Major increase in Fall enrollment

Georgia College & State University has received the largest number of freshmen enrollment in the history of this university.

According to the Admissions department, GC&SU has a total of 5,100 students and 899 new freshmen this year.

Max Allen, executive assistant to the president and director of University Relations, states that the majority of students come from three major areas.

“The majority of our students come from the metro Atlanta area, middle Georgia, and the Augusta area,” Allen said.

Although GC&SU enrollment increased significantly, the university was prepared for the growth.

“We anticipated that we would get a lot of interest from new students,” Allen said. “We also knew that we would probably be full in housing and made arrangements early with a local hotel for overflow housing.”

Renee Hanson, a freshman from Lawrenceville, Ga., states that although her classes are full, the size of the student body was what originally attracted her to this university.

“I love the size of the student body,” Hanson said. “Although most of my classes are full, I just make sure that I sit as close to the professor as possible.”

Amber Overfelt, a freshman Mass Communications major, also enrolled in GC&SU because of the university’s size.

“I came here because of the campus and it offered my major,” Overfelt said. “This school is just big enough to meet new people but small enough to remember their names.”

The administration’s efforts to heighten awareness about GC&SU have definitely paid off.

“Our admissions staff, as well as our president and vice president for academic affairs, worked hard to get the word out to high school students and guidance counselors,” Allen said. “In fact, President DePaolo and Vice President Gormly hosted numerous lunch meetings around the state with high school guidance counselors to educate them about our mission and the exciting changes taking place at GC&SU.”

Although the university has benefited from the past year’s efforts,
GC&SU’s administration continues to plan for next year’s enrollment.

“We hope we can sustain, and perhaps even increase, our recruiting efforts around the state,” Allen said. “We are also moving fast to have some new housing ready by next fall in the Centennial Center area and at West Campus.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 21 2001. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry