<p>I had a friend last year who got a letter like that, but the school was offering money for "gap term" trips and projects to the students.</p>
<p>At Cal you have the option (although there are limited spaces) of doing the Fall extension classes. Kids can take classes, get Berkeley credits and can live in the dorms. Son had a few friends that were technically spring admits but got the same experience for the most part as the fall admits.</p>
<p>Oh and I think they even got the free Cal football tickets that the rest of the freshman got!</p>
<p>oops, it was extension school, not a CC. Anyway it didn't sound too bad.</p>
<p>I read on another list at one point that colleges didn't have to count second semester admits in their freshman demographics. Have no idea if that's true, but figured this might trigger someone else's recollection and/or a link.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>January admits are for students who don't quite have the credentials of regular admits but USC believes can do the work.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>I think a better way to say it is that January admits are students that they really wanted but didn't have room for. But they know that a certain percentage of each fall class will wash out, so they offer January admissions to take their place and keep the class closer to full and make better use of expensive resources.</p>
<p>We know a woman who was a January admit at Berkeley and it worked out fine for her. She soon got caught up and had a wonderful experience. They don't stamp "January Admit" on your diploma.</p>
<p>Different USC but spring admits are up this year in South Carolina because of a qualified "applicant crush" - "USC is offering 1,500 spring admission":</p>
<p>
[quote]
...after a record number of qualified students applied for admission in the fall.</p>
<p>?They meet our minimum requirements for admission; we just don?t have room for them,? Dennis Pruitt, USC?s vice president for student affairs said. He emphasized that, except for space limitations, these are students who would have been admitted for the fall term...</p>
<p>even though the number of applicants for USC Columbia has soared in six years, the size of each freshman class remains roughly the same so the quality of the university?s academic experience can be preserved, Pruitt said.</p>
<p>More than 14,600 students ? the largest and most academically qualified applicant pool in the university?s history ? applied to USC for the fall 2007 freshman class, Pruitt said.</p>
<p>?When applications increase and the academic profiles of the pool are strong, the competition intensifies for the limited spaces we have available,? Pruitt said. ?We are on target to welcome the strongest freshman class yet next fall, and we look forward to extending the same enthusiastic welcome to an additional group the following spring.?</p>
<p>It?s not unusual for colleges to delay enrollment for some students. However, this is the first time USC has had such a large number.</p>
<p>Last year, USC offered spring admission to about 500 students who were qualified on the basis of their high school performances, but for whom the university did not have space. About 10 percent of those students enrolled in the spring...</p>
<p>The delayed admission will be particularly beneficial to South Carolina residents who want to attend USC. Pruitt said about 63 percent of the delayed admissions are for state residents. He believes they are more likely to take advantage of the program, while out-of-state students are more likely to enroll elsewhere...</p>
<p>Additional spaces become available after every December graduation, allowing the university to offer spring semester admission to more students who had sought admission to USC.</p>
<p>This group of applicants is separate from high school graduates who fail to qualify for USC admission initially and spend a year or more in community college to qualify for transfer to USC...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
They'll have better "credentials" if waiting 4 months? (Unless admission is contingent upon further coursework, a different matter.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, there will be space for them. Some students will withdraw, others will be elsewhere for the semester or graduating. USC (in LA but the same holds true for the USC in Columbia according to the article above) gets to keep its population up, and the qualified students get into a school that might otherwise reject them. Where's the problem?</p>
<p>My d. was admitted for spring at Cal -- which is exactly what I had hoped for. The reason I wanted a spring admit for her is that I knew she really wanted to get out of state, preferably to New York - she would have been disappointed if in the end, the admission results or finances left the UC campuses as her only option. If that had been the end result, I would have encourage her to use the time in the fall to travel, perhaps even arranging to live and work in New York - or to travel abroad again. It think that would have gone a long way toward easing the disappointment.</p>
<p>As it happened... she got what she wanted and also told me would have preferred other UC campuses over Cal, so it didn't matter. </p>
<p>But I still see the spring admit as something of a gift - especially for a kid coming in with a lot of AP credit who may easily be able to graduate on time even with the delayed start.</p>