It won’t be unusual at all. As someone pointed out upthread, you might find that some of your classmates are a bit less mature then you, although this might be more the case for an incoming freshmen than it would be for a sophomore, as sophomores would have already had the opportunity to live away from home for more than year and would have gotten that new-found freedom out of their system.
Take this from somebody that started college at age 16, whose roommate and then-best friend started college at 19. For the record, I went back to graduate school at age 33 with a cohort no less than a decade younger than I. Both experiences were amazing in their own way, and I still enjoy close friendships from both periods in my life.
All of that having been said, older, non-traditional and/or returning students might find that the student population at a research university is a bit more heterogeneous than that of a small, liberal arts college, but a year or two age difference in either direction should not make much of a difference anywhere.
@collegemom3717 Korean and Chinese cultures tend to be fairly formal in how you address people. In the Philippines as well, though it’s probably not as strict. As an example, in Korean, you usually have this matrix when you address people, by sticking the proper classification after the person’s name:
man addressing older woman - nuna
man addressing older man - hyung
woman addressing older woman - eonni
woman addressing older man - oppa (well known from the Gangnam Style song)
Chinese has a slightly more complex system where younger people have classifications as well as older people. For example, you might address an slightly older person as ‘ge’ (older brother) and a younger person as ‘di’ (younger brother), and for women, ‘je’ for slightly older women, ‘mei’ for slightly younger woman. You can address a more older female as ‘yi’ (aunt). A great way to irk some woman might be to refer to her as a ‘yi’ when she’s not that old, and the opposite, to flatter someone as a ‘je’ when she is a lot older.
of course, some familial situations override this. I happen to have 2 nieces that are older than me (my oldest sister’s kids). I was a major brat as a kid, I used to force them to address me as ‘uncle’. That was loads of fun.
Veterans are highly sought out and will be a few years older.
If you have are 21 and started st 18 at the same school. Perhaps minimum classes per semester. Perhaps liked college. Doesn’t need to work right away. Changed majors in a big way. Left for a few semesters to help at home for a myriad of reasons. All perfectly normal.
Heck, Georgetown admitted 20 or so students that had been traced as direct living descendants of slavery related issues at the school.
One women was in her 60s as a freshman and living in a dorm. Her own room but apparently was incredibly popular on campus and in the dorm.
Maybe like having a mom or grandmom right down the hall when you’re having a bad day.
@kamenridermach - no I was saying it is not unusual these days. Although they could have registered the Sept after turning, many waited another year and were already 6 yo in K. If that happens, you are 19 when you graduate HS and could be 21 as a college soph.
It seems like when I was young, kids were pushed to go as soon as possible. In fact, you could be born as late as December and still enroll for prior Sept, in K. Now, our district has a pretty firm 9/1 cutoff and parents seem to weigh the value of waiting an extra year if kids are close to that cutoff date.
^^what @Lindagaf said. NO ONE CARES. Nobody will ask you how old you are. You won’t know old anybody else is either. In most of your classes you will have people of different ages, from different years (ie, a mix of sophomores/juniors/seniors), and unless you happen to know them you won’t know which is which.
Based on your other threads, you seem to be caught in some sort of anxiety spiral about your age / where you are in college / what you “should” be doing / the importance of number of years old you are compared to other people, etc. Two pages of posts have all said the same thing: it is not important to anybody but you, and yet you keep poking it, like poking a sore tooth. I suggest taking yourself down to the college counseling center and talking through this anxiety that seems to be getting the better of you.
“Again, clarify, someone who continued straight after HS, no gap years”
Still not weird.
It is common to graduate high school at 19 (k starting at 6) and go straight to college which makes you 20-21 as a sophomore.
It is common to graduate high school and go straight to college and take two years to finish the first year of study for some reason which makes you 21 as a sophomore.
It is common to graduate high school and go into the military (not a gap year) and start as a freshman at 20 and be 21+ as a sophomore.
It is common to work before college, outside of the military, and to enter college at 20+ and be 21 as a sophomore.
It is common to go to college at 18, leave for health reasons or other reasons, and to go back to school later and be 21 as a sophomore.
There are many paths through school. Whether you enter college earlier than average, or later, whether you get your first professional job with or without college, no grown adult is going to think that a number makes a big difference.
You don’t put your age on a resume. Keep learning, keep going to school, keep working and people will find it hard to form judgments about you. Only weird people put other people in boxes like “weird” because of age, etc.
I was a 21 year old sophomore at one point (stayed at community college 3 years). I was not a junior until 22 and I graduated when I had just turned 24. It’s not that weird. I started college at 19.
It’s not weird. I started in community college at 22, where Freshman and Sophomore are largely meaningless terms, and became a Junior at 24, a Senior the next semester, and then spent 2 1/2 years as a Senior and graduated at 27. It was never seen as particularly weird, and I wasn’t even the oldest student in my classes.