AU celebrates early action admits with pair of ceremonies at local high schools

For high school seniors looking to take the next step in their educational journey, the period from when they apply for college to when they are accepted can feel like it drags on forever.

For 66 Augusta-area seniors, that period recently came to a conclusion as they found out directly from staff of Augusta University’s Office of Admissions they had been accepted to AU for next fall.

“It’s so exciting. We really see ourselves as the CSRA’s university of choice, and we’re so proud and happy to come here and see the joy in the faces of the students and administrators as we look to demonstrate our commitment to our local community,” said Nathan Rice, director of undergraduate admissions.

Rice was joined by Karma AlJaroudi, associate director of student recruitment, and Cornell Scales, assistant director of scholars recruitment, in a pair of ceremonies at Lakeside High School and A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School. They presented official acceptance letters and welcome packets to 47 students at Lakeside and 19 at A.R. Johnson.

A.R. Johnson’s 19 early admits were the most of any Richmond County school. Overall, AU admitted 164 students across Columbia County and 77 from Richmond County. During this year’s early action admit period, 2,947 students were admitted, marking a 12.7% increase over last year’s 2,616 early admits.

Phil Moss, an assistant principal at A.R. Johnson and 2009 alumnus of the Music Education program in the Department of Music of the Katherine Reese Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, has spent the last 14 years teaching in Richmond County. As a teacher and administrator, he has always enjoyed watching as students prepare to make that next step in life, especially if it’s going off to college.

“Some of my former students at my previous stops over the last 14 years have attended Augusta University, and I’m proud of all of them,” Moss said. “Some are first-generation college students. Some I have personally walked through the process of how to apply and where to find financial aid and other resources. Watching students grow, learning to make their own choices, no matter where I’ve been, it’s been awesome and rewarding.”

“It definitely feels good because I’ve been waiting to see if I got accepted for what feels like a while now,” said A.R. Johnson senior Brayden Pringle. “This suspense was killing me, but I’m glad I got accepted.”

Pringle decided to apply to AU after visiting campus last year where he learned about the many health care programs, as well as the finance program offered through the James M. Hull College of Business.

“Obviously, I was familiar with AU because it’s right here in Augusta, but I was able to learn more when I went to visit the campus last year when I was doing my clinicals, and I really liked the Health Sciences Campus,” Pringle said. “I really liked the people I met there, so I did some research into their programs, but then I went to a college fair and heard they have a pretty good finance program, so I’m looking at health care or finance.”

Gabriella Carter has been afforded an up-close-and-personal experience with AU’s health care majors through the dual enrollment program at A.R. Johnson.

“I chose to apply to AU because it’s local, and I’ve heard it’s a really good school for health care majors,” Carter said. “Being so close to school, I’ve heard about the different majors and even had someone come here to speak in my medical terminology class, so that really interested me to apply.”

Zyani Recendiz-Rodriguez not only became familiar with AU’s health care programs through dual enrollment, but was also a part of the Hull College of Business’s Leadership Program earlier this year.

“I’ve grown up with AU being a very big part of our community, and I’ve been able to be a part of the dual enrollment program and learn more about the health care programs, and I’m very interested in that,” Recendiz-Rodriguez said. “I’ve also been involved with the Hull College of Business’s leadership program that happened this past summer. It actually opened up my eyes to business, and I realized that I can go into health care management and still apply that business degree to make an impact in health care.”