Lindsey Mathias was confused and disappointed at first when she opened the thick, much-awaited envelope from USC this spring. The letter inside told her she had been accepted to the Los Angeles university but also said she could not enroll until January.
Mathias, who lives in Winter Park, Fla., said she quickly got over fears that a midyear start to college would be socially and academically awkward. "In the long run, I don't think it matters when you start," the 18-year-old said. "I waited four years to go to USC, I think I can wait four more months."
She is part of an increasingly common trend in U.S. higher education: freshmen who are told to arrive on campus in January or February, even though most of their friends started college as early as this week. Colleges and universities face a demographic bulge of high school graduates who are qualified applicants. Yet schools still need tuition-paying students to fill classroom and dormitory slots left empty each spring by those who study abroad, take off-campus internships, drop out or graduate in December.
So a bargain of sorts is struck: Colleges try to guarantee a fully populated campus, and some students accept an offer to arrive midyear at a top choice school rather than enroll elsewhere in the fall.
"We have such an incredibly strong pool of applicants, and we know we have limited space in the fall. We wanted to provide an opportunity for a limited number of students in the winter. It helps us better manage enrollment," explained Mae Brown, assistant vice chancellor for admissions at UC San Diego, which four years ago began offering freshman entrance in winter quarter.
UC San Diego expects about 4,600 freshmen to start in the fall and about 200 in winter, she said. USC anticipates about 2,750 fall freshmen and 250 in spring 2009.
UC Berkeley, which uses the program on a bigger scale, expects about 4,450 fall freshmen and 988 in the spring semester.
National organizations for college admissions say they do not have a registry of how many schools offer midyear enrollment. But experts say it has been increasing in recent years. Other schools with the policy include Pepperdine University, the University of Maryland, American University, Middlebury College, Colby College and Brandeis University.
In most cases, students are offered midyear enrollment without having known it was a possibility.
