I was wondering if there is a stigma towards UCB students who are coming in the Spring. Are they seen as inferior to their fall classmates?
I was admitted in the spring at UCB but I was also accepted to other ivy league schools and decided to come to UCB due to the school being the top school for my major, cost, weather, and because I would have went into debt going to an ivy league. I had a 4.0, 2300 SAT, good ecs and great essay, but I feel as if I was left out, barely got in. Almost as if they took me because they food more room. I am afraid to enter a campus where I will be made to feel less that the other students. Whenever I tell people Im coming in the spring, I always get the question “oh , you’re a spring admit?” Do people really think that spring students had a " lesser application"
I bet you the stigma, if it ever exists, resides within the student him/herself.
My D, who just graduated last semester, has no clue as who among her cohorts came as fall or spring admit!
UC Berkeley does spring admission (randomly) in the form of spring 2016 start, FPF, and Global Edge to ensure that there are students present the next semester to fill in the spaces for the students who graduate, drop out, or transfer after the fall semester. Instead of thinking that you barely made it under the wire, think of it as UC Berkeley doing all it can do to bring you in and get you to matriculate. If the school truly thought you were inferior, it always has the option to not pick you up. As for the matter of how your peers perceive you, I wouldn’t mind that one bit.
I stayed over at UC Berkeley for its OSP (Overnight Stay Program) and an RA there told me that no one barely remembers who was in FPF, Global Edge, or CC during the fall semester after a few weeks into the spring semester. If on the off chance that you do happen to meet a person with an inferiority complex and who gloats to you that you started in the spring whereas s/he started in the fall, you’ll probably realize that you’re better off not being in the presence of such a person.
Just join some orgs once you come in the spring and find your niche. Make some friends and the only thing that they’ll care about is not who you were, but who you are.
Spring admission isn’t really that random. I found that it occurred at my school since we were overrepresented in my local area. I also viewed a document used my admissions officers which stated that alternate pathways are given to relatively lower ranking students.
But that is not to say you are stupid or mediocre. Anyways, FPF is a good program - smaller classes, free printing…
Spring admission is offered to the 2nd tier admits. While most students aren’t aware of this, professors are.
Spring admission is the colleges’ cynical calculated strategy to “hide” weaker stats that would drag down the school’s avg SAT & GPA which are only reported for Fall admits.
The small number of spring admits relative to fall admits means that this effect on the stats is tiny (and the OP is not a lower stat admit anyway with a 4.0 and 2300). Enrollment load balancing across the fall and spring semesters is likely the much bigger reason for having school’s choice spring admission.
While it might be a little strange at first, nobody cares after the first and especially the second semester. I hardly remember who among my friends were spring admits-- and they’re certainly not thought of as second class. Some of the smartest people I know were spring admits, so what if they did slightly worse in high school?
@GMTplus7 I’d like to know hat you mean by 2nd tier applicant. Is an application that got a student into various other schools ranked higher than Berkeley a 2nd tier application?
I think I have to somewhat disagree with @GMTplus7 on this one, at least partially. I do agree that the stats are apparently not included in the numbers reported in the Common Data Set, and for the life of me I cannot understand why the people that run that (and the Dept. of Ed.) haven’t closed that loophole. But I have never heard of a school that had a contingent of spring admits that was nearly as large as their fall class, so to that extent @ucbalumnus is right that the impact on the stats would probably be small anyway. Maybe there are a few schools that have larger numbers of spring admits than others, but not that I am aware of.
I really disagree that the profs have a clue as to who the spring admits are, or care. Especially at the larger schools. What, you think they have an asterisk next to their name on the class roster? I don’t think so, and I think profs have a whole lot more to worry about. Calling them 2nd tier is just unnecessary, no matter how “clinically” it was meant. There may be a number of reasons besides borderline stats that a student is deferred to spring.
Bottom line, @Jbanks152, I think the issue of being a spring admit is nearly zero, especially at a very large school such as UCB.
For whatever reason, stats or yield, the college gave preference over you to a fall admit. Maybe UCB felt that with your high stats that you were a yield risk?
I don’t disagree that admissions offices look for whatever tiny edge they can get. It is ridiculous and, like I said, they should close that loophole. Make them count those students in the cohort of the fall semester, even if it becomes an amended CDS later. If they amended it in January it would be counted in the rankings calculations in the summer, and any incentive that comes from rankings manipulations would disappear. I just don’t think that has anything to do with the OP’s situation, and certainly not with his stated concerns.
According to http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/committees/aepe/hout_report_0.pdf , spring admits are at the margin of admission, based on scores assigned by admission readers (at least two different readers, with a third reader added if the first two give very different scores). A high stat applicant admitted for spring may not have had the best essay and other subjective criteria, or gotten unlucky in getting two harder grading admission readers (they are supposed to be trained for consistency, but subjective things like essays still tend to vary in how they are judged).
I’m coming to the conclusion that it is an impossible task to reason why an admissions officer would prefer one applicant over another, as it becomes very subjective once we move past stats. It could have been for another of reasons, but I was confident that my application was good enough, as it got me into every other UC I applied to and into their honors programs (along with 2 other ivy league schools I applied to and a number of privates).
UC Berkeley, for me, was very affordable (won’t go into debt), is #1 in my major, and I have seen the campus and like it. The only thing that held me back from going to UC Berkeley, instead of say Brown, UCLA, or Columbia, was that I’d have to come in the Spring. This really hurt my sense of pride. Of course I wanted to go to a prestigious school (as a cherry on top), but the idea of coming in the spring gave me a feeling of “2nd tier” when at other schools I’d be what they felt like was their first choice.
Then again, after taking the decision to matriculate at Berkeley, I started having doubts and fear that others would see me as not smart or not doing as well as others in high school, as some of you guys have said in the forum. I am confident my application (not in an arrogant way) was very good. I started to doubt my capabilities, wondering why UC Berkeley decided to make me wait.
I now know there are countless reasons why this could have happened (subjectivity of the admissions process, being paired with somebody who may have had something the A. officers valued more, fit, etc.)
I am grateful for being able to go to such an amazing institution, and I hope that I will not let my pride, which should not be hurt by the fact I was chosen to come in the spring. Thank you for your inputs, knowing that everyone has their own takes on things. I hope to be successful, and that I made the right choice to go to Berkeley.
You are making a wise decision to attend a fantastic school like Berkeley and not go into debt, spring admission notwithstanding. My niece is entering her 4th year there and just loves it. She has taken advantage of fabulous opportunities in various areas, including internships and research projects/trips. I hope you find it as satisfying as she has.
P.S. - Do something fun with the time off!! Take advantage!
the only time it gets awkward is when someone asks what classes I’m taking in fall… then I have to explain that I’m in some ‘fpf’ thing and I got ‘spring admission’ so I can’t take anything related to my major.
If it makes you feel better, my coworkers son got admitted to MIT and not Berkeley. It depends on your major but if it’s EECS the admit rate is lower than the Ivy admit rate.
I take @GMT comment as a whole not to a specific student. It’s a large school, nobody will notice, not even professor.
You have good stats, there is no stigma.