Facts about Fall Fest

Prospective students can look forward to college possibilities after attending GCSU’s annual Fall Fest. Designed as a preview to GCSU, Fall Fest accommodated 933 students, parents and friends looking to possibly make our college their home away from home.
     High School students and guardians filled the walkways of Front Campus, stopping by the 55 different tables representing campus RSO’s.
     For many students, like Tharkun Hudlow, GCSU is the first they have visited in a search for the right college.
    “We have friends from Dacula that go here and that’s how we first heard about the campus,” said Karen Hudlow, Tharkun’s mother.
     Potential Students milled about Front Campus with GCSU Ambassadors facilitating help whenever needed.
     “I’ve been really impressed with the students, how friendly they are,” said Karen Klien, mother of a touring student. “Someone saw that Jaqueline had crutches and immediately came up and offered to give us a golf cart to take her around and I just thought that was very nice. The attention to detail really caught my eye.”
     PJ Schinella, a member of the student ambassador team, is working this event for his third year in a row.
     “We just really get to show our passion about the university with prospective students,” said Schinella.
     Like many other students, GCSU is the first college visit for Klien’s daughter Jaqueline and her friend and touring partner Jessie Sapp.
     “We’ve gotten a lot of stuff in the mail but we haven’t been to any other campuses,” said Sapp, a junior at North Gwinett High School.
     The Bobcat Marketplace on Front Campus offered a wide variety of campus RSO’s, ranging from Greek life to religious organizations to political affiliations. The different booths displayed all forms of information about each organization. Some tables included elaborate posters featuring pictures from several events as well as brochures and pamphlets about opportunities available through joining their organization. The several tables featuring free candy seemed to also draw some attraction.
     Over all, this year’s Fall Fest was successful but not as highly attended as last years, according to Kathy Edmonson, coordinator of new student programs.
     “This October was unusually busy with homecomings and playoffs,” said Edmonson. “More schools around the state were having days like this. But we continue to attract students because we’re so clean and green! The weather was beautiful and the day was beautiful.”
     One particular aspect of this year Fall Fest that Edmonson was particularly thrilled with was the academic review DVD put together by the media resources staff and given out to prospective students and their parents.
     “We had many evaluations praising the DVD at the end of the day,” said Edmonson.
     Fall Fest is not the only opportunity high school students have to preview GCSU. Spring Fest will be held on March 8 and will be modified this years in contrast to years past. This years Spring Fest will be for admitted high school seniors only as opposed to being open to the public. A second spring preview will be customized for high school juniors sometime in April.
     There were 933 total people at Fall Fest this year, which is down a little bit from last year, but it is no surprise due to high school football playoffs and homecomings being held in October.
     Although attendance was down the school continues to attract students since GCSU is so clean and green.
     The sister program, Spring Fest, is on March 8 and only admits high school seniors. High school juniors will have a visitation day in April.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 1 2007. 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