Not every student on campus has completed high school – yet.

Ambitious high school students from the greater Athens area can take classes part-time through the University’s joint enrollment program before they even get their high school diplomas. Program participants complete college-level courses at the University while also taking classes at their respective high schools.

Jordan Stevens, a freshman from Watkinsville, took an introductory Greek cultures class in the spring semester when she was still a senior in high school. She said the course load was “challenging, but not too overwhelming.”

Stevens became interested in joint enrollment when some of her upperclassmen friends described it as a way for prospective students to find out if the University is right for them.

She said her experience helped to debunk many of the myths she’d heard about campus.

“I was so worried about being swallowed up in such a huge university,” Stevens said. “But my class was only about 40 people. It was actually really intimate.”

Kelsey Campolong, a freshman from Alpharetta, took two calculus courses as a jointly enrolled student at Georgia Tech, and said her experience there influenced her decision to enroll at the University instead.

Candidates for joint enrollment must still complete the University Undergraduate Admissions First-Year Application Form, mail in high school transcripts and submit standardized test scores like any other applicant who applies to the University. Those applying for joint enrollment are also evaluated on a required interview with a senior admissions counselor and must send in a letter of permission from a parent or counselor.

“There are only a handful for students who pursue joint enrollment each semester,” said Patrick Winter, senior associate director of admissions. “Usually, they are local students who have exhausted all the course offerings at their high school in a particular discipline.”

Because these students are expected to overreach expectations, their SAT or ACT scores must exceed the general admissions average and they must have earned high grade point averages in high school classes.

The average GPA of the fall 2009 joint enrollment class is 3.83, with a 1263 SAT – excluding the writing section.

The Accel Program allows high schoolers interested in joint enrollment to continue their studies beyond the high school level without yet having to apply for HOPE. Accel is a non-need based grant for eligible Georgian high school students that provides money for tuition, approved fees and books. But the amount awarded depends on the number of hours the student plans to take each semester.

Campolong said the joint enrollment classes ultimately helped to prepare her for college academics.

She said though high school teachers gave enough tests to cushion one bad grade, in her joint-enrollment classes she had to bank her entire grade on as few as four tests a year.

“You get an idea of how much tests are worth. That helps when you’re in college,” Campolong said.