Graduate School Virtual Information Reception

Hey everybody, welcome to our web and R this evening or online information reception we're going to get started here in just a few minutes or really excited. You guys are here. I'm just going to give it two or three more minutes to let some others sign on really quick. And then we will be back and get started.

OK, I think I'm going to go ahead and kick us off for this evening just to be respectful of everyone's time. First of all, I wanted to say thank you for joining us this evening. I know it is a crazy time right now and everybody's lives and there's a lot of just weirdness I think is the right feeling or right word to describe some of what we're feeling with just these changes that are happening. And I'm sure a lot of you guys are working from home. Maybe it's crazy with your families there and just.

You know, a lot can be going on right now. There's a lot of just emotions up there, but I'm so glad that all of you are taking time to come. You know, do something for yourselves and to learn more about the graduate programs at HB you and looking at the future, I think it's really important, especially right now to be thinking about the future and thinking about positive things that are coming our way right? So I'm really just glad that you guys are here tonight. I want to do a couple of housekeeping announcements.

This session is being recorded, so if for whatever reason you need to step away from the web and R, please do that and just know that the session will be recorded. We can send the link out to all of you later this week so that you can catch any information that maybe you missed having to log off early. Secondly, there is a chat feature.

Um with this webinars. So if at any point throughout the session you have questions, I will be doing a Q&A session. It tored the end, so if I don't get to your question right away, I'll look at it at the end too. We also have one of my colleagues kind of moderating the chat, so she might be able to respond to some questions throughout the web and R as well if I don't.

Um, Thirdly and before we started, uhm, you should have also received a link to your breakout session to your individual program session. I should say, and that would have come in an email with the subject line. Something like you're alone. What does it say? Your QA session link? I think that was sent out several times. You guys, you might check your junk folder or your spam folder. If you don't see it in your inbox. But this subject line.

Is your Q&A session link up? You're going to need that to log into the web and R for your individual programming program of interest, so I want to make sure that you guys have that. If for whatever reason you can't find it or you need us to resend it to you, just chat us. We're going to stick around after the sessions over for a few minutes to help you guys and get new links and get set up for those individual sessions so.

Just wanted to mention those two things before we get started but to introduce myself, my name is Allison Kates. I'm the director of admissions for the graduate programs at HB you and again. I'm really excited to be here tonight. We really wish we could have been here, been in person with all of you on campus. But I'm just for the sake of safety an keeping everyone, saying We are moving. This online tonight. An just really grateful that you took the time tonight to be here with us.

And we hope we can answer any and all of the questions that you have, but I'm going to jump in and we're going to get started with a little video just to give you a little bit more information about HB you.

In the Graduate School in particular.

I'm just greens. I'm an associate professor of philosophy here in Houston Baptist University, also being of the Graduate School and Directive Art Institute of Christianity and scholarship. I've had a great experience in HBO. It's been a really a school full opportunity and something I really enjoy. I like seeing what we're doing in all these different areas and it comes out of, I think.

Ask Astrology. We believe all things are made through Christ in forehand and out of that we have a commitment to providing high quality Christian Education an every aspect of human life. I really hope that our graduate students.

Find HP you a Christ centered of higher education that let's them pursuing specific detail series of passion. That's one of the great things about Graduate School. So once you get deeper in a certain area.

Some exposure to as an undergrad. He's never thought about it.

Polishing your skill set.

I'm Jeff Green and the green of the Graduate School. The director of Art Institute of Christiani and Sasha here at Houston Baptist University. We offer a higher education.

And as you heard that was Jeff Green. He is the Dean of our Graduate School and he's also the Associate Provost of our graduate studies so he's very heavily involved with all of our graduate programs in with all of our graduate students as well. So just to kick esaf? Why HB you uhm? What do we have that other schools? Don't well. You at HP. You you can learn from experienced an renowned professors. We have a lot of professors who are.

Published authors uhm well known in their field. Uhm, we have uh, professors like Craig Evans in Nancy Pearcy and Mary Jo Sharp, who are well known in a lot of apologetics circles, Christianity and theology. Theological studies circles published authors. Just professional speakers and they're all a lot of them are professors here on campus with us and students just kind of clamor.

To be in some of their classes. So we have very experienced, well renowned professors.

We have professors in the psychology and counseling areas that are, you know, they're professionals in their field, so they actually have opened their own practices and so they have first hand knowledge of what it takes to do that and are just really key assets to our University. Another thing that I really enjoy about HB you is the small class sizes.

Students are here, uhm, their feedback and students tell me all the time that they love not feeling like they're just another number. Um, that's the professors really. Take the time to get to know them and help them and hear their story and what their goals are and help them achieve those goals. So you will receive some very personalized attention from professors in the staff on campus.

