Now That You're a Dragon, It's Time to Think About These Important Steps

By the end of your senior year of high school, life will most likely be a lot different for you than you originally planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, you have a lot to look forward to this fall when you start your college career as a Drexel Dragon!

If you follow these steps, you should be ready for classes in the fall.

Communication is key. Various offices at Drexel will be contacting you over the summer through both your personal email and Drexel email accounts. Remember to check them! If your personal email is associated with your high school, please remember to change it as soon as you graduate (if not sooner), to another personal email address. Most high school email addresses are deactivated after graduation. You can update your email address by contacting enroll@drexel.edu.

Speaking of your Drexel email, after you confirm your enrollment, you will receive an email in a day or so with links to your next steps now that you are a Dragon. You can't do anything until you set up your Drexel email and your DrexelOne account. DrexelOne is the online portal that everyone uses as a current student. Discover Drexel is only for prospective students going through the admissions process.

After DrexelOne is set up, you can sign up for Housing if you plan to live on campus. I recommend going over the housing website with all of your first-year options. I lived in Myers Hall when I was a first-year student. I loved it because it was only three floors and my room was on the second floor, overlooking the front door. If I needed to know what the weather was like outside in the morning, I just looked out the window to see what everyone was wearing! Myers is currently divided into Living Learning Communities. These communities allow you to live with other students in your academic college and major. That's really helpful for studying and doing group projects. I remember when I was in my first year, there were a lot of Westphal students down the hall from me. You would always know when a design project was due because you could see all their paintbrushes soaking in the sink. Housing applications are due by May 15th. Housing and Residence Life will be in contact with you after that to pick your particular hall and room (kind of like picking a seat on an airplane). That usually takes place in June.

The next thing that you will need to prioritize is taking your placement exams. Everyone takes them online from their home (that is not new). You will have a math placement exam and, depending on your major, you may also have other subject exams. Placement exams are required to help your advisor assign you to a class that is not too hard, but also not too easy. You will not need to schedule your classes for your fall quarter. This will be done for you by your academic advisor. Each major at Drexel follows a pretty specific suggested plan of study. If you don't take the correct sequence of classes in your fall term, that can throw off your schedule for future quarters. Your placement exams should be completed by June 30th.

Speaking of your first-term schedule, did you take any AP, IB, Dual Enrollment, or college classes while you were in high school? Your advisors will need to see those scores or transcripts before they build your schedule. Try to have those transcripts or AP/IB scores sent to Admissions by mid-July. Also, you will need to have your final high school transcript sent to the Admissions office by July 15th. Make sure to tell your high school to send them to us after you graduate.

There will be several other things that you will need to do over the summer, like sending immunization information and health insurance forms, but if you follow these steps, you should be ready for classes in the fall. View the official New First-Year Student Checklist here.

And remember to check your email. See you in September for Welcome Week!