COOKEVILLE – Tennessee Tech University officials announced information about incoming students for this academic year, along with preliminary enrollment figures, today. The university welcomed more than 2,500 new students this fall, including more than 1,700 new freshmen and nearly 800 transfer students.
This year saw an increase in the number of transfer students choosing Tech to continue their education. The top five schools that saw students transfer to Tech were all community colleges: Roane State, Vol State, Motlow State, Pellissippi State and Columbia State.
“Tech is a great place for someone who has taken advantage of Tennessee Promise or attended a community college and now wants to earn their bachelor’s degree,” said Brandon Johnson, vice president of Enrollment Management & Career Placement. “We continue to build stronger relationships with community colleges throughout the state and can help students easily transfer their credits.”
For the incoming freshman class, the average ACT score is 24 and the average high school GPA a 3.63. The incoming class includes 95 students who scored at least a 32 on the ACT, with two scoring a perfect 36, and almost 500 students who had a perfect 4.0 GPA in high school.
More than 700 are coming to Tech with college credits in hand, thanks primarily to dual enrollment opportunities at their high school, with 72 beginning the year as sophomores and nine already classified as juniors.
Freshman students come from 84 of Tennessee’s 95 counties, with the top 10 being Putnam, Wilson, Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, Cumberland, Hamilton, White and Knox.
“For quite a few years, we have seen a large number of students from across the state choose Tech as their collegiate home,” Johnson said. “This year, we see our largest group of incoming first-year students from the Nashville area, Davidson and surrounding counties. Traditionally, the majority of Tech’s students come from the Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Upper Cumberland areas.”
Outside of Tennessee, first-year students come from 20 other states, with the highest percentage this year from Georgia.
“Tennessee Tech, as one of the top schools in the Southeast, sees students come from across the U.S.,” Johnson said. “For students in Georgia, though, our Eagle’s Reach program provides an excellent opportunity to get a quality Tech education at a lower cost.”
Eagle’s Reach is a tuition reduction program that allows citizens and permanent residents of the U.S. who graduate from a high school within a 250-mile radius of Tennessee Tech to be eligible to receive a substantial tuition reduction.
The incoming class also features international students from 22 countries.
Top majors for the 2019 freshman students include nursing, mechanical engineering, computer science, chemical engineering, agriculture, civil engineering, exercise science, biology, business and education.
Preliminary enrollment is more than 10,050. The official enrollment census, which is taken on the 10th day of classes each fall, is Sept. 9.
