High School Counselors

High school counselors play an integral role in the success, and access, of students enrolled in PSEO or concurrent enrollment courses. This page will provide you with general information on how to help students navigate the process. This page is designed to help answer questions about both concurrent enrollment and PSEO.

General Information

When your students register for university courses, they will be receiving a real postsecondary experience. They are held to the same learning outcomes as our students, similar course assessments, and must meet university academic progress standards. In short, they become Mavericks!

admission requirements

All students need to be admitted to campus before they can register for courses. Admission is not based on course eligibility, rather, campus metrics on student success. If students meet the admission requirements, they will be admitted. Concurrent enrollment students, that don't meet the admission requirements, have an opportunity to provide supplemental documents as part of a comprehensive review of their application. To learn more, visit our Admission Requirements page.

Admission Requirements

 

academic progress standards

Students registering for these courses are university students. They have the benefit of not paying for the tuition, access to university resources, and the opportunity to experience the expectations of postsecondary prior to moving onto a campus as degree seeking student. They are also subject to university policies, including academic standing. Academic standing requires that students stay "on track" to graduate. There are two metrics that are used, completion rate (67%) and GPA (1.7), students must meet both to stay on track. Both of these are cumulative, meaning that a strong semester could be offset if a student does poorly the next semester.

COMPLETION RATE

Completion rate is calculated by the number of credits a student earns/credits attempted. Any course a student registers for, and stays enrolled in past the 5th day of the semester, is considered an attempted course. If a student removes the course from their schedule before the end of the 5th day, we consider this a drop. A dropped course does not appear on the student's transcript and does not count as an attempted course. If the student removes the course after the 5th day it is considered a withdrawal and does count as a completed course. Failed grades also count as a course that was not completed. Here are some examples of how completion rate is calculated:

Registered Credits	Completed Credits	Completion Rate	Academic Standing
13	13	100%	Good
13	10	76.9%	Good
13	8	61.5%	Academic Warning

GRADE POINT AVERAGE

This one is a bit more straight forward, if the student's cumulative MSU GPA falls below 1.7 they are placed on academic warning.

ACADEMIC WARNING

Academic Warning is the term placed on students that fall below one, or both, of these standards at the end of a semester. PSEO students must meet with a PSEO advisor prior to enrolling in future semesters. Their plan must be enough to remove the academic warning hold. If their plan won't bring them to good academic standing, we will not allow them to register for courses. If after one semester on Academic Warning, they still aren't in good standing, they are placed on Academic Suspension. Read the full university policy here

Academic Standing

 

Advising PSEO Students

This section speaks specifically to working with traditional PSEO students, or those students interested in registerinf for courses taught by university faculty. Concurrent enrollment information is in the next section.

deadlines and timelines

PSEO students have a few deadlines, and some suggested timelines. These dates are set to help ensure their success. 

Notice of Student Registration Form (NOSR/MDE):

State law says that students need to inform their district that they are interested in PSEO, not necessarily that they will, or have, registered for PSEO courses. The deadline for this is May 30th. Districts have flexibility in approving late requests, but that is entirely at your discretion. AFter the form is signed by all the necessary people, it can be emailed to pseo@mnsu.edu.

Student Forms

 

Application:

Students fill out the same application as our degree seeking students do. University Admissions closes the application 5 business days before the start of each semester. The PSEO Office sets priority deadlines. These deadlines ensure that the application processor has enough time to process PSEO applications and get answers to students with enough time for them to complete the next steps in the process. Students can still apply after the priority deadline, we will do our best to process and move them forward in a timely manner. You can find more important dates by viewing our PSEO and Concurrent Enrollment calendar.

Event	Date
Fall Priority Application	April 1st
Spring Priority Application	October 1st
Fall Orientation Opens	May 1st
Spring Orientation Opens	November 1st
Fall Course Registration	Varies, but typically last week of July
Spring Course Registration	Varies, but typically first week of December

 

Course Registration

PSEO advisors are experts on helping students choose the most appropriate courses for their intended majors, you are the experts in courses that meet high school graduation requirements. Our office will encourage students to stay in communication with their counselors to ensure they are taking courses that will meet their graduation requirements. While our office may give examples of courses that have been approved by other schools, we will NEVER advise students on high school graduation requirements.

advising concurrent enrollment students

This section will help answer common questions asked by concurrent enrollment students and counselors working with them.

Best Practices

1. Identify support staff that can serve as the main point of contact for general day-to-day questions and administrative tasks. We rely heavily on our schools to ensure all of their students have applied and registered for courses.
2. Monitor admit and registration reports. Our office will send regular admit and registration reports to our partners. These reports contain vital information regarding your students' admission status with the campus and any missing documents (admit report). The registration reports show the students that have registered for the course with the university.
3. Access and equity should be driving forces in concurrent enrollment. Research shows that students participating in concurrent enrollment courses are more likely to enroll in postsecondary after high school graduation. One article predicts that students on meal support, who also enrolled in CE courses, were more than 21% likely to enroll in postsecondary!

Application

All concurrent enrollment students need to apply to campus before they are able to register for courses. Due to the shear volume of concurrent enrollment applications that are received, we encourage schools to have students apply months in advance. For courses that will be starting in the fall, applications should be submitted in May. For courses starting in January, applications should be submitted in October. Over the last two terms, we've averaged 1,257 applications in the fall and 828 spring applications. With transcripts, thats a total of 4,170 documents! 

One of our staff can visit your school to help your students apply to campus. This can be a great opportunity for students to be introduced to the PSEO staff and ensure that applications are submitted accurately. We can also pick up transcripts at this time. Application processing time varies depending on the time of year and volume of documents. In most cases, students should expect to hear from us in 10 - 15 business days.

Course Registration

Students will need to register for their concurrent enrollment courses through Minnesota State Mankato's eServices page. This process can only be completed after a student has been admitted. Most of the time students will register for their courses over the first two weeks of the class.

PSEO staff is able to provide guidance and assistance on this step as well.