Clemson Computer Engineering Bridge Program

While 14,739 high school seniors have been mailed large envelopes emblazoned with "Tigertown Bound" to signify acceptance to Clemson University's 2019 fall semester, some have received envelopes that are equally orange but smaller.

And those smaller packages carry more weight these days.

They offer admission to the Bridge to Clemson, a program that guarantees admission into Clemson if students complete their first year at Tri-County Technical College, earn at least a 2.5 GPA and take 30 credit hours.

The program has existed since 2006, but as more students have participated and Clemson admission has become more competitive — with an 86% increase in applications over the last decade — attitudes toward the offer have changed.

Overall for the fall of 2018, 28,845 students applied to get into Clemson, and 13,813 were accepted directly while 2,500 were given bridge offers.

Now there are 2,692 students who have until May 1 to decide whether to accept a bridge offer this year.

"Sixteen years ago, when this program didn't exist, it could have been a decline," said Kristen Karasek, the director of bridge programs and educational partnerships for Tri-County Technical College. "We always try to remind students we understand that (they) didn't get in directly to Clemson and that has fill-in-the-blank emotions, but this is the best Plan B that will get them Plan A with some hard work."

Bridge to Clemson brings added costs and benefits to the transfer experience

Relative to attending Clemson, starting out in the bridge program can save families money. For an in-state student, a freshman year at Clemson totals $26,206 before any lottery-funded scholarships are taken into account. A similar year in the bridge program is $21,864. For an out-of-state student, the difference is even bigger, $47,960 at Clemson versus $26,964 in the bridge.

Yet the price of being a bridge student has increased. Starting in fall 2018, bridge students moved onto the Clemson campus after being housed at the Highpointe apartments in Seneca, though students from Pickens, Anderson and Oconee counties can get a waiver to live at home. With the move came a requirement to buy a $3,556 meal plan. The housing cost stayed about the same at $8,850 or $9,236 depending on which building a student is assigned on campus.

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Even those who get a housing waiver have to pay the $2,370 bridge program fee.

The costs add up to make the bridge program more expensive than just attending Tri-County and then transferring to Clemson — though there's no guarantee of eventual acceptance without the bridge.

Still, the bridge is not the only way to get into Clemson without starting at Clemson.

For the spring 2018 semester, there were 721 transfer applicants to Clemson, and 429 were offered admission. Of the spring transfer students that decided to attend Clemson, 83 were from Tri-County and another 40 were from Greenville Technical College, said David Kuskowski, Clemson's admissions director.

Cameron Meyerhoffer, a computer science major from Fort Mill, is currently in the bridge program. He was accepted to USC and the College of Charleston but picked the bridge at Clemson because of his major's stature at Clemson and Clemson was where his friends and girlfriend were headed, he said.

He was optimistic heading in, but he has not felt that the program is right for him.

"It's a huge sum of money to be going to tech school," Meyerhoffer said.

Meyerhoffer is also worried about the transition to Clemson classes. When he has compared the coursework from his bridge classes to that of peers at Clemson, he is not sure the quality of the courses is the same, he said.

Kuskowski said he understands why some students may consider going to a local technical school and applying to transfer to Clemson rather than accepting the bridge, but he said the majority of high school students are looking for a traditional college experience. Since the bridge program is residential and lets students tap into Clemson clubs, it provides that.

Bridge students can get Clemson football tickets and get involved in organizations on both campuses, but there are a few limits. For example, a bridge student cannot rush for a sorority at Clemson since Panhellenic rules require enrollment at Clemson and bridge students are technically enrolled at Tri-County their first year.

Alyssa Driggers was born and raised a Clemson fan, and she said she made the most of her bridge experience. She appreciated the smaller classes she got at Tri-County, and she participated in clubs on both the Tri-County and Clemson campuses. Now she is a sophomore at Clemson.

"I was worried that if someone knew I had to go to Tri-County, they would think I was not as smart," Driggers said. "I learned even if you went to the bridge program, no one knows unless you are telling them. However long you are there, it says Clemson on your ring and says Clemson on your certificate. You are graduating from Clemson at the end of it, and you save money."

Bridge to Clemson may not always be students' best choice

For students interested in some majors, taking the bridge route to Clemson may not be the best option, Kuskowski and Karasek said.

There are six majors that Clemson cannot guarantee bridge students the chance to get into due to the limited enrollment for the programs. These majors are communication, health science, nursing, production studies with an audio concentration, sports communication, and parks, recreation and tourism management with a PGA golf management concentration.

If a student is trying to become a nurse and has been accepted as a bridge student at Clemson while being accepted directly into another college's nursing program, Kuskowski said it is better to go elsewhere. While it is not impossible to transfer into Clemson's nursing program, if you know you are guaranteed a spot in a nursing program, that is a safer bet than trying to get into Clemson's program late, he said.

Mary Von Kaenel, Clemson's director of bridge and transfer programs, said staff members in her office can help review students' transcripts to decide whether the bridge makes sense.

