Fifth-year students (also known as “super-seniors”) at Vance County Early College High School, located on VGCC’s Main Campus, examine a school bulletin board covered in acceptance letters they and their classmates have received from colleges and universities. (VGCC photo)
Vance-Granville Community College first began collaborating with local school systems to operate Early College high schools in 2008, allowing local students to simultaneously complete high school diplomas and associate degrees, or almost two years of college-transferable credit. Now, in 2013, the programs are about to produce their first graduates, and those students are facing choices about how and where to continue their education.
The first classes of Vance County Early College High School and Warren Early College High School are graduating this month. Those two schools were the community college’s first Early College partnerships, and started in Aug. 2008. More surprisingly, however, VGCC’s two other high schools, Granville Early College High School and Franklin County Early College High School, which opened in Aug. 2009 and Jan. 2010, respectively, are also graduating students this spring. A number of students at those schools have completed the typically five-year programs in four years or less.
At VCECHS, 22 students will receive both their high school diplomas and two-year college degrees in May. Twelve students from WECHS will do the same, plus another who is expected to receive a “Core 44” Transfer Diploma. Still others are graduating from their high schools with a large number of college credits, putting them well on their way to completing four-year degrees. GECHS and FCECHS will celebrate the early graduations of eight and three students, respectively, with both high school diplomas and VGCC degrees.
Like their counterparts in traditional high schools, VGCC Early College students have recently been applying to colleges and universities. At last count, the students have received a total of 157 letters of acceptance to four-year schools, with the most coming from UNC-Pembroke and N.C. Central University. Others have been accepted at competitive universities in other states, such as Howard University and Purdue University. Several graduates plan to continue their studies at VGCC in the fall in fields such as Pharmacy Technology, adding to the general education they have already completed.
VGCC is posting a list of Early College students’ acceptances to colleges and universities on its website at www.vgcc.edu/EarlyCollege (click on “2013 Early College High School Graduates”).
VCECHS graduating student Yemika Hernandez, who has been accepted by Johnson & Wales University and Meredith College, said that “Vance-Granville Community College and the Early College program have prepared me for the next level by giving me the opportunity to interact with college instructors and learn a variety of learning techniques. I also got the opportunity to take college-level courses with older adults. I believe that this helped me prepare myself for future college life. I am the first person in my family to go to a four-year college and I hope to make my family proud.” Her classmate, Etasha Cheek, plans to major in Psychology at one of six colleges to which she has been accepted. “I believe my experience at VGCC and the Early College program prepared me for a university by giving me the opportunity to take college-level classes, become a responsible young adult, and understand how to cope with the way college instructors teach,” Cheek said.