Chattahoochee Technical College on Wednesday announced it would extend its deadline for submission of fall quarter application packets by one week to Friday, Sept. 3.
"We wanted to give students as much time as possible to apply and get their documents in to start classes," Erin Hamby, director of Recruitment and Retention for the college, said Thursday. "And really, times are still tough, the economy is still bad, and students are still coming to us and wanting to get in, so we thought we'd give them as much chance as we can to get in and start for the fall quarter. We're trying to help students who are wanting to improve their lives, improve the lives of their family, so as much time as we can give them to get in and start for the fall, the better everyone is."
Hamby said the extra week to admit students could lead to a significant enrollment boost.
"On average, we take in about 75 to 100 applications a day, so maybe upwards of 500 students or so will have the opportunity to come and start with us that wouldn't if we ended tomorrow," she said, adding that the college usually sees even more applications come in on the deadline day.
Classes begin Wednesday, Sept. 29, for the school's fall quarter, which will be its last fall quarter as next year it will join the state's other technical colleges in converting to a semester schedule.
Registration for the fall quarter has already begun under the priority registration system that caters to students with more credit hours, and so far, more than 9,000 students have already registered for classes -- a total that could equate to another quarter of record enrollment for the school.
Acworth-based North Metro Technical College merged July 2009 with Appalachian Technical College and Chattahoochee Technical College under the Chattahoochee Tech name, creating the state's largest technical college. This July, the school reported a day-one summer quarter enrollment of 9,153 -- up 23.3 percent from the previous summer's count of 7,421 students.
Last fall, the school's day-one enrollment was 11,515, which represented a 24.7-percent increase over the campuses' combined enrollments the previous fall. Officials on Thursday said the school could see more increased numbers when the next fall quarter begins.
"We're in great shape for fall. So far, we do expect to hit 12,000 to 13,000," said Scott Rule, CTC's vice president of Student Affairs. "Now our difficulty is trying to find where we're going to put additional people."
Rule added that the college's largest of seven sites, its Marietta Campus, already has about 3,700 registered for fall classes there, while its second-largest location, the North Metro Campus in Acworth, has about 2,700 slated for next quarter.
Construction continues on an eighth campus in Canton, with Rule saying that the project remains on schedule. Officials, he said, are still tentatively planning to offer classes there in January. The facility will feature nine classrooms, a tiered lecture hall, medical labs, an Allied Health area, computer labs, student center and more.
In an interview this summer, CTC President Sanford Chandler said school leaders were still trying to determine what programs will be offered in the 60,000-plus-square-foot building, but said that the site could give Bartow-area students and student hopefuls more career-path options.