In select situations, if a student is coming in with lots of college credit from dual enrollment or advanced placement classes, the bridge might not be the right fit. To transfer to Clemson, you have to take 30 new credit hours of work, so students who finished taking general education requirements in high school may end up taking elective classes to fill up their 30 hours.

"Every year that goes by, it becomes more understood," Kuskowski said of Clemson's bridge program. He sees perceptions changing as the number of bridge alumni grows.

When Jennifer Cabezas was accepted into the bridge program as a senior in high school in 2014, she was upset. Originally from Virginia, she finished high school in South Carolina and was the first in her family to go through the college-application process.

Accepted at George Mason University and wait-listed elsewhere, she didn't really know what it meant to receive a Clemson bridge offer. She also saw that she would need to make a $700 deposit to secure her place in the program. That price tag was too high for her family, she said. She was approached by North Greenville University with a lacrosse scholarship and headed there instead.

"If I knew what I know now, I'd be like, 'Dang, you are still going to go to Clemson one day,'" said Cabezas, who eventually transferred to Tri-County and then to Clemson, where she is a senior microbiology major. "It's a different road, but you are still going to get through it."

Students had to act fast back then. The program was filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Maddie Risinger, a sophomore packaging science major at Clemson, at first did not accept her bridge offer quickly enough as others got their deposits in faster. She ended up as No. 162 on the bridge waiting list. Until halfway through the summer after her high school graduation, she thought she would be going elsewhere.

Eventually, enough people changed their minds on the bridge program and she got off the wait-list and found out she would be able to start her freshman year as a bridge student after all. She was thrilled. Coming from a small high school in Columbia, she was excited by the smaller class sizes available at Tri-County before jumping into Clemson.

Now students have more time to weigh their options and respond to the offer. For the first time this year, students have until April 24, rather than needing to commit as early as February, to complete their interest form, and they have until May 1 to put in a deposit, which is now $750, to secure their participation.

Karasek said the additional time gives more people a chance to attend information sessions for the program.

"For most, if not all students, Tri-County wasn't on their radar, so we want them to see the campus and be an informed consumer," she said.

Cabezas said that if she had more time to think, she probably would have started at Clemson in the bridge instead of at North Greenville University. She loved her time at Tri-County before transferring and felt prepared for Clemson from those classes.

Clemson University President Jim Clements encourages prospective students to accept bridge offers.

"If you know anyone, any of your loved ones, any of your friends who got Bridge, tell them to take it," Clements said at the State of Clemson address in February.

Clemson bridge program aims to enroll 900 students in 2019

For the class entering school in the fall of 2019, Clemson has offered 2,692 students a place in the bridge program, and the university aims to enroll a class of 900 bridge students at Tri-County, Kuskowski said. Among those offered bridge acceptance, 1,803 are from within South Carolina.

Kuskowski said the number of bridge offers was based on the number of students who accepted last year, so officials anticipate reaching the 900 target.

Generally, a lower percent of students accept bridge offers than accept offers of direct admission to Clemson. Among in-state students, about 45% take the bridge annually. Among out-of-state students, about 30% take the bridge. In 2018, 57% of students offered direct admission to Clemson accepted. About 20% of out-of-state students accept an outright Clemson offer, Kuskowski said.

Out-of-state students who take the bridge are often those most committed to graduating with a Tiger paw, such as legacy students who have had family members attend Clemson, Kuskowski said.

Over time, there's been an increase in the percent of students who advance, or cross, from the bridge program to Clemson. In 2013, 75% of the cohort crossed. The rate has been 82% for the past two years, Kuskowski said.

For the 175 or so students who enter the bridge but do not cross over to Clemson, about a third end up staying at Tri-County for degrees while some transfer to Clemson later, some transfer elsewhere and others find college is not right for them, Karasek said.

"I always tell students there are a million pathways," Karasek said. "There's no right way to do college."

Karasek encourages students who are from out-of-state and do not cross to Clemson to look at their in-state programs to save money.

"We would love to have you, right, but consider your local options," Karasek said.

About 25% of students take summer classes at Tri-County after their first two bridge semesters before crossing to Clemson. Some do so out of necessity to either get enough credit hours or to pull up their bridge GPA while others do it by choice to get ahead in their curriculum, Karasek said.

Although transitioning can be a process, once students cross to Clemson, they blend in with the regular student body and have similar outcomes, Kuskowski said.

"They are not struggling in any meaningful way," he said. "I think transitions are hard, but the data says they are succeeding."

For the cohorts of students that started in the bridge from 2006 to 2011, six-year graduation rates ranged from 79% to 84%, Kuskowski said. The overall graduation rate for students across the university for the same period ranged from 81% to 83%, according to the university's Institutional Effectiveness reports.

Among the Clemson undergraduates currently on campus, about 10% came through the bridge program, said Von Kaenel.

"You have to be talented to get the bridge offer," Von Kaenel said.

Clemson Computer Engineering Bridge Program

Source: https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2019/04/15/sc-clemson-bridge-program-grows-competition-its-not-always-best/3308677002/

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