Fan Casting New Transfer Student in Sort by Tropes

If a show has scenes featuring a school, the easiest way to drop a new character into the cast is to have that character enter as a transfer student. This is usually done by the Second Episode Morning. If the transfer student is the main character, the series will usually begin on his or her first day at the new school and deal with his struggle to make friends. This will always happen around mid-semester, so the other characters can exposit at them, showing them the cliques at school, the teachers to favor, and the nuances of the plot.