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Early enrollees get big surprise
By Megan Sheesley
msheesle@mscd.edu

Photo by Emily Mehring • emehring@mscd.edu Stephen Jordan congratulates Freddi Bonitz on receiving a $500 scholarship.

Metro President Stephen Jordan awarded two $500 scholarships and five iPods on Feb. 8 to seven lucky students who registered early for the spring semester.

Students have a track record of registering at the last minute, but this year Jodi Diaz Bonacquisti, the associate vice president for enrollment services, decided to try something new.

“We were trying to entice students to register early,” Bonacquisti said. “My way of explaining it (is) the concert analogy: If there is a band that you really want to go see, the earlier you get the tickets, the better. If you wait until the last minute to buy the tickets, the concert will be sold out.”

Full-time early enrollees were entered in a drawing to win the $500 scholarships, which were provided by the Scholarship Center, and students who registered as part-time were given the chance to win the iPods. To the seven students who were chosen, the prizes came as a surprise.

“I didn’t know about the iPod. I just registered because I am a senior and I was able to,” accounting student Kathleen Grant said.

Jordan presented the prizes in the Scholarship Center.

“There are not many opportunities here (at Metro) to do these kinds of things,” Jordan said. “I think it is neat that we were able to do this.”

Whether or not the incentives affected Metro’s enrollment rate is unknown, but that rate went up 2.4 percent from spring 2006, making Metro’s total head count 20,158, according to the Office of Institutional Research.