Good spots still available… maybe!?!

Douglas reminds students of late registration option

By Atiba Nelson, Staff Reporter

With summer graduation ceremonies suspended and a recent announcement by the Minister of Education touting that the province does not have a timeline for reopening classrooms, Douglas pushes ahead with summer registration and a summer semester.

Towards the end of March, Douglas communicated that summer courses would be online to support students’ class, program, and degree completion, with the added benefit of allowing the college to comply with the Provincial Health Officer’s social distancing directive.

Last year, according to the Douglas College “Institution Accountability Plan and Report 2018/19 Reporting Cycle,” approximately 7,500 students enroll in summer courses. The report—which is submitted annually to the Post-Secondary Audit and Accountability Branch of the Ministry of Education—states that domestic enrollments were flat and the college has been buttressed by international enrollment.

However, with international travel slowed and the transition to online instruction, there may be less students partaking in the 2020 summer semester. To combat the flattening of domestic enrollments and decrease of international enrollments that could hamper the college’s economics, Douglas reminded students that some Douglas programs are accepting applications.   

The college prompted Canadian students, via their website, to apply to the summer 2020 semester and the programs accepting applications by May 10. Interested students were asked to call the Registrar’s Office via a Zoom teleconference meeting code to find out what programs would be accepting applications.

Students applying to the college during late registration would be subject to all the same requirements of any perspective applicant—including fees and official documentation.

“Students applying between April 20 and May 10 must send their required documentation to us immediately.  We do not guarantee their acceptance for summer if their admission documentation is delayed,” stated the press release on the Douglas News page.

Douglas does caution applicants that late registration is a difficult process, for example full courses, accessing course materials, and de-registration, but reminds students to reach out to the Registrar for more information.

“Applying and registering once the semester starts can be challenging,” reads the online news announcement. “If you miss one or more classes at the beginning of the semester, you may find yourself too far behind to catch up. Some instructors hold quizzes as early as the second week of classes.”

As an example of the degree of difficulty associated with late registration, the Criminology diploma—the fourth most popular Douglas’ program by number of applications in the 2017 to 2018 academic year—is open to application via the open enrollment stream. Yet, at the time of writing this, only two of the 34 courses offered in the summer semester have space to register.