Northwest Vista College’s Dual Credit program is one of those areas on campus that doesn’t have a large team or a ton of resources. However, it has been quietly helping NVC achieve its enrollment goals over the last several years.
Since 2013-14, NVC Dual Credit has increased enrollment of about 27 percent from 2,823 high school students in 2013-14 to 3,578 in the 2016-17 academic year. And this is just with a team of three employees – Julie Boerm, NVC coordinator of High School Programs, and two student success specialists – Marlyne Carrillo-Perez and Tori Martinez.
The pool of high school students who apply to take college classes is actually quite large when it starts out – 6,871 for the 2016-17 year. But after going through the application and eligibility process, plus students changing their minds, NVC’s dual credit class is whittled down quite a bit.
For the first time this fall, the Northside Independent School District was the only school district that was allowed to offer one course for their incoming freshman class as a pilot program to see how well they would perform. Previously only sophomores, juniors and seniors were allowed to take dual credit courses through NVC.
Out of the 200 incoming freshman that applied for the program this fall, about 75 students were eligible and are currently finishing up their dual credit course successfully. Julie said for the upcoming fall semester, just the number of freshmen who have applied has increased to 400. And with new and returning students in the program, there’s sure to be another increase in dual credit enrollment possibly reaching up to 3,800.
Julie also credits the enrollment increase to the proactive nature of what she says is her “awesome” team of two staffers, other NVC departments, and Dr. Ric Baser’s leadership and support. The NVC Dual Credit team and volunteers host an annual dual credit convocation, best practices meetings throughout the year and train about 160 high school instructors about Northwest Vista procedures and admissions process.