We also offer evening an on campus class times a inconvenient 24/7 online options, so I know a lot of people right now are looking more at the online options. Just given the state of the world right now, and we offer a lot of programs 100% on line, so I encourage you guys to, if you're not quite ready to put your foot back onto a campus with lots of people around right now, or even when these stay at home orders or lifted, that might be a good option to explore. You get the same type of.

Hum.

Of Student Services. An customer service that you would expect from an on campus program. You would get that in the online learning environment as well, so just know that those options are available to you.

You also have an access to a lot of student services, including careers assistance and tutoring in our academic success center, so even our graduate students have those opportunities. Of course, being a faith based University, all of your coursework will come from a faith based perspective, but you'll also be part of a thriving and growing learning community, so HBO is growing. It's about 60 five years old now, and it is just a growing community.

Of people who love to teach people who love to learn. People who love to learn from each other. So we have a very diverse campus. Very diverse group of faculty and staff is just a community that loves to learning, grow together and we would love for you to be a part of that.

So how? How do you apply? How do you become a part of that? We're going to take you through the ABC's of applying.

So to initially apply for admission, you'll want to go to this website itshbu.edu/gradapply.

Hbu.edu/grad dash apply. It's a very easy, very fast on line application. It's very easy to come complete and submit, so once you submit that um will tell you what your next steps are in a second, but that's going to be your first step to apply for admission if you need to apply for financial aid or for scholarships. Those links are right there as well. You might write those down. We do have a scholarship deadline coming up on April 15th. If you're wanting to start.

In the summer terms, so be sure and check those out again. Will tell you a little bit more about scholarships here in a minute.

But just make note of those important links.

So after you've applied, that was a B is begin sending your documents. So when you submit your application.

Um, you'll receive you should receive a log in to your uhm individual applicant portal that's going to show you everything like your documents that you need to submit. What we're still missing, what's been fulfilled, and all of that information. So you'll send your documents. You can upload a lot of those documents straight from your own computer into your portal. An will get it on the other side. You can email those documents to us as attachments, including transcripts.

First year University sends E transcripts. We do accept those and they can send them to that email address where you can send it good old-fashioned Mail. And there's the address right there, just the HBO address and put it to the attention of the Graduate School.

Defined what your specific admission requirements are and in your individual sessions. Your admission coordinators are going to go over what is required for each of your programs that you're interested in. Sometimes the admission requirements vary just a bit based on which program you're interested in applying to, so they'll go over more information. More details about those, but to see each of you were interested in the MBA program, you can click on this link. You go to the grad school website.

Hbu.edu/grad and then you'll click on the menu item to the right. This is graduate admission requirements. On that page there will be a list of every program that we offer. If you click on the program that you're interested in, it will have a drop down.

That shows you all the specific requirements for that program. So if you're interested in getting more information, that's the right side to go to, but you'll also get more information in your individual sessions in here in a little bit.

So we've done A and be, so see is contact your admissions team.

When you apply, you'll get an email that tells you who your admissions coordinator is and their contact information, and they'll kind of introduce themselves. So use that person as a resource. As you're going through this process, you maybe someone who says you know I've got all the documents ready, was going to submit him all at once. I don't need help, that's great. We're here to be a resource for you and I help for you if you do need that assistance, so be sure and Contact your admissions team if you have any questions or any need. Any help throughout that process.

Speaking of our admissions team.

This is our pen pal online division.

So about 2 1/2 years ago we started our on line division.

And they have grown tremendously, and they've been a huge support and a huge blessing to have during this time especially, but they have a dedicated staff just for our online admissions and our online students. So if you're interested in doing an online program, I can guarantee you you will be interacting with one or more of these people on a regular basis throughout the process. And they'll take you all the way through the application process all the way through to enrollment.

And then after enrollment, they'll stay with you. Check up on you, help you get registered for future semesters. Things like that there are wonderful team and it's great to work with them. As far as the graduate on campus admissions team.

And this is a picture of them up. They'll be introducing themselves here in a little bit during the individual breakout sessions.

But our contact information is right there, so if you didn't already have it, please make a note of that. And again, you'll probably see it on a lot of emails that you get from us and things like that. But just make note of that. All of our phone numbers right now are forwarded to our personal numbers, so we are able to still help you and work with you through this time, even though we're not in the office. So please reach out to us if you have any questions. I know a lot of you have probably already submitted an application.

