A Letter to High School Seniors Accepted into UMD Spring Semester,

I was in your shoes exactly one year ago. Don’t fret. Especially, if you’re out-of-state, you are probably pretty confused by what exactly this acceptance means and how to feel about the letter you just opened. What is freshman connection?!

I opened my online letter from UMD surrounded by friends, who had all just opened theirs and were all accepted. We were out bowling and to dinner. I was scared to look at the decision made for me. If it did not have the acceptance, that I wanted, I was scared it would ruin a fun night out with friends.

At first, I was overjoyed. I did not read past “congratulations” before I started screaming and hugging my friends around me. A few minutes later, I looked back down at my letter. “… you have been accepted for spring semester.”

I was upset at first, but I was excited and ready to accept an offer at another school ranked as one of my top choices. But, then I thought about all my older friends at UMD, that attended UMD starting in the fall of their freshman year, in the freshman connection program. I texted a few of them to get the deets.

I want to give you the deets of my experience and tell you not to cut out UMD right away, if you were accepted through the Freshman Connection program. These are the main differences I found being part of the Freshman Connection program (which you only are part of for fall semester, you are considered a regular student starting spring semester)

1. Smaller class sizes! Woo! I can’t speak for everyone, but my largest class was much less than 100 students. My professors knew me by name.

2. You register for spring classes a bit later than fall-admitted students. Again, I can’t speak for everyone, but I got all the classes that I wanted, despite a later registration date. I did have to settle for an 8 am calc discussion, but ya win some, ya loose some!

3. You are required to take a 1-credit University 100 class. High key, this class is an easy A+ that helps your GPA if anything. It’s also actually helpful for letting you know about activities on campus, mandatory logistics, and adapting to college life. So even if you aren’t an FC student, I totally would recommend this class anyways.

4. Your classes are later in the day. Hey, a guarantee of no 8ams fall semester! Although, I had one class that ended at 8:45 pm and that wasn’t super swell. However, if you don’t choose to spend your entire morning sleeping (which you totally can do!), you can study and get your work done during the day, which I personally found quite beneficial.

5.Sometimes classes are during the same time as clubs and activities going on around campus. This was a bit of a bummer, this is the only aspect of the program that I wasn’t super fond of.

6. When you meet someone else in the Freshman Connection program, you totally bond over it.

All in all, my experience in Freshman Connection was a positive one. It breezed by and I may even miss it!