I’m a high school graduate (June 2015) and have been accepted by a couple universities for Spring 2016. I’ve chosen to attend ASU in Spring but now seem confused if I should begin attending in Fall 2016 after seeing that spring has much lesser students and most of them are transfer, not first time freshmen like me, and a couple other disadvantages.
There is an orientation for Spring semester, just like there is in Fall. The number of students in Spring last year was 1/4th the number of students who attended in Fall. (ASU provided me with that info.)
I’m an international student. My acceptance letter is valid for 3 semesters (Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017) so I can choose not to go in Spring and attend in Fall too. What should I do?
I’m considering all factors (Social, Class sizes, etc) so I don’t know if Spring is a good term for me to start my undergrad in.
By deferring your start by a semester you would be delaying graduation by 6 months or so. That’s a significant delay in your career for very subjective reasons. You will undoubtly meet many non-transfer students in your classes regardless of when you start.
@porcupine98 - Do you have any personal known experience with spring or its advantages/disadvantages? If I choose Fall 2016 it would be a year’s gap just waiting. I’m an international student, so, in my country, job prospects aren’t good for people who blankly took a year off after high school.
But then again, if Fall really IS better considering all factors, then I don’t mind taking that step.
Most first time freshman prefer to start in the fall because all the other freshman are arriving. Everyone is looking to make friends and figure out the system together so there’s lots of bonding and orientation events to facilitate the adjustment. By spring, most of those freshman have begun to form their social groups and are pretty well oriented so coming in new is harder. Likewise, coming in with mostly transfers (an older somewhat more experienced group) isn’t as easy if you are a freshmen - and more so if you are an international. There will be orientation events and you’ll surely make friends - but if you can reasonably delay until the fall and do something productive with your time in between, I would suggest doing that.
It depends on what your priorities are. Do you want to start attending right away to get things started, or do you want to start at the same time as most other first-time freshman and do stereotypical new fall freshman stuff with them? It’s really a personal decision.
ASU is a huge school and even if most of the new spring attendees are transfer students, a sizable proportion might be new freshman. I’d find out how many there are and get a sense for what the orientation is like. Also, the other freshman will have just begun 4 months earlier. Every year we get many messages on CC from freshman who still haven’t totally found their footing by then, so there will still be lots of students who are looking for friends and lots of organizations to join and enjoy.
It’s really a personal decision. The other question is what are you going to do until August 2016?
@juillet - If I choose to attend in August, then I’d take a course that’d help me in college. ASU told me that there are several hundred first time freshmen and a couple hundred transfer students that begin in January. But in August, its thousands. However, this does not mean the class sizes are smaller for Spring students. Its in fact bigger than usual because the previous year’s August students will be taking their January-May courses so class sizes are bigger. ASU told me that too.
You could work, volunteer, improve your English, tutor high school kids in English…
Did you get into Barrett or “just” ASU and what made you choose ASU (you said you had other options)?