|
|
Admission to Teacher Candidacy
Full admission is required before a student can enroll in any restricted education courses. The student will receive written notification of the admission decision from the Tift College of Education Admissions Officer. For Georgia students seeking the Promise Scholarship, full admission is the only status that will meet the current requirement that a student be admitted into a Teacher Education program.
To be fully admitted, a student must:
- Have a cumulative undergraduate GPA of 2.5
- Undergraduates: Have taken and have earned no grade below a “C” in FYS 101 and FYS 102 or LBST 175 and LBST 180. MAT and certification-only students: Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution of higher learning.
- Undergraduates: Have taken and have earned no grade below a “C” in the math core class.
- Have passed all education courses taken and have earned no grade below a “C” (undergraduates) or “B” (MAT/graduate-level students).
- Have passed all courses taken for areas of concentration in middle grades or for certification in secondary and P-12 content areas and have earned no grade below a “C”.
- Have passed all GACE I basic skills tests with a score on each test that reflects the minimum score set by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. Students may be exempt from this requirement if they provide official documentation of qualifying scores on any of these tests: SAT, ACT, GRE, CBEST, CLAST, FTCE-GK.
- Undergraduates: Have declared a major in teacher education. Secondary education students need to declare the appropriate major in the College of Liberal Arts and need to declare the intent to seek Secondary Education Teacher Certification (See Major–Minor Form.) Those students seeking P–12 certification in music should declare Music Education as a major in the Townsend School of Music (See Major-Minor Form.)
- Have submitted an application for admission to Teacher Candidacy in the semester prior to registering for any restricted education courses.
- Have attended a Teacher Education Orientation session.
Progression Policy
Once a student is admitted to Teacher Candidacy, he/she must:
- Undergraduates: Maintain a cumulative GPA of 2.5 or better. MAT candidates: Earn at least a B in all courses applied towards the degree.
- Undergraduates: Maintain a 2.75 GPA or better in all education courses required for the major, including courses required for areas of concentration in middle grades or courses required for certification in secondary content areas or in special subjects, e.g., music.
- Successfully complete all education courses. An undergraduate teacher candidate who receives a grade below “C” in more than two (2) education courses will be dismissed from the Teacher Education Program. An MAT candidate who receives below a B in more than two education courses will be dismissed from the program. Only two (2) education courses with grades below the required minimum may be repeated, and no education course may be repeated more than one time. An MAT candidate may not re-take an equivalent class at another institution to replace a grade earned at Mercer.
- Have positive recommendations from each field experience in order to advance in the sequence of field experiences. Please note that field experience placements must meet all diversity criteria, i.e., placement in a minimum of three (3) different schools and placement in required grade clusters.
- Have successfully completed all education courses and all content courses required for certification prior to recommendation for student teaching. Further, in order to be recommended for student teaching, an undergraduate degree-seeking student may have no more than eight (8) hours of general education coursework to be completed in the term following student teaching.
|