Some of you may be thinking about submitting an application. If you have any questions, go ahead and reach out to as someone is always checking the email and we're always checking the phone so um, even though we're not in the office, we were still here for you. So just make note of those numbers and just a few more since you're not overloaded. As it is I have a few more important contact information for you, so if you are an international student or if you got a degree overseas

You will probably at some point want to or need to work with our international student services office, so make a note of that contact information right there. They are a wonderful resource for you. Going through the admissions and approval process.

Secondly, financial aid. I know a lot of you are probably thinking about or wanting to do something with financial aid and need a little bit of assistance paying for a graduate degree. Great information to have. Please reach out to them. They are on call right now as well and are working remotely so they can help you. Same with the cashier's office.

Cashier's and student accounts office will work with you on your bill. Setting up payment plans. Things of that nature, so please reach out to them if you need any assistance in those areas.

Now, as promised, I wanted to go through the process. Once everything is completed and we've received everything for your admissions file. What comes next? So some of you may be applying to a program that requires that leads to certification in some area, whether that be in education, certification area, excuse me, or something like counseling certification leading to LPC licensure or LSP licensure.

If you're leading to licensure or certification in any way, shape or form, we do require an admissions interview which takes place with our faculty. So once we received all of your documents and we've determined that your admissible on paper, so to speak, you'll also be forwarded to an admissions interview with the faculty.

If you're not needing an interview, then it just goes to the admissions leadership and we review your file and will give you a decision within probably 48 hours after your file is complete. If you don't receive that, then it means we're either waiting on something, in which case you should have received an email or a phone call from your admissions coordinator letting you know that, but typically it's about a 48 hour turn around. Once we received all of your documents.

So for an interview.

Your admissions coordinator will send you the link to schedule your interview. It's very easy to to select a time in a day that you want. It just lists all the days and times that are available and you pick what works best in your schedule.

If your selected for admission, uh, more once your admission decision has been made, you'll receive an email when your status page on your applicant portal has been updated. So when we put a decision on your file, it updates your applicant portal and you'll get an email saying You have a status update and then you can go into your portal to see what your status update is. You'll also receive a letter hard copy in the Mail, but that'll be a week or so later.

So what are the deadlines? We do have a couple of very important deadlines coming up pretty quick so I wanted to go ahead and mention these for you guys.

Our international applicant deadlines are always two months prior to this date and deadline.

And that's just because there's a lot of extra documentation that we need from international students, and so we want to give you ample time to get all those documents into us to process everything. If there's any visa issues or anything like that. It gives us time to work. Some of that out, so our summer application deadline.

This means you need to have submitted your application by the end of day on May 1st to be eligible to start in the summer.

Um international applicants. That means March 1st for you guys. So that has already passed. If you're wanting to start in March and you're an international student, go ahead and reach out to us and we'll see if we can work with you. There are some times where there's still time to get stuff done, so don't just take that as well. I can't start in summer, will work with you and do the best we can to get you started, if that's when you want to start our fall application. Deadline is August 1st.

And so that means for international students, your application deadline is June 1st.

Um?

Just keep all of those in mind.

Uh, because will also be talking bout scholarships here in a second, but I do want to mention that to be eligible for scholarships.

Uhm, you have to have everything in all of your application documents and all of your scholarship documents in by the scholarship deadline. So um, which is usually about a month before these deadlines, so I know it could get a little confusing, but I'll go over this again in a second. Some of our programs have different deadlines, so I'm mentioning some of these here for you, but please check our website againhbu.edu/grad.

And it will list on scholarships page all of the different deadlines that you need to be aware of based on which program you're wanting to apply for.

Our master of Fine Arts in our will. All three of our master of Fine Arts in studio art, creative writing and screen writing have different deadlines, for example, so the fall deadline is April 1st.

For your application in your spring deadline is December 1st, so just keep those in mind.

Um for financial aid. Obviously the financial aid office is going to be a lot more skilled at helping you through some of the more specific questions that you may have, but this gives you a little bit of kind of what do I do first? If you're wanting to apply for financial aid, couple of key things I want to point out is the school code is on here 00.

576 you will need that when you're applying for Fasa.

Or for financial aid on the Fasa you want to select the 2020-2021 uhm time period. If you're applying for summer 2020, fall 2020, or spring 2021, that's the term that you want to select. You will use your prior prior year tax return, which means two years ago. So if you're applying for fall 2020, you'll use your 2018 tax return.

I mean, you can get all that information on theirs.gov.

Some people are selected for verification.

Which means HP. You might be reaching out to you and asking you for a few more documents or something like that. Um, prior to being able to approve you for financial aid, so just be aware that you may be asked for additional documents.

And just be prepared. Usually it's transcripts or something like that. So just be prepared for that. If you do apply for financial aid.

