I’m a 25 year old student at a typical community college in Tennessee. I want to transfer to a great school. I am considering moving to Virginia, enrolling in one of these VCCS CCs, and attempting to transfer to W&M. On their website they mention two guaranteed options for admission, guaranteed and co-enrollment. However, I have read some discussions on here in which people have talked about high school grades and test scores also factoring into this. This raises a few questions for me as it just seems like a sort of convoluted system:
Are these VCCS community colleges open-enrollment, or are they themselves rather selective?
Do high school grades factor into the decision even under these guaranteed admission deals with the VCCS CCs?
I am 7 years removed from high school. Will they require my ACT score for the decision? My grades in high school and my first college were terrible. As was my ACT score. I’ve since done better.
I’m not your perfect, proper, shining-star student coming out of high school. My earlier academic record is horrifying. I’m just wondering what my prospects would be in doing this? If you make the grades at the CCs are you guaranteed to get in? Or do they still look at your HS grades and scores? If they do, it doesn’t seem like much of a guarantee.
I hesitated to answer this because I am not a VCCS student. With that being said, I’d avoid translating the “40 views” into 40 people-- some of those could have been guests who don’t have accounts and have a similar question to yours, bots, etc.
These answers are straight from WM’s website/other websites, so all I did was take a few minutes to look at the websites myself. If you look around, I am sure there is a slew of information to help you-- I didn’t even look around that much and I found some potential answers for you.
If you want specific/possibly more accurate answers that better suit your situation, contact folks from both VCCS and W&M yourself. After all, they’ll have more knowledge on the matter than random users (like me) on an internet college forum.
If you meet the requirements listed above in their particular GAA agreement (3.6 cumulative GPA, Letter of Intent, current VCCS student, 45 minimum credits, met the course requirements, etc.), I would expect that they have to hold up their side of the agreement (by admitting you).
I attend Thomas Nelson, the closest VCCS institution to W&M actually. Here’s what you want to know:
They’re open enrollment, basically. Unless you’re a felon, I can’t imagine anyone being denied. I’d say its open enrollment.
Depending on whats outlined in the agreement, high school transcripts may or may not matter when applying GAA to a school. I believe they do NOT matter if you’re applying GAA to W&M from a VCCS institution. W&M will still ask for one anyways because that is their protocol for all applicants, but they’re not supposed to use it when deciding whether or not to let you in under the GAA. If you meet the requirements of the GAA, you’re getting in no matter what the transcript says.
Here are two answers to your next question:
-VCCS does not require testing scores when they let you into one of their community colleges, but can use testing scores within a 4 or 5 year period to waive you out of developmental classes. If you don’t use testing scores or have some other method of proving your competence in english or math, you’ll have to take the VCCS placement test. I only took the math one and it sucked because they only gave you a four-function calculator and then threw every problem at you until you hit calculus or started failing. It’s much easier to submit a test score or some other thing to prove you’re competent in math and dont need to be placed by a placement test.
-W&M requires testing scores if you haven’t taken enough community college or other college courses. I don’t know how many, probably like 30 credit hours?
I think my third paragraph may answer your last question. I’ll go into further depth though:
If you meet the requirements of the GAA and apply, W&M has to accept you no matter what.
If you DO NOT meet the requirements of the GAA and apply, W&M will treat you like a normal, competitive applicant where they’ll open your high school transcript, etc…
Funny enough, I applied to W&M competitively this semester and gave them everything they wanted such as my poor 2.79 GPA high school transcript. I have a 3.5 GPA in college after six semesters, 58 credit hours with a lot of extra curriculars and what not … I’ve really turned myself around. I’ll let you know if i still didn’t get in
One thing I noticed on Thomas Nelson’s website is that it says anyone above 18 with a HS diploma or GED can be admitted “provided they demonstrate ability to benefit from a program of study”. What do they mean by that exactly? What methodology do they use to evaluate whether or not an individual will benefit? I’m guessing it will be either ACT or SAT scores, previous HS/college grades, or their own placement tests? I did terrible in HS and even worse in my first college experience. I left college in 2011 after pretty much failing out. I started back to college just this semester at a different school and my GPA for the semester is likely to be anywhere from 3.4- 3.6 depending how these next two weeks go. My GPA score in high school was 19. I’m not sure if they would accept me or not.
I guess I could just email them, huh? Haha! Please let me know how your admission process goes, Bruton.
I wouldn’t worry about if you can “demonstrate ability to benefit from a program of study.” I don’t think they do anything really. I guess its their way of saying they reserve to right to stop you from going into a program of study if they believe you won’t be successful or if they can’t support you or if you don’t look OK. You would have to raise some serious red flags for them to do that. When I entered in 2013, they didn’t sit me down and do anything special with me or any of my friends.
I would not worry about enrolling a VCCS institution. They take everyone easily.
I noticed that Thomas Nelson does not seem to offer a computer science major. That’s what I plan to study and I have no idea which VCCS school to apply to. Richard Bland is just too expensive for a cc when there are so many cheaper options. I want to go to one that offers the co-enrollment option, which I think is a better deal. It is also not as demanding for admission.
The only other “computer science”-like degree is Associate of Science in Information Technology, which is more business-school geared judging by the curriculum: http://tncc.edu/programs/information-technology
TNCC, RCC, JSRCC, and other nearby Colleges support the co-enrollment agreement with W&M to my knowledge. I’m sure many more do. I’d say its a good bet to believe all Virginia community colleges immediately surrounding TNCC (except for Eastern Shore … haha) support the co-enrollment program. You’ll want to check with each college though.
Richard Bland is a special case … they ARE operated by the College of William & Mary themselves. I believe their full official name is Richard Bland College of William & Mary. So they, funny enough, would actually a very good way to get into W&M in theory!
Is there any special thing I need to do/be to enroll in the co-enrollment thing? Or is it just king of an open sign-up thing. I read the details about it on their website and there doesn’t appear to be anything on there that disqualifies me, though I could be wrong or missing something.
@Tampitump you have to get a letter of recommendation or two from faculty members who have taught you, have a 3.5 or higher GPA after 15 credit hours of course work, and that should be it. If there is room in the program and both your VCCS institution and W&M agree to put you in the program, then you’re in!
Once you’re in the program, you get to take five courses at W&M over two semesters through your VCCS college and with VCCS tuition rates. You’re allowed to earn no lower than a 2.7 GPA on both your cumulative community college record and throughout your five courses to qualify for a special GAA agreement between only co-enrollees and W&M.
The typical GAA agreement for typical students requires a 3.6 GPA for admittance. The co-enrollee GAA says that successful co-enrollees who maintain a 2.7 GPA will be given guaranteed admittance.
Sorry for the late response. Been super lazy since I finally put this spring semester to bed at my VCCS college.
