Friday, June 27, 2003

July 1 deadline looms to apply for enrollment in PTC college classes

Students wishing to enroll at Clayton College & State University for the fall semester and attend classes at the Fayette County Higher Education Center in Peachtree City have just one week left to register.

According the Clayton State Director of Admissions Jeff Hammer, students will need to submit their application and all supporting documents, including college and/or high school transcripts by July 1 for admission to the fall semester.

Students who have been out of high school for five years or more and have completed fewer than 30 semester hours of transferable college credit must take the COMPASS test before applying for admission.

Those students will be given an extension until July 31 to complete the test. Students are encouraged to prepare for the COMPASS test by purchasing Chart Your Success on the COMPASS by Callahan, Commander, and Cotter (available at the Clayton State Campus Store) or by reviewing the information provided on the Clayton State Testing Center Web site at www.clayton.edu.

Following approval by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, Clayton College & State University will begin offering academic classes at the Fayette County Higher Education Center to students accepted for admission into the University for the Fall 2003 term.

Clayton State has been offering non-credit, Continuing Education and small business development classes since October through the Fayette County Center, located in the Peachtree City Tennis Center.

Starting in August, four college-credit evening classes will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A group of 43 students, divided into two sections, will be admitted for the fall.

So far, just 10 applications have been received for the Fayette Center specifically, said John Shiffert, spokesman for the university.

But the number isn't surprising, he said, because people tend to wait to the last minute to apply for almost anything, and the CCSU hasn't had much time to promote these programs.

"Although we did surveys on local interest for academic programs at the beginning of 2003, we did not receive approval (from the Board of Regents) to go ahead with those programs until May. In other words, we haven't had much time to get the word out," Shiffert said.

"The decision to apply to a University is not typically a spur-of-the-moment thing, so the results to date are not surprising."

Space remains for Fayette students, he said, but students are still encouraged to apply before the July 1 deadline.

"We expect to fill in whatever spots are still available after July 1 with current Clayton State students from the Fayette County area" already enrolled in the University, Shiffert said.

Courses will be offered again at the Fayette Center in the spring, which actually starts in early January 2004. The deadline for applications for new students who wish to start classes then will be Dec. 1.

This fall's classes will be focused towards adult or non-traditional students who have little or no college credit but wish to pursue a bachelor's degree. Non-traditional students are defined as those individuals who graduated from high school five or more years ago.

"We are focusing on non-traditional, adult students to better serve that part of the population in Fayette County ... the people that would have a hard time getting to our main campus in Morrow," said Dr. Sharon E. Hoffman, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. "Working parents, individuals holding full-time jobs during the day, people working in the Peachtree City or Fayetteville areas and the like are the populations we are targeting. We feel we can serve people who want to get started in college, but haven't had the time or opportunity."

For more information on Clayton State, call 770-961-3500 or go to www.clayton.edu.