I’m currently a 21-year-old community college student. I started at university in the Fall of 2015, but things didn’t go as planned and I dropped out after one semester. I enrolled at a community college the following fall(2016), and I am now in my second year at that college, with plans to transfer to another university next year. However, I’m kind of self-conscious about my age. I was already old for my grade to begin with(October b-day), but with this recent setback, I would be 1 to 2 years older than my classmates at most universities. I really want to transfer to a university where I can fit in in terms of my age. For instance, I’ll be turning 22 at the beginning of my junior year and 23 at the beginning of my senior year, and I was wondering if anyone on here knew of a college where it’s common to turn 22 during junior year and 23 during senior year. If so, what’s the name of that college? Thank you in advance.
Lots of state universities have students of various ages. Plus, you are one year older than a student who gets thru in 4 years. That is barely a blip, and no one will care. What you should be thinking about is how much support a school gives transfer students to succeed academically and socially.
Honestly, it won’t make a bit of difference at most schools. I know D’s boyfriend is turning 22 during his junior year. It’s simply a nonissue. Find a school that works for you as a student and don’t give the slight age disparity a second thought.
One of my best friends in a college was a 28-year-old guy. I was 18 when we met. I didn’t think anything of it.
I was 22 when I met my future husband in grad school - he was 30. Really no big deal at all.
No one will really notice or care unless you tell them, which you may not want to if you don’t want underage students asking you to buy alcohol for them.
Lots of transfer students are older than traditional age.
As everybody else has said, this is an issue that will be almost entirely in your head. Once everybody is 21 exact ages stop mattering. Grad students taking required undergrad courses, people who have missed a year (or 2 or 5) for dozens of reasons, changes in major, vets coming back to college, etc.
No one cards you at the universities.
There are multi-generational students everywhere.
Being a year older is a non issue.
I went back to graduate school 3 years after graduating university. The only issue that I noticed that I would even vaguely allocate to age was that I was a better student – I did homework when assigned (well before it was due) and kept ahead in all classes. There was no problem at all being a couple of years older than the average student in my classes.
I don’t think that you will have any problems at all, as long as you never volunteer to be the purchaser of alcohol for anyone (which could get to be a problem).
You won’t stand out at all.
There were several students with me who had served in the military before college. It doesn’t matter.
It’s especially a non-issue for an upperclassman. I don’t think I’d necessarily want to be 22 in an all-freshman dorm at a small liberal arts college taking intro classes designed for freshman, but you will have no problem fitting in with juniors and seniors at any sort of public or private research university. Such schools will have very heterogeneous populations age-wise with no shortage of grad students, internationals, non-traditional students, and transfers.
I only remember one older student who stood out. She lived in the freshman dorm and complained all the time about noise, immature behaviors, etc. She needed to live elsewhere.
My son’s dorm floor (state university) has ages 17 - 26 on it. No issues at all.
In the UK, people over 21 when they start at Oxford or Cambridge (sometimes they have had experience at a previous university, but in the UK, you can’t transfer in the American way at Oxford or Cambridge but have to start over) are called mature students and can apply to mature student colleges as well as regular colleges. However, you are only slightly over the usual age so I wouldn’t think it would be a big issue. As has been said, in universities with graduate students there will be plenty of people your age about. In a small college with no or few graduate students possibly being a little older could be more awkward. Possibly you could ask the universities you are considering transferring to if they could make small concessions in view of your age such as a single room. This would make noisy dorms etc less of a potential problem.