It’s hard to believe we’re already at the conclusion of another busy calendar year with less than 90 days remaining in 2019. For the Office of Recruitment and Admissions, fall is our busiest time of the year, from our annual Principal and Counselor Breakfast to the NACAC National College Fair.

 

In late September, we hosted our annual Principal and Counselor Breakfast. In past years, we hosted separate events for Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) and Nassau County School District (NCSD). This year, we brought both districts together for one event to welcome new FSCJ President Dr. Avendano, as well as to share various updates on service area collaboration and student behavior. One of highlights of this year’s event was sharing Clearinghouse Student Tracker data for DCPS graduates.

 

Student Tracker is the only nationwide source of college enrollment and degree data. More than 3,600 colleges and universities — enrolling over 99% of all students in public and private U.S. institutions — regularly provide enrollment and graduation data to the Clearinghouse. Through Student Tracker, we were able to share with our partners that just over 1/3 of all DCPS college-bound students in 2017 and 2018 enrolled at FSCJ the fall after their graduation. In addition, we were able to share where DCPS graduates attended if they did not enroll at FSCJ. Recruitment and Admissions is currently working with NCSD to secure similar information and to disaggregate data by high school. This will help both FSCJ and our partners better understand our student behavior and preferences for post-secondary education.

 

As we ramp our efforts in October, Recruitment and Admissions is out and about in our community and our schools. With the FAFSA opening up on October 1, FSCJ is leading over 40 Financial Aid programs – from Financial Aid Nights to FAFSA Labs and BEACON events – throughout our service area. The Financial Aid Nights are hosted at service area high schools and provide students and parents an overview of the FAFSA and various Financial Aid resources available to them. These events are often accompanied by a FAFSA Lab wherein students can get started on their FAFSA applications with the support of FSCJ Recruitment and Admissions staff. In addition to the Financial Aid outreach, FSCJ and DCPS partner together the second week of October for Jax Goes to College Week, which culminates in the annual NACAC National College Fair on Saturday, October 12 at the Prime Osborn III Convention Center. The NACAC National College Fair will feature two booths hosted by FSCJ, a DCPS-FSCJ hosted FAFSA Lab and various concurrent information sessions featuring a variety of post-secondary education topics.

 

With these outreach efforts also comes an opportunity for any FSCJ faculty or staff to participate in the Annual DCPS BEACON events, which is a DCPS program that aims to “Bring Economic And Career Options Nearer” to students in Duval County. Anyone can volunteer to participate to meet with DCPS students to assist them in their plans after high school. There is a formal training scheduled on October 25 with many events taking place in the month of November. If you are interested in volunteering and would like to learn more, please email Associate Director of Recruitment Tim Martin at tim.martin@fscj.edu.

 

Finally, with fall officially here, work has also commenced on our online orientation program and our next iteration of the Online Application for Admission (OAA). To learn more about these initiatives – as well information shared at the Principal and Counselor Breakfast -- please consider attending a future Recruitment and Admissions 101 training session at a campus near you this November or December. The first session will take place on November 5 at 1 p.m. at Kent Campus with additional sessions scheduled to take place at each campus and center through early December. This is a great opportunity to stay up to date on ongoing efforts, initiatives and projects being led by the Office of Recruitment and Admissions. 

 

Questions for the Office of Recruitment and Admissions? Email welcome@fscj.edu.