Dressed identically in black gowns and mortarboards, the College of the Canyons students who will make their way through the Honor Grovefor their diploma on May 30, will be part of the largest graduating class in the college's history.

With 1,255 students, the number of graduates of 2008 grew 9.4percent since 2007.

"It's amazing to see how much we have grown these past fewyears," said Sue Bozman, vice president of marketing and external relations.

Some other interesting facts about the Class of 2008 are:

- 60.9 percent of the graduates are women. 39.1 percent ofthem are men.

- 42 majors are represented. The leading major is transfer studies, followed by nursing.

-4 57 ethnic minorities are part of the graduating class.

-The average age of a graduate is 25 years old.

- The youngest graduate is 16 years old. The oldest is 61 years old.

- 16 students will be graduating with 4.0 GPA's.

- 211 students will graduate with honors.

- 34 graduates are international students from a wide variety of countries including Cameroon, Canada, China, Columbia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Japan, Macedonia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

-The average class GPA is 2.98.

The College of the Canyons graduation ceremony will be at 10:30 a.m.

Valedictorians Maureen Jordan, Melody Akhtari and Manuela Marino were selected to speak at the ceremony.

Guests should arrive by 10:15 a.m.