With the fall semester about to begin, universities in Sichuan province have come up with innovative ways of welcoming freshmen to suit their needs and help them adapt to college life.

The new methods include posting information guides on social networks like Weibo and WeChat, gathering freshmen's personal details using smartphone apps and allowing them to select a dormitory online.

Apps have gradually become a common and effective way for universities in Sichuan to simplify admission procedures. Sichuan University's app enables new students to check their payment status, while teachers at Xihua University evaluate students' performance on an app to select class monitors.

The new university house-choosing system - which takes about 15 seconds - was launched on Tuesday at Chengdu University, according to the school's student affairs department.

Besides the orientation and location of the dormitory rooms, lengthened beds for students over 1.9 meters have been specifically requested via the online house-choosing system at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China since it was first used in early 2015.

Li Jiayue contributed to this story.