Campus administration prioritzes high transfer rates

Last year, Georgia College saw the number of transfer students leaving GC drop from 15 percent to 10 percent. However, transfer rates are still marked as one of the largest problems the university faces.

In order to combat the ever-looming threat of students wanting to transfer out, GC has introduced phase one of the strategic enrollment management plan. With the most popular schools to transfer to being the University of Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology, the university will be forced to communicate better with those students who are not so sure about staying.

“We want to focus on those students that cannot find exactly what they are looking for,” Suzanne Pittman, assistant vice president for enrollment management, said. “We want to make sure that students recognize all of the different opportunities with different majors. Students will always change their minds, though, and that is perfectly normal.”

Although transfer rates out of GC increase after the second year, the university does boast one of  the highest retention rates in the state from first year to second year. According to Pittman, 83 to 86 percent of GC students stay after their first year to complete their second year of course study.

Although every student situation is different, Pittman lists some of the main reasons that students transfer out of GC being the economic hardships faced by families, having a boyfriend or girlfriend at another school and a smaller availability of majors.

Pittman also gave the example that students living nearer to other colleges might opt to attend those schools simply because they are closer to their homes.

Many students also complain that GC lacks an availability of diversified or specialized majors. Some students come not really knowing what course of study to pursue, and one of the main goals of the strategic enrollment management plan will aim to better inform students of

the diverse options available at GC. According to Pittman, a lot of students don’t really realize the diverse crossover capabilities of different degrees offered at GC.

“Probably the main reason I decided to transfer out of GC was the selection of majors,” said Alexander Zimmermann, former GC student. “I’ve always wanted to graduate from UGA, and GC doesn’t have engineering as a major or as wide of a range of majors in the field of biology. They only have a pre-engineering program.”

Using the strategic enrollment management plan, GC will begin phase one of its effort to keep students here for all four years. One of the university’s main objectives will be to consolidate all the professional advisers into one main advising center for freshmen. Although the exact location has not been decided, having all professional advisers in one location will make access to first and second year students much easier and approachable.

One of the upsides to having all advisers in one place will be the availability of different advisers for different majors. If students are not quite sure which niche they fall into, they will be able to simply walk down the hall to talk with these different advisers. Because all of the advisers are currently mixed up all over campus this easy access will hopefully make the exploration of available majors much easier.

Some of the other steps taken by the university to keep students at the university all four years is continuing to follow the successful model of  having professional advisers teach first-year freshman seminar. GC will also continue to use MAP-Works where students take surveys that will help them identify what areas of study they may be struggling in. Also, DegreeWorks will continue to be available for students, making the planning from semester to semester much easier.

“I think we have a strong community where students are able to make strong connections with everyone around them,” Pittman said. “It’s really hard to leave that behind. I’ve seen many students think they want to leave, and once they make the decision to stay they are so happy.”

Posted by Chelsea Hinkel on Nov 10 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.