Tech students face new deadline

By Anna Mitchell  

JULY 18, 2010 4:13 p.m. (0)

Students who want to attend Greenville Tech this fall for the first time in the institution’s history now face a deadline – Aug. 1.

Like most technical colleges in the state, Tech had always let students enroll up until the first day of classes (Aug. 16 for the coming fall).

“It’s a delicate balance, to be honest,” said Curtis Harkness, the school’s vice president for student diversity and community affairs. “We want to make sure students can, as late in to the summer as possible, still exercise the option to attend college. But we don’t want them to come into the door and not be successful.”

An internal study of the 622 new students who enrolled in the final two weeks before classes started in January 2009 found 62 percent had dropped out by this past January. Of these 388 dropouts, a third owed money to the college and 3.6 percent were on academic probation.

College spokeswoman Becky Mann said Greenville Tech has been looking for ways to help students better prepare and plan for their first academic term, “whether that means making child care arrangements, adjusting the work schedule, buying books, etc.”

The college has also instituted for the first time a mandatory new-student orientation.

Harkness said each student will get a packet prepared just for them, a process that also requires some lead time before classes get under way.

“If everyone is coming at the last minute, you can’t do a good job,” Harkness said.

Harkness estimated more than a third of Greenville Tech’s students are the first in their families to ever attend college and so are unfamiliar with the details of succeeding in college. And research has shown students who remain isolated tend not to do as well, he said.

“Students who attend a face to face orientation, based on research, are more likely to be successful in college,” Harkness said. “It helps them be more familiar with institution, the surroundings, departments and services available to them. Also they will get a chance to meet people in their classes.”

About half of new Greenville Tech students have had a family member attend the school, he said, but that leaves another half unfamiliar with the institution.

“We really need to get word out because we don’t want for people who really could benefit from this experience, we don’t want them not to be able to go to college because waited until the last minute,” he said. “We all win when more students go to college and graduate.”

The application for Greenville Tech is online at www.gvltec.edu/apply. There is a $35 application fee and a link for financial aid. The school also offers dozens of scholarships.