I’ve got a 25 yr old son, transfer student finishing his AA in Communications next semester (yeah, I know). He’s going to apply to Cal State schools before August to go in Spring 2026 (he missed Fall 2025 start).
We are worried about him getting involved / meeting people as a transfer student AND starting in Spring. Suggestions? Locations?
He’s not particularly shy, but doesn’t go off to gatherings by himself either, if he doesn’t know anyone. Standard stuff. Do colleges do things for their transfer students these days?
The answer will vary college to college. The student should reach out to admissions at schools of interest to ask of there is a transfer orientation for the spring semester.
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One thing you can do is check the Common Data Set for each school. This is a standardized survey that most colleges post on their “institutional research” web pages; here is the link for the latest CDS for SJSU, just for example: https://www.sjsu.edu/irsa/docs/cds/20250411_CDS_2024-2025%20FINAL.pdf
And this is a screenshot of Section F1. As you can see, one of the questions is the percentage of undergraduate students age 25 and older. If the number is very low, he may feel like an outlier. (You can see that it’s 15.5% at SJSU.)
At Portland State University in Oregon (which gives a Western Undergraduate Exchange discount to California students), that percentage is 37%. Possibly worth a look if he would enjoy city life, lots of nontraditional students, and programs with tons of community involvement. (I realize a CCC-CSU transfer would be more seamless, though.) It’s 29% at CSU Dominguez Hills - that’s the highest in the CSU system. (Those two numbers are from a USNews article - may not match the current CDS precisely.)
FWIW, my nephew transferred to SJSU when he was about 30, and most people didn’t realize he was older. After a couple of years he really started to feel out of place, though, and was ready to be done.
No shame is doing college a little later - good luck to him! Hopefully he has some interests to structure his involvement around, whether those are major-related or just hobbies/sports/arts/etc.
Some CSUs have on-campus housing set aside for transfer students. Chico State, for example, and I am sure there are others.
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