WILLIAMSBURG — Dual enrollment in high school allows students to discover if college level courses are right for them.
Officials at Virginia Peninsula Community College and the College of William & Mary have taken that concept one step further, where up to 15 VPCC students can be co-enrolled at William & Mary each year to see if the second-oldest college in the country will be part of their future.
“It’s a really, really neat program for them,” said Nicole Currier, VPCC’s Dean of Arts, Business, Humanities & Social Sciences, noting students who successfully complete courses and meet certain criteria through the program are offered guaranteed admission into William & Mary.
Currier, who joined the College in July, has taken the program reins from Tom Rockson. She works with Monica Pinier, senior assistant dean of admissions at William & Mary. Pinier used to work at VPCC.
“I think it just offers a really unique opportunity to get the support systems from both institutions,” Pinier said.
In a press release, VPCC highlighted one of its students enrolled in the program this academic year — Alexia Parker, who is in her second year at VPCC but her first in the co enrollment program.
“It is really good, especially if you want to get used to seeing how colleges work, because the workload is completely different,” Parker said. “It is nice to experience an actual four year college.”
Parker grew up in Williamsburg and graduated from Lafayette High School in 2022. She’s on pace to earn her associate degree from VPCC in the spring of 2024, and after two semesters in co-enrollment, she hopes to be a full-fledged William & Mary student next fall. She will major in business and should have two years of schooling left.
Attending William & Mary has been a longtime goal for Parker, who said attending VPCC first was a better choice academically and financially because coming out of high school, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study.
According to VPCC, the requirements for the co-enrollment program include:
- The student must be enrolled in a transfer Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree program at VPCC, excluding the Associate of Science in general studies
- The student must complete at least 15 credit hours of general education courses toward their VPCC associate degree, with the coursework being completed at the college following their graduation from high school
- The student must have at least a 3.5 GPA in those VPCC classes.
For guaranteed admission to W&M through the program, the requirements include:
- Remaining continuously enrolled at VPCC until receiving the associate degree
- Earning a VPCC degree within the past three years of transferring to William & Mary
- Earning at least 45 of the credit hours required for the associate degree through the VCCS since graduation from high school; credit hours earned at William & Mary during co-enrollment will be included in this total;
- Completing at least four courses, each carrying three or four credit hours, at William & Mary, with a grade point average of not less than 2.7 (on a 4.0 scale) in those courses
- Having a cumulative grade point average of not less than 2.7 (on a 4.0 scale) at VPCC
For more information on the program, visit the VPCC Co-Enrollment Program website.
