How to Get Free College Shirts (5 Easy Ways)
Wait until you see how easy number 1 is!
Looking for how to get free college shirts? Check out this post for 5 quick and easy ways how to get free college shirts on your college campus!
In this post, you’ll find out all about how to get free college shirts!
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One of the most exciting things about going to college is that you can now rock all the school merch! (well you could always wear it but now it means sooo much more)
My daily wardrobe as a student consisted of my school’s t-shirt or sweatshirt, leggings, and sneakers or boots. If you looked in my dorm room closet, you wouldn’t even find regular clothes. That’s literally how many college shirts I had.
All that to say, there are A LOT of ways to get free college shirts once you start school.
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Do Colleges Send You Free Stuff When You Get Accepted?
As a high school student, when you first get accepted to college, you’ll probably want a school shirt to show off your school spirit.
Various universities do send their admitted students some sort of “swag” (like a pen or sticker) but to be honest, I don’t know a lot of schools that send a free t-shirt as their swag item.
If you really want a college t-shirt to celebrate getting accepted, I’d advise you to get a t-shirt from the campus bookstore if you’re not on campus yet.
This could be a great graduation gift to ask for because college merchandise in the school bookstore can be costly. If you really want to hold out hope, you may be able to get a free shirt during an admitted students event, but it’s not guaranteed.
If you’re on campus, there are tons of ways to get free college shirts.
Seriously, save your coins and don’t buy from the campus bookstore unless there’s something really specific you want (I brought a pair of champion sweatpants that I still wear every week to this day)!
Stay on this post to find out how to get free college shirts!
How to Get Free College Shirts
1. Go to Orientation Events
Orientation is literally a free for all with all the free campus swag that is provided! Orientation is usually the week before classes begin to welcome new students to campus.
During this week, every department pulls out their “goodies” (basically a whole lot of school promotional items) to give to students to show some school pride and start the year off.
If there’s one thing that college students love, it’s free things, and they know it!
If you want free college shirts, go to any events by the student activities department (these are the people who oversee student organizations and campus events). These events could be concerts, festivals, magic shows, or movies.
If you want free shirts, you’re most likely to get one at one of those events. (And maybe you’ll win a gift card too!)
Other departments to look out for would be any diversity or multicultural departments, study abroad, residence life, or really any office within student affairs.
These departments often partner with the orientation/student activities office, so they probably have free t-shirts too!
Long story short, if you want free college stuff, you need to be at these orientation events! In my opinion, this is the easiest way how to get free college shirts.
2. Join a Student Organization
This is how I received most of my college tees! I loved the free college t-shirts I got from clubs because they were never the traditional college shirt.
Clubs have free reign to design their own custom college t-shirts where you can rep your school and your specific club! Depending on which club you’re a part of, it’s super easy to get a shirt too.
For some clubs, you may have to be an official member of the club. That could involve attending a specific number of events or a certain level of participation to get a shirt.
From my experience, clubs order a ton more shirts than there are members in the club, so you could probably get a shirt just by asking a club officer or going to a general body meeting.
Sidenote: With some schools, funding is not provided by the school for club activities, so students may have to pay for their own shirts or fundraise to get the money for the shirts.
Definitely ask before you go in expecting free shirts just by showing up.
3. Become a Student Leader
Listen, listen I’m spilling a GEM here…student leaders get all the free stuff ALL THE TIME!
Student leaders are invaluable to the student experience. Whether it’s student government, campus activities board, or greek life officers, being a student leader will have your closet full of your college’s free shirts.
The reason student leaders get all the free merchandise is that they are usually the first to know about the latest news, campus events, and what departments are giving away.
They even sometimes get access to old campus storage closets with a ton of vintage college shirts.
Since they’re so connected, colleges just give them swag without even thinking.
Not to mention, they also get the best free college shirts. My all-time favorite shirt is a campus activities long sleeve made by Comfort Colors that I found in the department’s storage closet.
It’s my comfort shirt!
If you want free college shirts, becoming a student leader is key! Now it does come with some work. You can’t just be a student leader and not lead, right?
If you go this route, make sure you like the position you’re going for and are willing to do the work to maintain your position.
For a low-maintenance student leader position, I suggest possibly being a student senator.
You’d have to attend some meetings and talk to students, but it’s nowhere near as time-consuming as any other position in student government.
It’s also a great way to easily add leadership skills to your resume.
4. Volunteer On Campus
Similar to being a student leader, student volunteers also get access to free college t-shirts all the time.
The key to this is volunteering for the right event and the right departments that tend to give out free shirts.
Events that usually have a lot of free college merch are Orientation (of course), Homecoming, Parents’ weekend, and Graduation. From this list, I highly recommend being a Homecoming volunteer!
Aside from Graduation, Homecoming is the most fun time on campus. Seriously….take a look during your school’s next homecoming.
Everyone is excited, your professors are more lenient, and everyone is just ready to have a good time and show some school spirit. To be in the know about upcoming events that need volunteers, follow the departments on their social media platforms and watch your school inbox for any promotional emails.
Remember this… school spirit= free college stuff (free clothes included)!
As far as volunteering with the right departments, choose departments that tend to have an abundance of stuff. A good way to figure out which department you should volunteer in is to take note of who’s giving things out during Orientation.
One department that I haven’t mentioned yet is college admissions. Since admissions are literally in the business of selling the university and recruiting prospective students, they are a goldmine for free things!
Pens, hats, sunglasses, fanny packs, t-shirts, a coffee mug, they have it all. It’s so much easier to get free stuff from admissions by volunteering in the office or working as a campus brand ambassador than just by asking as a random student.
Again, if you want free college shirts, go volunteer. (Plus it looks GREAT on a resume)
5. Check with your Academic Department
A lot of times your academic department has free college shirts so you can represent your specific college (like the College of Arts and Sciences) or your major.
These are sweet because it’s personalized a bit instead of the generic college t-shirt and not everyone will have it.
To get these shirts, check with either faculty members or the department’s administrative assistant.
Sometimes they’ll also send out an email with exclusive offers to everyone in the major or announce that promotional shirts are available during class.
If you really want one of these shirts and there aren’t any available, you may have to take charge to get them ordered.
You could start a survey with a contact form to see who would be interested, gather a list of names and email addresses, then propose this to the college dean and see if there is a budget to buy them.
Although this is an option, some of the other ways are sooo much easier to get free college shirts without taking up a lot of time.
Final Thoughts
Getting free college shirts on campus is a breeze! Attend events, join student clubs, become a student leader or volunteer and you’re guaranteed to have a closet full of shirts you don’t know what to do with.
After you’ve collected all these shirts like pokemon, you may be wondering, well what do I do with all these free college t-shirts?
If you’re in college and you’re overloaded with shirts, I suggest you create a t-shirt quilt!
This special item will help you remember the good times, while also freeing up space for actual clothes and getting an awesome unique blanket you can keep forever!
This is what I plan to do with all my shirts and I hope to show it one day on the blog.
I hope this post gave you all the information you need on how to get free college shirts. Remember this, show up at the right place (that I mentioned above).
So what are you waiting for…go get those free college shirts! Wishing you all the good luck!
Want to remember this post for when you go looking for free college t-shirts? Pin this to your favorite Pinterest board so you’ll never forget!
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