation and things like that I’d notice them only because it was all freshman and they were the only faces I recognized, but once school got started, I met other people, and whatnot, I rarely ever saw them. A few of them even lived in the same dorm as me and I still managed to run into them only a handful of times. It’s really based on luck and what majors/sports/activities you chose. Obviously if two of you are Bio majors and work in the library you’re going to see each other way more than if one of you is pre-med and the other is a Soc major. The rules of probability!</p>
<p>I agree with this for sure. I came to my school after living out of state for about six years, although I had lived my life up until then instate (Wisconsin). I found out a very old best friend of mine from elementary/middle school was also going to UW, and although we hadn’t seen each other in years and actually had had quite a bit of a falling out before I left, we actually were somewhat attracted to each other here (I saw her once walking to class and realized we should catch up) and were considering dating at one point. I didn’t want to date anyone so soon in my college career, so that didn’t work out, but yes, the universe sure does work in mysterious ways.</p>
<p>Well, you can avoid people at any large school, but the easiest way to do it is to go to school across the country where you know absolutely no one. =)</p>
<p>If that’s not an option, make it a priority to get to know people in a variety of friend groups. That way, if a person from your high school starts hanging out with some new friends of yours, you have a few other groups of people to hang out with if things start getting uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Going across the country was preferred, but nothing was as good of an option as staying here, since they have my program of interest and costs less. A bunch of people I know (including me) will all be in the honors college, and most likely in the same dorm. So I guess now it just depends on whether we all end up in the same dorm building/floor. Thanks for the responses, everyone.</p>
And think about it – if these people tried to spread rumors about you to people who have no idea who you are, how petty would they look? Worst case scenario, you report it to the administration, and get it sorted out that way, but there’s about 0% chance of that ever being necessary.</p>