Might be doing an exchange to UMD

Can you please clarify this for me. From reading the site, I see that there are 4 semesters in total (3 normal semesters and a winter term for people who want to catch up).

fall semester: aug 28 - dec 20
winter term (catch up sem): jan 2 - jan 22
spring semester: jan 24 - may 21
summer term: may 29 - aug 17

those dates are from the 2017/18 academic calender.

My questions are:

  • what’s the difference between term and semester (as you can see from above there is fall semester, summer term)?
  • which of the 4 terms/semesters do people normally attend. As in, which semester’s have the highest enrollment?
  • am I right to assume that the winter term is the catch up (or get ahead) sem or am I wrong?