A sure bet: State community colleges garner admissions guarantees from four-year schools

By MELISSA NIX

Date published: 12/25/2005

Students can now obtain an undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary or James Madison University at half price.

How?

Spend the first two years at a local community college.

Less heartache, half the price for that four-year degree.

More and more community college graduates--including alumni of Germanna, Northern Virginia and Rappahannock--are completing their undergraduate degrees at traditional four-year institutions.

The Virginia Community College System plans to triple the number of graduates who successfully transfer to four-year colleges and universities by 2009, according to materials on the system's Web site.

Over the past six years, the average transfer rate has hovered around 22 percent for all community college graduates. The rate nears 50 percent for those students who complete associate degrees.

"It seems like in the last year there's really been a lot of interest," said Jim Grigsby, lead counselor and chief transfer officer at Germanna Community College. "The momentum is just taking off."

That's because counselors and administrators at Virginia's community colleges have worked hard to secure guaranteed admissions agreements with a host of four-year schools over the past several years.

It works well for the students and the schools they transfer to.

"They see our transfer students as being high-quality transfer students," Grigsby said. "These are students who have made mature decisions about their education, are highly motivated and end up being very successful."

Germanna secured its first such agreement, with Old Dominion University, 10 years ago.

Recently, Bridgewater College joined up. In addition to ODU and Bridgewater, 11 other schools participate in the Guaranteed Admission Agreement program at Germanna (see list).

Germanna graduates who possess an associate degree and a 2.5 cumulative grade-point average are guaranteed acceptance at Bridgewater. As part of the agreement, Germanna students must complete a Bridgewater application and letter of intent, as well as graduate from Germanna with at least 45 credits.

Students who wish to apply to one of the 12 other schools must meet similar requirements.

"Each school has its own minimum grade-point average specified," Grigsby said. "There's a different flavor to each of these agreements."

JMU, for example, requires a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

Germanna has guaranteed admissions agreements with: Ferrum College James Madison University Longwood University Regis University Saint Paul's College Strayer University Sweet Briar College University of Mary Washington's College of Graduate and Professional Studies University of Richmond's School of Continuing Studies Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Tech's School of Agriculture and Life Sciences Rappahannock has guaranteed admissions agreements with: Longwood University Mary Baldwin College Norfolk State University Old Dominion University Radford University University of Mary Washington's Professional Studies Program Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia State University Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Engineering The College of William & Mary

Date published: 12/25/2005