OTC turns to summer semester registration

The ink is barely dry on the degrees handed out at Thursday night’s commencement and thoughts have already turned to OTC’s summer semester, which looks to be drawing a large number of students.

Scheduled to begin June 6, the semester’s enrollment numbers are already up nearly 12 percent when compared to last year’s enrollment.

“We are so happy that students continue to choose OTC in large numbers to meet their educational needs. Summer is a great time to take classes and the numbers show we have a lot of students doing just that,” said Joan Barrett, associate vice president for student affairs.

The same is true with fall enrollment, showing an early increase of nearly 9 percent over last year.

 Recent increases in student visits and tour requests show that enrollment is expected to track upward over the days and weeks ahead.

Student visits are made by those who are college students elsewhere and are coming to OTC to look into picking up a general education class or two during the summer and fall.

“On the first day of open registration earlier this month, we had well over 500 visiting student requests for summer and fall classes.  Two weeks later, we continue to see a steady stream of those students,” said Ginger Luke, assistant director for Advising and Online Student Services.

In addition to those visits, tour requests are up, too, said Vicki MacDonald lead admissions representative.

“We have seen 30 scheduled tours since May 2,” MacDonald said.

During a one-hour tour, students sometimes speak with an instructor from a specific area or they see all of the facilities and resources on campus. Tours are offered at the Springfield and Richwood Valley campuses.

To schedule a Springfield campus tour, call 447-2662 or to tour Richwood Valley, call 447-7931.

Once a student decides to attend OTC, they can go online to http://www.otc.edu/First-time-students.php and follow the steps listed there.

Steve Koehler is coordinator of publications at Ozarks Technical Community College. Contact him at koehlers@otc.edu.