My honest answer would be definitely yes. It is not written anywhere that you have to be admitted to a college in a specific age group. Otherwise, you will not be able to get into it. There are no such rules, and there shouldn’t be such rules. It simply wouldn’t make any sense. Let us know Can A 21 Years Old Be A Freshman In College?
WHY AGE SHOULDN’T BE A FACTOR WHILE TAKING ADMISSION TO A COLLEGE:
Everyone has the right to educate themselves. We are learners; we keep learning things. Everybody belongs to different cultures and different work-place, but one thing that is common in everyone is that we all are learning irrespective of whatever work we are doing. When it comes to taking admission to colleges, the minimum requirement is our 12th mark sheet; that’s it, questions related to our age should not be considered. The only thing that matters the most is our education, what we are learning irrespective of our age group.
There are a few reasons why we go to college
1) The first one would be to learn stuff, also in this modern era, when it comes to learning things so that we can learn almost anything from the internet, we need our willingness to learn kinds of stuff, but still, I consider colleges are essential for those who need guidance and colleges does that in a mannered way. Colleges provide us with a structure that we need to follow to learn a particular thing. And here, age has nothing to do with your learnings. If your age is below ten or above 80, it might become a problem for the colleges because they don’t have child care or old care facilities. When we get college admission, it is considered that we are adults most of the time. But if we are in the age group between 15 to 60, it shouldn’t create any issue related to our admission.
These days these things are becoming normalized, and colleges accept such scenarios. However, you might have heard that people above 40 or 50 still go to college to learn something and spend their time with the youngsters.
2) The second reason could be to build a connection and build a good friendship that again has nothing to do with your age. We all know having a network and good friends and how vital these things are; when we spend our time with good people, with our friends, we automatically feel better about ourselves. When we are in a suitable environment like college, we feel positive. Because of this pandemic, we are habituated with a virtual community, online friends. After all, we know the difference between offline and online people; we might have a good conversation with an online friend. Still, we don’t feel the connection, and if we think that way, colleges can be one of the places where we can make lifelong friends. And when it comes to making friends, age is just a number.
3) The third reason, in my opinion, is to learn communication skills and talk with people to overcome our insecurities; we want to be confident. We all know having good communication skills is super important; when we talk with somebody to make an impression or when we go for an interview, communication plays a vital role in giving that conversation a better form. And when it comes to learning communication skills, it again has nothing to with our age.
As we see, when it comes to taking admission to college, age doesn’t play any significant role in learning things. But today’s topic is whether we can consider a 21-year-old guy a fresher or not! So, the answer will be definitely yes, as I said in the first line. Twenty-one years of the age is still not a very big number while taking admission in colleges as a fresher; yes, I can understand students are taking admissions in colleges when they are 17-18, but there can be a lot of personal or professional reasons to delay your admission, and that is completely fine. So, let’s find it out,
WHY 21 IS AN ACCEPTABLE AGE FOR COLLEGE ADMISSION?
There are a few reasons definitely,
1] When a 21 years old student is admitted to a college, no doubt this person would have much more experience than a 17-18 years old student; the college gets a mature student whose probability of getting success is much higher because that of a 21-year-old student who knows very well why he or she has taken admission in that college.
2] When a 21 years old student gets admission to a college, the ability to complete a task or project is mostly higher. They would be frank about their works.
And at the same time, let’s discuss why a person can take late admission?
1) The simple and most common reason anybody would guess first would be financial problems; there isn’t anything to get shocked about. It is typical not to have enough money to be admitted into a good college. Because when it comes to getting an education from prominent colleges or universities, it requires a lot of money, along with your college fees, there are also a lot of expenses you need to calculate, for example, your rent, food, and a lot more. In the future, getting an education from big institutions will be much higher than now; until you do save money, you will not be able to be admitted into those colleges. So, it can be one of the reasons not to be admitted to colleges just after finishing your intermediate.
2) The second point I will mention here could be fascinating, mainly if you belong to India. So, the second reason for not taking admission just after finishing your 12th would be to explore yourself. Yes, you have heard the right thing; in the USA, Europe students take 1-2 years of a gap to explore their capabilities; they give time to themselves to think about what they want to do in their life, do internships, work whatever the hobbies they might have. It is so interesting, right! So, we should also think about that idea; instead of following the path millions of students are going on, why not give a trial on your path! We all should spend at least a year exploring ourselves; by doing multiple internships, we can only understand our true potential.
There can be a lot of other reasons to take late admission; for example, you might have a disability, your health might not be so good, your application gets rejected from getting into your dream college for a reason, or you give 2-3 trials to take admission, etc.
So, at last, I would say that age should not be a factor while taking admissions into a college, age is just a number when it comes to learning anything, and the second thing I would say is if your age is 21 or 22, so, you are not a too late. But, on the other hand, you might think that compared to your classmates, you are taking admission a little bit late, so if you are looking at it from that perspective, then also think that you have much more experience than your peers in life, so that would be your advantage.
