Increase the number of freshmen completing fifteen credit hours in their first semester at GSW. Freshmen students are enrolled in classes for their first semester by FYE advisors that include 14-16 credits. They are advised by FYE advisors at early registration for spring classes to register for enough hours to accumulate 30 credit hours during their first year.
We are tracking the percentage of students in the FTFT cohort who attempt 15 hours each semester, as well as the overall average hours attempted for all students in the cohort and for those attempting 15 or more hours. We are also tracking average completion percentage of all students in the cohort and students with 15 or more attempted hours. Our target is for all FTFT students to complete no less than 67% of their attempted hours (to maintain SAP), and hopefully more than 75% to ensure that completing a degree in four years remains possible.
Currently, the results are disappointing. For the fall 2024 cohort, only 45% of the students attempted 15 or more hours. The average number of attempted hours for the cohort was 14.5 with an average of 9.7 hours completed, or a completion percentage of 67%. For spring 2025, only 40% of the 2024 cohort attempted 15 or more hours. The average number of attempted hours was 12.6 with an average completion of 8.4 hours, or 67% completion percentage. For the 2024-25 academic year including summer term, 29.1 hours were attempted, while 19.9 hours were completed, or a completion percentage of 67%.
While we met the lower end of our completion percentage target, we are not making enough progress in getting students to attempt an average of 15 credit hours per semester or 30 credit per academic year, even when including summer term. We will need to reconsider our strategies for advising students to register for 15 or more credit hours per semester and for advising students on withdrawing from classes.
Since we are in the first year of implementing a NISS recommendation on Proactive advising, we will make it part of our planning to explore ways of increasing the percentage of students who attempt 30 credit hours or more during their first year.
Training faculty advisors and getting buy in from them on encouraging students to complete 30 or more credit hours per academic year.
We will consult other members of our NISS Implementation cohort on strategies for encouraging students to register for 30 credit hours per academic year.
