{"id":73780,"date":"2016-08-31T02:47:13","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T08:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-admits-historic-high-achieving-class-of-2020\/"},"modified":"2016-08-31T08:47:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T08:47:13","slug":"fort-lewis-college-admits-historic-high-achieving-class-of-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-admits-historic-high-achieving-class-of-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College admits historic high-achieving Class of 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:39453c84-8f0c-4e8e-aab0-1e1fd6e7dca4 --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RSsTb7iXWNg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>As Fort Lewis College gradually merges into its higher admission standards, due to take full effect in 2019, it\u2019s seeing a corresponding improvement in the achievement levels of students.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 29, as the Class of 2020 went to its first classes, students were the best prepared in the college\u2019s history. Nearly one-third had high school grade point averages of 3.5 or higher.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2006, the mid-50 percent ACT scores have increased from a range of 18 to 23 to 19 to 24 \u2013 that is half the enrolled students had ACT scores falling within the range. The percentage of students who have scored 30 to 36 on the ACT math test, a key indicator of ability to handle requirements in majors such as engineering and the sciences, has increased from 1 percent to 2.4 percent in that time period.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis milestone is a result of a push by FLC to admit students who are better prepared to hit the ground running on the first day of their college careers,\u201d FLC spokesman Mitch Davis said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith new programs like computer engineering beginning soon (2017), incoming students will need increased preparation before college to thrive in the challenging curriculum they will find at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fortlewis.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fort Lewis College<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another indicator of higher preparedness is the number of freshmen who have indicated an interest in the \u201cFinish in Four!\u201d program, students who believe they can get their degree in four years. With the Class of 2020, that\u2019s up 26 percent to 333 students from 2015\u2019s 265 students, said Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Carol Smith.<\/p>\n<p>The incoming class of freshmen and transfer students \u2013 whose numbers will be officially counted Sept. 12 \u2013 went through orientation Thursday and Friday, culminating in Convocation on Friday afternoon. The ceremony, with faculty in gowns, charges the students to excel in and enjoy their college experience.<\/p>\n<p>To spur them on, President Dene Thomas shared accomplishments from alumni and upperclassmen, including the Skyhawks Cycling Team, rated second in the nation, and Giancarlo Vigil, an economics major who graduated in 2015, and his continuing business-development success with the Mat\u00e9 Exchange. His fledgling business won the inaugural FLC Hawk Tank business plan competition and was recently accepted into the Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>The college is also showing success in students going on to careers in the sciences. The National Science Foundation recently found Fort Lewis to be one of Colorado\u2019s top producers of students going on to earn doctorates in chemistry, with the college coming in fourth after Colorado State University, the University of Colorado Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a third of incoming class had GPA of 3.5 or higher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,4342,132,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-curriculum","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73780"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}