With fall graduation approaching in less than a week, Eastern’s registrar and commencement coordinator are compiling the numbers of graduates and assembling the plans for Saturday’s ceremony.

Eastern registrar Sue Harvey said the number of students expected to graduate this December is about normal for fall graduation.

“We have 970 students that have applied for graduation,” she said.

Harvey said the Office of the Registrar will not have all the numbers assessed until January 2013.

“We are working on compiling the numbers now, but the actual number of graduates for fall semester 2012 will not be available until the end of January 2013 when all degrees will be posted,” she said. “Generally for a fall semester, approximately 100 more students apply than actually meet graduation requirements.”

Marty Hackler, Eastern’s commencement coordinator, said although she is still waiting on some information about caps and gowns, she estimates about 480 students will be participating in the graduation ceremony on Dec. 15.

“The number is pretty close to last year’s (fall graduation),” she said.

“The year before that was a little higher, so it has gone down in the past couple of years because more people are walking early in the spring.”

Hackler said the fall graduation ceremony is always smaller than the spring graduation ceremony.

“We have a lot of summer and fall graduates that do walk early, so that makes it larger,” she said.

Harvey said the number of applicants is always higher than the number that actually graduates and participates in the commencement ceremony, regardless of whether it is fall graduation or spring graduation.

“The number of students applying for spring graduation is higher than for fall,” she said. “Last spring, there were approximately 600 more applications for graduation than students who actually graduated.”

Harvey said the way the registrar’s office coordinates the biannual graduation ceremonies is the same, though the numbers greatly differ.

She said students should be figuring out last-minute details before they are set to graduate on Saturday.

“They should make sure to pick up their cap and gown at the scheduled time and make certain that they have fulfilled all graduation requirements,” she said.

Fall graduation includes two ceremonies on Saturday, one at 10 a.m. and one at 1 p.m.

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or redexter@eiu.edu.