Students that I know at the Alamo Community Colleges are always talking about not being able to schedule the classes they need for graduation, because they were full.
Then I contacted the college and found out that the classes were indeed, not full.
What is blazes is going on?
Why are students lacking one course, paid in full, not on academic probation, being DENIED the course they need to graduate when the course is being taught and is not full ???
!
Follow below the fleur de Kos for the answer.
In 2011 the Alamo Community College Board adopted a policy that greatly diminished the ability of students to register for classes during the first two weeks of the term. Students that do not attend the 1st week of class are dropped, and students that did not attend the 1st day of class can’t add the class to their schedule. (The College Vice Presidents or their designees can override this, but this is not published in the student handbook, nor are the students commonly informed of this option so most students do not get the class when their section has been canceled.)
This policy has resulted in students being denied entry into classes they need to graduate, even thought the class was not full, and will heretofore be referred to at the #NoAddFad.
The interpretation of F.6.1.1 in the Northwest Vista Student Handbook reads as follows.
Adds
Students may add courses through ACES online or on-campus during dates designated for schedule changes, which are identified in current Schedules of Classes. Once the semester/session begins, students may not add a class once that class has met.
Drops and Withdrawals
Faculty Initiated Drops
Faculty may process drops for non-attendance when it results in a lack of progress. (See Attendance.) The course syllabus should include any established attendance policy and students should discuss absences or issues relating to attendance with each instructor.
Students are expected to be actively engaged in learning during enrollment at the Alamo Colleges, attending class on the first day and throughout the semester.
Board Policy F.6.1.5 Student Success: Comprehensive Monitoring/Advising System requires that students who do not attend class at least once during the scheduled sessions of the first week of class will be dropped. For online classes, students who do not sign on to class at least once during the first week will be dropped.
Got that?
Can’t add the class if it has met.
Students who do not attend will be dropped after the 1st week.
When slots open up they can’t be filled by people who need the course to graduate.
Students that were registered for another session of the same class at a different time that is canceled were/are not allowed to add the class.
So you pre-registered 4 month in advance for a course that meets
TT, and the College cancels that session, and opens up one on MWF, when you find your class has been canceled, it is too late to add the section taught on MWF.
Nothing that "they"can do.
(Oh but they can, per the actual policy F.6.1.1 you just have to go to the College Vice Presidents or his/her designees, if that is what the term “Administrative Changes” means in the published policy, and this seems to be what those in the know routinely do, but the student handbook does not mention, or give procedures for this option).
Northwest Vista has a new President, Rick Baser. It looks like he has his work cut out for him.
The inception of the #NoAddFad was package of policy reforms called “Achieving the Dream” that evidently was the idea of Austin Community College and this one was passed by the ACCD board in 2011 which was supposed to contribute to “Student Success” meaning raising the percentage of students that graduate in 3 years from the two year associates degree programs from the low 20s to 50%.
I believe that this policy has been in effect long enough to yield a robust data set to study. I can not find year over year graduation rates for each college but I believe that they policy has NOT increased graduation rates, though Other Recent Initiatives undertaken by some of the colleges such as grants to help finish school, have done so.
Graduation rates for the 5 ACCD (Alamo Community College District) can be seen here:
Northwest Vista
Northeast Lakeview College TX
San Antonio Community College-TX
Palo-Alto-College-TX
St-Philips-College-TX
Courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.comparecollegetx.com/
Here is the link for the economic success of students in each degree program. This is for Northwest Vista, but enter any of the colleges in the search box and the information will come up.
http://esm.collegemeasures.org/...(TX)
Click on the program, and a list of the majors will come up, Click on a major to find a screen with the average number of years needed to obtain that degree, along with the number of semester hours and the average salary of those who finish the major.
Such as the one here:
http://esm.collegemeasures.org/...(TX9)Alamo-Community-College-Northwest-Vista-College-(TX)
Note that according to this data, just 16 people have graduated from the computer programming program at NWV in the last 5 years. (So either this program has the lowest graduation rate of the Technical Majors, or did not disclose the right information to the Gates Foundation), and it takes an average to 5.4 years and 91 semester hours to complete this 2 year, 61 hour degree.
Why is it taking so long? One theory that students do not know what they want when they enter college and the extra time and hours are a result of changes of interest and exploration of options by the student.
However the students that I know that have taken longer than 2 years to graduate uniformly report that they are taking extra hours because they are unable to schedule the courses that they need to graduate and take other courses to get full financial aid. However this chews up their financial aid eligibility without adding the value to their employability that graduation would.
