Prospective Boston University student Brooke Eyer said BU was her first choice.
“I really wanted to go there, and when I saw that the letter said ‘congratulations,’ I was going nuts and telling everyone,” she said. ”Then I saw that it was for January 2013 and that really caught me off guard.”
The high school senior from Oakland, N.J., is one of a “fairly small number of 85 to 100 students,” who were accepted to BU for Spring 2013 instead of Fall 2012, said BU Executive Director of Admissions Kelly Walter in a previous interview with The Daily Free Press.
“It changed my mind a little, but I’m still going to try to work it out,” Eyer said.
Walter said this was partially due to the strong group of applicants.
“Because our pool was so large and so strong, we made a decision to offer a number of students a place in our class — but for January,” Walter said. “There is a January class at the university and there always has been. So rather than having these students reapply for January, we’re giving them the option [now] to begin their studies in January.”
Prospective students said they didn’t know the school admitted students for the spring semester rather than for the fall.
“I was afraid I accidentally applied for January. I didn’t understand why my letter didn’t say September at first,” said Alex Ben-Jakov, a high school senior from Benicia, Calif., who said she will consider entering BU in 2013.
After the initial shock, she said she calmed down. But even after realizing she had definitely been accepted, she said she still felt disappointed.
“I won’t be entering BU with the rest of my class and get the real freshman experience, such as coming to school for the first time,” she said.
Ben-Jakov said despite the modified “freshmen experience,” she remains confident that she’ll meet people and find friends.
Rosa Dale-Moore from Rainier, Ore., also received a January acceptance from BU. She said she is concerned she will miss key experiences such as the First-Year Student Outreach Project in August. She also said the prospect of being stuck with an already-rejected roommate worried her.
“I’m very ready for college,” she said. “If I could, I would start next week.”
Many of the prospective students said they shared her eagerness, adding that they would not only prefer to start in the fall, but also want to graduate with their class, despite the Admissions website’s suggestion that they spend eight semesters in college rather than seven.
“My initial reaction was that I might be behind everyone else, which would push back graduation,” Ben-Jakov said. “I figured that I would be able to catch up with summer classes and my AP credits.”
In addition to worrying about possible academic disadvantages, Dale-Moore said she is concerned about social disadvantages.
“I think it would be much harder to find friends,” Dale-Moore said. “I come from a small school, so it would already be hard to find a niche at such a big university and more so if you arrive half a year late.”
BU spokesman Colin Riley said making friends should not be too hard for anyone.
“The biggest, probably most common perception of freshmen is that they may get lost in the shuffle on such a big campus,” he said. “But it’s the biggest unrealized concern by the end of your time here.”
While choosing between entering BU in January or accepting offers of fall admission from other colleges, a number of prospective BU students said they also must consider what to do with the four-month lapse.
Ben-Jakov said the promise of a gap-semester interests her even though she will feel disappointed when her high school friends start college without her.
“I’m not 100 percent sure what I would do during that semester. . . . My mom really likes the idea of me having the semester off,” Ben-Jakov said. “It would be fun to travel. My alternative would be to take classes or probably get a job.”
Dale-More also said she would try to keep busy during the time between the end of high school and the beginning of college.
“I would get to do a lot of things – volunteer, travel, make some money,” Dale-Moore said. “If BU had given me admission in September, there would be no choice in my mind, but the caveat is going in January. It’s definitely making my choice a little harder.”
CORRECTION: The statements by Kelly Walter, executive director of admissions, were from an interview for a prior article.
Emily Overholt contributed to the reporting of this article.
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