Sampson Community College held its annual College and Career Promise orientation this week to a packed house. The popular CCP program provides high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to get a tuition-free jumpstart on a two-year or four-year degree while still in high school.
As has been the case for most of their lives, two young ladies attended the event together. Raechel and Raegan Smith are twin sisters from Clinton High School who decided to take advantage of CCP as a result of advice from their college advisor, Toni Blount.
Qualified students can earn college credit while still in high school. Students are dully enrolled in their high school and SCC allowing them to receive both high school and college credit for courses taken through the program. “The CCP program has been around Clinton High School as long as I have been going there,” says Raechel. “It’s a way to help get high school students a better feel for the college life and a deeper insight of what’s to come in the future.”
Indeed, it does. At orientation, students participate in everything from getting college identification, parking passes, schedules and sitting through the orientation itself. Currently, SCC has more than 240 students registered this summer for classes from all five public schools in the county. This doubles the amount of students from last summer.
“SCC offers a hometown environment,” says Raegan. We both love SCC and after we finish, we both plan to attend a four-year university.” The twins are both going to major in elementary education. They have always been in the same classes their entire lives and plan on attending the same university as well. The girls always make the same grade on every test and even have the same grade point average as of today.
Raechel says “When we were younger most people mixed our names up, some even just referred us as ‘the girls’ just to make it easier.” Raegan laughs and agrees “Yes, at least they have a 50/50 chance they will get it right that way.”
For information about the CCP program, contact Perry Gillespie at 910-900-4084.