Aoraki now has about 160 equivalent full-time students across 13 programmes.
Otago chief executive Phil Ker said the polytechnic was hoping to boost Aoraki's numbers by about 50% before taking over the courses in 2016.
''It's not an unrealistic target - a couple of programmes are close to full anyway,'' he said.
''Things are looking fine from my perspective, and I'm pretty optimistic that we'll be confirming everything.''
Mr Ker's optimism comes just over two months after the Otago Daily Times reported any programmes with fewer than 16 students could be axed.
A document outlining the takeover proposal, provided to the ODT under the Official Information Act, contains another proviso for programme and staff retention - student-staff ratios.
''Otago proposes to maintain the staffing levels at the proposed transfer date, subject to there being sufficient students to maintain Otago's usual staff-student ratios,'' the document says.
Otago's 2014 annual report lists its student-staff ratio at 18.3:1, while Aoraki's student-staff ratio at its Dunedin campus is only 7:1.
But Mr Ker said there was a range of ratios across its different programmes, with some that even dipped down to 7:1.
''It all depends on whether or not [the programmes] have been designed to be viable at those low numbers or not,'' he said.
For Aoraki's programmes, Mr Ker said the polytechnics would be aiming to get the student-staff ratio up to the institution-wide target of 16.5.
''If we aim there, some will end up at 20:1, and some with 12:1, and we're happy with that.''
Even if some programmes did not hit the mark, Mr Ker did not foresee making staff cuts to hit the desired student-staff ratio.
''None of the Aoraki programmes have any padding in the staff ... Our preference is to go forward with the Aoraki operation as is.''
If any changes did have to be made, it would likely be to cut an entire programme, not staff, Mr Ker said. But he was relatively certain that would not be necessary.
''Even if something's a bit on the weak side, we'd still prefer to run it and make a good long-term decision than a short-term one,'' he said.
''We're not making any hasty decisions.''
Aoraki chief executive Alex Cabrera said the polytechnic was continuing to ''work through the detailed planning for the transition to happen smoothly''.
''Ultimately, it will be up to Otago Polytechnic to determine the best model going forward.''
