Spring vs Fall Intake: Which Intake Is Best?
A short overview on points to consider while planning what intake to opt for while applying for education abroad
Before we delve into aspects that you must consider to make a decision for yourself in this aspect, there’s a statistic that we’d want to tell you (just for you to know at this point).
At Collegepond, our experience has thus far been that on an average, the number of students that apply for Fall intakes versus those who apply for Spring intakes are approximately in the ratio of 7:1.
At this point in the article, do not try to read much into these numbers. Just let them be on the back of your mind.
And now, let’s finally begin to look at the various factors that you must weigh before making the decision to apply.
Student Profile
From the students who applied for Spring 2023 intake, 45% did so because they expected better admits than what they had received in Fall 2022.
18% students (who just completed their undergraduate degree) applied because they could not apply in Fall 2022 for various reasons (illness, missed the deadlines, backlogs, had other plans before, etc.)
The remaining students either had >1 year of industry experience on average or were not placed out of college and didn’t want a gap on the resume.
So essentially, the students who apply for Spring intakes are majorly ones who:
- Have already received admits in the previous intake but want to try for better universities
- Those who could not apply in the preceding Fall intake
- Industry professionals who wish to pursue higher education for faster career progression
- Those who didn’t have a job and didn’t want to wait for another year
Now when we look at the profile of students who apply for Fall intakes, we will also see applicants belonging to similar categories.
We have students who apply again after securing admits earlier, we have students who are applying after a delay in their plans, and we have industry professionals as well.
But we add one huge category of students – those students who are in their final year of undergraduate degree.
This last category forms bulk of the applicants’ pool for Fall intakes. And that is because in India, they are eligible only for Fall applications – the first Masters’ intake a student in his/her final year of undergrad is eligible to apply for is a Fall intake.
Internships, Jobs, and RA/TA Opportunities
When it comes to securing jobs after completing a Masters degree, Spring versus Fall should not matter as much. Career Fairs are held in the universities every semester, and you are free to attend them.
Your chances of securing internships and/or jobs will however depend on when you graduate and the duration of your program, the reputation of your university and its location (and the shape of the economy of course).
Again, some universities allow you to complete your graduate degree in 3 semesters instead of 4 or vice-versa. This flexibility allows you to graduate at your own pace and you can take this informed decision on the basis of the market situation at that time.
If your program duration is only 1 year, you will not be able to do an internship in any case (And therefore, you can apply for either Spring or Fall intakes without much consequence on this aspect.)
Now, if you are applying for a graduate program in the US, this is something you might want to know – in the US, you can only do a summer internship after the second semester only (after you have been a resident for min 9 months). So, if you go for the Spring intake, you will not be able to do a summer internship in the 1st summer, but you can do this in the following summer. (Those who go in Fall, only get 1 summer and hence only 1 shot at summer internship. Those who go in spring get that shot during their 2nd summer break).
Program Options
One issue with the Spring intake is that the number of programs offered by universities is considerably lesser as compared to Fall. Also, many 1 year programs are designed only for Fall or Summer intake. Thus, if you wish to pursue such programs, there are high chances that that program may not be offered in Spring.
As compared to this, all major programs offered by most universities are available for the Fall intake. There are some small exceptions to this though – for example, some universities in Australia and New Zealand may only have a Spring intake.
Competition and Acceptance Rates
As mentioned before, there is a huge segment of final year undergrad students who are eligible for applying to Fall intakes. Also, what this means is the top academic performers who are in their final year of undergrad in all educational institutions will be applying for Fall.
Now, there are more seats available for Fall intakes as compared to Spring intakes, as we have seen above. However, the number of students who apply in Fall is even higher.
Therefore, there is significantly high level of competition for Fall intakes as compared to Spring, and therefore, given all parameters being the same, we have seen students with same profile getting better admits in Spring as compared to Fall.
We’ll present a case study.
Back in 2019, we had a student who chose to apply in the Fall intake on her own. It is worth noting her background – she had a 3.61 CGPA until her 6th semester from a well-known college, GRE and TOEFL scores of 326 and 115 respectively, and a great overall profile. Of course, she was only going to target highly ambitious universities with such a profile. The end result of her applications? Only 2 admits, and again, not the ones she was hoping for. So she decided to try her luck in Spring again. During those months, she worked as a Research Assistant to a professor from a premier engineering institute in Mumbai (if you take a guess about the name, you won’t go wrong). In Spring, with an updated Statement of Purpose (but without much structural or cosmetic change), she ended up securing an admit to MS in Computer Science in Columbia University!
What you should know by this is, whether to apply for Fall or Spring is a decision that has to be made on a personal basis, on the basis of a complete evaluation of your profile, future plans, and target programs and universities.
If you wish to avail of guidance in this regard, you can reach out to us by leaving your details. We will arrange for a complementary counselling session for you at the earliest.