Upon inquiry as to why courses needed to graduate were not taught more often if they were full, it was determined that these courses were not full when taught because of what I have previously referred to as the #NoAddFad, and this has lead some number (TBD) of students being rebuffed from attempts to register for classes they need for graduation, even though those classes are not full on the 12th day of class.
Elimination of Late Registration as a strategy to boost “student success” is more likely a strategy of student exclusion.
This policy is not about student success but it is actually about Institutional defense against the entry of a group of students that might depress the colleges outcome scores.
The NoAddFad costs the Administration nothing and the students everything. The sources for funding for Higher Ed are the city , state, and federal government wishing to invest in the economic success of their population, student tuition, and the various foundations. Students as customer and taxpayers, and their parents, are paying for these institutions and deserve better policies.
If the institutions were customer centered, student centered, they would look at the research where no difference was reported between late and early registrants, and compare them to the papers that report a large difference in late registrants and on-time registrants. They would then seek to implement policies that would make sure that late registrants also succeed, such as a 2 week catch-up plan and requiring a detailed syllabus for each course be posted.
( Syllibi are required by state LAW in Texas, but the ones I have checked I would give an F. They are comprised of a course description pasted onto student responsibilities boilerplate cut and paste jobs that are not designed to aid a late entrant in the course.)
More information:
From
Moore, C., Shulock, N., Ceja, M., Lang, D. (2007.) Beyond the Open Door: Increasing Student Success in the California Community Colleges. Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, Department of Public Policy and Administration, and Department of Economics California State University, Sacramento. August 2007.
Research on the impact of registering late for classes has generally concluded that late registrants have higher course withdrawal rates, lower GPAs, and lower retention rates (Freer-Weiss, 2004; Smith, Street, & Olivarez, 2002; Summers, 2000). Men, older students who delayed college entry, students with lower academic preparation levels, and part-time students are more likely to register late, giving them a profile that closely resembles that of students at high risk for attrition (Freer-Weiss, 2004). Late registrants may also differ from other students in confidence, academic and organizational skills, and motivation (Weiss, 1999).
1. The data sets do not differentiate between students registering for the 1st time and students who were registered and forced by the institution to reschedule due to institutional course closure and section changes.
2. In the body of litature referenced by Austin CC, late registrants are identified as generally being students with a higher risk profile than the general student population generally being older with more employment and family issues, they have a high risk of dropping out not to return, however there is not any evidence to suggest that they have the time or resources for another attempt at a later date when they are better prepared.
Rather than having this high risk pool attempt and drop out, the #NoAddFad policy is aimed at making sure they never get in, which seems to conflict with the economic mission of community colleges, and catches other students in the same wier.
The funding agencies and taxpayers intend for these populations to be served so that they can eventually make a greater economic contribution, so rather than denying late registration the Higher Ed institutions could ask for score adjustments based on the percentage of student that register late.
Please comment if you or a student you know has been unable to register for classes needed for graduation because the class was canceled or “full”.
Research used to underpin the NoAddFad policy of not allowing late registration was compiled by Austin Community College here.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/...
https://drive.google.com/...
Any engineer or statistician reading the research papers underpinning the NoAddFad would make the following observations.
1. the larger the data set, the less impact is shown for late registration such as in the Angelo, D. (1990). Paper which involved 39000 students and showed no impact from late registeration.
2. The GPA is considered a linear dependent variable , however many courses such as Psychology explicitly give points for attendance or class participation, so GPA by the grading scheme design is an variable dependent on class attendance. It is not therefore shocking to find that course scores with this kind of grading design depend on class attendance.
One is prone to the Homer Simpson expression. "DUH!"
3. In a Large study involving calculus courses (7000 + students, where the assessment is likely to be competence base)d, the difference between those who registered after the 1st day of class was less than 5 points on a scale of 100, after multi-regression analysis was used to correct for the fact that most of the late registrants were men. However it was stated that the raw data did not show any difference between on-time and late registrants.
4. The optimal success reported was shown by those who registered early and tweaked late.
"The registration behavior of Diablo Valley College students was consistently related to their course success and retention rates, whether they were basic skills students or non-basic skills, and across the array of demographic variables. More specifically, students who registered early, then fine-tuned their schedules during the late registration period, had the best chance of performing well (success rate of 73%). Early registrants performed dependably well, if not as well as early-late registrants (success rate of 70%). Students who registered late had consistently lower success rates than students in the other two groups (success rate of 63%)."