So in order to use your financial aid, you have to be admitted to a degree seeking program. Now there's two things I want to make sure you understand about that you must be admitted, which means if you've applied to a program but you have not yet received an admission decision, the school is not going to package your financial aid yet.

And also.

You have to be in a degree seeking program so if you're doing our ACP teacher certification program for example that doesn't lead to a degree it does lead to teacher certification but not a degree so you wouldn't be able to use financial aid for that so just keep those 2 things in mind that you must be admitted and you must be in a degree seeking program and registered for classes before though release your financial aid you must stay enrolled in at least 5 credit hours each semester that's just fall and spring.

Um?

Again certificate non degree seeking students are not eligible to use financial aid so keep that in mind if you're going to need any financial support.

And you have to accept your aid through your student portal and complete the required forms through there. Now that's on Husky Netcom and that's something that you would be set up on once you become a student. So that's where you'll be able to set all that stuff up.

Now scholarships as promised. Uhm, we do have a lot of scholarships. We have scholarships available for every single program.

Um, they all vary in amounts based on different criteria, so I can't tell you exactly how much. All of those are going to be, but go to ourscholarshipspage@hbu.edu/grad scholarships and that will give you a lot more information. Are summer scholarship deadline is typically April 1st, but we've extended that for you guys to April 15th.

Um, now keep in mind to be eligible for scholarships like I sort of mentioned earlier.

You also have to have your admission stuff turned in by April 15th.

Again, just if you're applying for summer, so if you're going to start in summer and you know you're going to need financial assistance, I encourage you to apply. Get all your application documents in and get all of your scholarship stuff done by April 15th or you won't be eligible. So you have to have everything done by April 15th. Same for fall scholarships. Same for spring scholarships, but different deadlines.

Now you're in. You're a student, so now what happens? So on campus students, typically in your first semester, you'll connect with your admissions coordinator for advising after your first semester, you'll be assigned an advisor who is usually a faculty member in that person will be responsible for helping advise you and get you signed up for future semesters on line students. If you go into an online program.

Your contact the Pampelonne Mine Division and their, uh, information is right there that will advise you every single semester and help you get registered.

Life is a Husky. Can be really fun even as a grad student. Uhm, I know sometimes grad students don't feel as plugged in or as, uhm, you know, as available as as far as getting student services, getting help on campus, things like that. But at HB you we love our grad students and we want you to feel as much a part of the family as you want to feel. So you have free access to the Bradshaw fitness center when it opens back up.

You uh have that you just have to show your ID you have access to our research library. We are in NCAA Division One school, so we have a lot of sporting events that you can go to for free. As a student if you just show your ID. We have an IT helpdesk who is on call late hours to help you with any issues that you're having accessing HB you.

Software like Husky net or anything that you need like blackboard there there to help you. We have a writing lab and academic success center that offers tutoring and almost every single subject area.

And can help um with different styles of writing like MLA, AAP a torabian, things like that. So they are there to help you. We mentioned career and calling earlier. So Korean calling is available to help you review resumes.

If you mock interviews, um help set you up for interviews, uh, or help prepare you for interviews, I should say. So. There are a lot of services available. There's also counseling available on campus for our students. Uhm, so we do have a counseling center as well. We want this to be.

A really exciting time for you. Grad studies can be stressful, specially if you're also, um, working full time and taking care of a family and whatever else may come your way like Corona fires. So we want to help you and support you the best that we can. Uhm, I'm about to dismiss you guys to go to your breakout sessions if you, again, if you didn't find the link.

Hum, go ahead. We're going to stay on for a couple of minutes, chat a sinus, a message in the chat, and let us know that you need a link up and we will get you set up for that. Our coordinators should be logged in. Right now all the sessions start like at 6:30 right this minute, so we're going to stay on for a couple minutes, but if you're ready to go to your breakout session, please feel free otherwise.

Ask us any questions you may have.

OK, I'm going to stay on for about four more minutes. Um, if any of you, especially if you just joined and you're needing a link for your personal Q&A session, send us a message in the chat and we will help you get that set up.

OK, we're going to go ahead and stop broadcasting this session. Um, but like I said, if you needed more information, this will is was reported. It will be on. The website will also be sending out the link to everyone so you can re watch it if you need to, but please go ahead and make your way to the breakout session if you're interested in any specific program. If you do have questions or if you need a link and we didn't get to you, please email me directly. It's a Kates, ACATES.

At Hpu.edu, Um, I'll check my email here in just a couple of minutes and if we missed you for some reason, one I apologize, but two email me and we will get you set up, but I'm going to go ahead and stop broadcasting now. Hope you guys have a great evening and we will talk to you guys soon.