@TransferFall2018 Aw good luck! My fingers are crossed for both of us 
Now for just the agonizing waiting game…
Would starting freshman year in the spring term rather than the fall affect my chances of getting into a prestigious school as a transfer?
@faraha19 I don’t think it would affect your chances at all! I feel I should mention, however, that some schools require a minimum number of credits to be considered for transfer admission, so I would just check on the schools’ respective websites. (I think some schools don’t allow that, and others would consider you a freshman applicant) If you’re nervous, you could also email admissions and ask hope this helps!
@faraha19 Also keep in mind that applications for those schools are due March 1 and March 15 usually, and so admissions wouldn’t have college grades to judge your application off of. (You may already be aware of this, so I’m sorry if I’m rehashing information you already know) Some schools take Transfer Mid-Term Reports, but that only lists your current grades so I would suspect that they would weigh your high school grades and test scores very heavily. (Not sure, just my suspicion). If your high school performance was strong, then I don’t see a problem with that, but if you want your college performance to contribute to your application, only being enrolled for the spring semester wouldn’t showcase it as much as you may want.
And, lastly, as you have probably heard hundreds of times, schools need to see grounded reasons explaining why you want to transfer. Just make sure your reasons for wanting to transfer aren’t rooted in prestige/ranking, but rather a really cool study opportunity under x professor or a liberal arts approach that isn’t offered at your current STEM school, etc. I’m not sure what your reasons for wanting to transfer are, so I don’t mean to jump to any conclusions! I want to transfer myself (and thus this post was born haha) so I completely empathize with you! You may want to stick it out at your current school for sophomore year, as only being there for one semester may not paint a full picture of your possible three more years there. But, that said, I completely understand how colleges can be a terribly wrong fit, so definitely do what you think is right for your situation
(Sorry for the long post; hope this was of at least some help!)
Thank you for informing me!! I’m not planning on transferring after one semester tho, my plan was to start college in the spring term of my freshman year and try to transfer out for my junior year, my question was would it be better to wait until the following school year and start college in the fall rather than spring, or would not really make a difference? My sat scores were strong, but I had a lot of failing grades throughout high school 
my main concern is would those failing grades effect my chances of getting into a top tier school? Even if I wait until my junior year to transfer? Even if I started college late by a semester?
The further you are from high school, the less colleges care about your high school grades. If you apply as a rising junior, they’ll pay more attention to your grades in college.
Since most students start in the fall, the application and financial aid systems are set up for that. Everything works a bit more smoothly for fall admits. Rumor has it that aid packages aren’t as good for spring admits. I don’t know if there is any truth to that rumor.
If the only way for your life to work out is ti start college in spring aemester or to transfer in spring semester, well then you will just deal with that. But if you can find a way to follow the more usual schedule, it will probably be worth it for you.