By Brandi Patterson

The end of the summer is getting closer. You just graduated high school, and next week you’re starting your brand new life as a college student.

You’ve packed and you’ve planned your outfits for “Saturday’s in Athens.” You moved into the cramped high-rises that you personalized as your own, and became close friends with some of the people in your building.  

You got lost on a Family Housing. On Saturdays, you stood in the scorching hot sun to cheer on your favorite SEC football team. Emma wasn’t a real person, but you definitely hated her and the rest of the English department.

Remember when all these things  happened to you fall semester of freshman year?

A few Friday’s ago, UGA released its freshman admission decisions for the 2016-2017 school year. Thousands of these students will get to see this as their first real experience with UGA, but what about the students that get admitted for the Spring semester instead of fall? How do they feel about starting the next time around when most people are already used to the college lifestyle?

Mark Wang, a freshman Environmental Health Science Major, admitted for the Spring 2016 semester, chose to take classes at a local school in the Fall while his other peers went off to the college of their choice.

He says, “I understood that there were other opportunities in the fall semester, so I ended up going to UNG Oconee and did some core credits there so I wouldn’t feel behind.”

Mark believes that starting UGA in the spring rather than the fall slightly hindered his experiences socially.

He says, “Majority of that time, you have all these people hanging around each other. The niche is already made during the fall. For me personally, you feel kind of left out. It’s harder to form those types of relationships as spring admit, like myself”.

Dionte Patterson is a senior that was admitted for the Spring 2013 semester. Dionte says that originally, he was let down when saw he wasn’t admitted for the Fall.

“I felt like the kid in the back of the class watching all the cool kids do their thing,” says Dionte.

He also claims that he felt the need to “catch up” with his peers. In his sophomore year, he took 18 hours, and says he “cracked under that pressure.”

However, not everyone feels like they’ve missed out on something as a spring admit. Quincy Rhines, a freshman pre-Terry student, was also admitted for the Spring 2016 semester. Like Mark, he also took classes at North Georgia.

Quincy claims that because he took classes as a freshman at another college, his experience as a Spring admit at UGA was unaffected. He says, “ It’s the same freshman experience.”

Although most of these spring admits were in the same position at some point, they all have different personal experiences.

They didn’t get to experience ‘Saturday’s in Athens’ the first time around or live in the high-rises with their peers, but they are still apart of the bigger picture that makes up The University of Georgia.