Bachelor’s in Marketing and Bachelor’s in Business Administration Information Session

Michael Lis:  Hello everyone. Hopefully you can hear me now, I apologize. Hopefully everybody can hear me. I am going to go back and backtrack for a minute here. I do apologize, as it appears that my technology was not working. Welcome to the Maryville online program information session. Today we’ll be discussing the Bachelor’s of Science, and business administration, the Bachelor’s of Science in marketing as well. I apologize for the brief technical issues we were having. But before we begin, let me discuss some laundry items with everybody today, some housekeeping agendas.

Michael Lis: First of all, everybody, you are in listen only mode. If you have questions about our programs, or have any questions that you’d like to get addressed, I will make sure to address all of those questions at the end of the webinar today. We will send out a link of the webinar recording after today’s session. Feel free to save all the links from your resource center, or the resource list on the left-hand side of your screen. You will utilize them after the webinar for admissions and application processes.

Michael Lis:  What we’ll cover today, and kind of covering the agenda, we’ll go over some things about Maryville University, we’ll make some quick introductions for myself, and some additional staff that we have on hand today. We’ll discuss Maryville University, some of the prestigious history, talk about the online program overviews to discuss more about the bachelor’s of business, the bachelor’s in marketing, and the online learning experience. We’ll also address the admissions process with all of you, and talk a little about the requirements, the tuition, the financial aid, and then provide you guys some additional resources to ask questions, and get answers towards the end of our presentation today.

Michael Lis:   For starters, let’s meet our panelists. Again, my name is Michael Lis, I’m on of the enrollment representatives here at Maryville University. I do have the esteemed pleasure of working with online undergraduate students, as well as graduate students from various programs. I’ve been in this industry for approximately 14 to 15 years now, working in various capacities. I’ve had the esteemed pleasure of working with Maryville students, and Maryville University now for just over a year. I’m really exciting to be partnering today with one of our esteemed faculty members from the business department. Let me introduce to you Dr. Jason Williams. He’s our assistant dean for the Simon School of Business, and the director of the Rawlings Sports Business Management Program here at Maryville. Jason, would you like to share a couple quick tidbits?

Jason Williams:  Sure, I’m excited to talk on this webinar today with potential students for our bachelor’s in business administration, as well as our bachelor’s in marketing. I have a background in the business of sports, specifically in marketing, sales, and promotions. I worked in the business of college sports for 15 years before 10 years ago joining Maryville University to direct numerous academic programs within our school of business, and which leads me to be with all of you here today. Thank you.

Michael Lis: Thank you Jason, Dr. Williams, we’re actually really excited to have you here today, so thanks for joining us.

Jason Williams:  Good to be here.

Michael Lis:  Thanks. As we continue. Let’s start by kind of going over a little bit about Maryville University. For those of you who may, or may not know anything about Maryville University, want you to know that Maryville’s actually one of the oldest private, non-for-profit institutions in the Midwest. We were actually established back in 1872, and are currently located in St. Louis, Missouri. We do hold the regional accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission, but one of the really exciting accolades is that we’re actually ranked among Forbes Magazine as one Forbes Magazine’s top colleges, and best values in private education by Kiplinger Finance. The John E. Simon School of Business, and the business department happens to be accredited through the accreditation council for business school and programs, and we’re named among the nations top three fastest growing universities by the Chronicles of Higher Education.

Michael Lis:   Maryville holds numerous corporate partnerships, and more importantly, our digital technology, and online interface has been ranked as an Apple Distinguished School for the last couple of years. Really learning is the approach to kind of really providing the best qualitative education here at Maryville, where you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with esteemed colleagues like Dr. Williams, and many others. You’ll have the support, and the staffing to really kind of endure a more positive learning experience.

Michael Lis:  At Maryville University, we have over 9,000 students have enrolled here at the university, both online, and on campus. We are amongst a very diverse student body, representing over 50 states here, as well as 55 countries. What does that mean for you as a student, as a potential student at Maryville? You’ll have a unique networking opportunity that puts you in a community of students from all around the world, being able to interact and network. At Maryville we have over a 115 total degree programs, both at the undergraduate, and master’s level. Coming in 2019, we’ll have a few more that are actually going to be offered on the online format.

Michael Lis: With a that being said, we have 25-plus 100% online degree programs that have no residency requirements. We have a 115-plus on campus degree programs also offered here at Maryville University. We’re going to start by discussing more about the bachelor’s of science and business administration. I’m going to turn this over to the professional himself, Dr. Jason Williams, so he can go over a little bit more about these programs with you, and the curriculum involved.

Jason Williams: Thank you Michael. Like Michael had talked about with our business administration degree, it’s a 100% online degree where you don’t have … there is zero residency requirement. You can, with this degree it will prepare you to work in a variety of different settings. It’s from a general perspective, in which you’ll have an understanding of finance, advertising, public relations, hospitality, customer service, technology, education, and non-for-profit organizations, and plus more than that.

Jason Williams:  Some of the common career path speak to that general business administration degree, which are in sales, human resources, sales management, market research, public relations, banking, as well as the financial industry. Excuse me. On top of that, you have the ability through our online programs, to also do graduate education if you so choose after that point. On the slide here it talks about the higher demand of business occupations.

Jason Williams:  These are statistics that we get from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which talks about folks who work in the area of business operations, or specialists occupations which the Bureau has said, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, will grow 9% between 2016 and 2026, but then also the median salary, so right in the middle of salary, of a person who was maybe a human resources specialist, is right around $60,000, which is a great return on investment for that Maryville University online business administration degree.

Jason Williams:   Some of the program highlights as we move through the presentation here, you can personalize your program with your own individual interests, and professional goals, as it relates to some of the elective credits that you have within the program. I’ll talk about those here in a second. But also, you can gain practical skills that can apply as you develop your professional career. Many of the classes and the course-work revolve around real-world scenarios, so that you learn how to apply the theory to the real-world through that course. Many of our faculty, if not all of our faculty are experts in their area where they have either studied that area of the business for a long time, and/or are working currently in that area.

Jason Williams:  From a curriculum perspective, every Maryville degree you have to have 128 credits to graduate, which will encompass general education courses, general electives, which speak how you can personalize your degree, the business core classes, which gives you that strong business acumen, and then also from a business administration perspective, you can also kind of start your course work a little bit there as well.

Jason Williams:  These are just the business core snapshot, where you see you’re going to get a strong business acumen here as it relates all the different areas that would make you that general business professional. Then your business administration courses, where you can add in international business, but then choose six online courses from at least two of the following different areas, whether it’s business administration, accounting, economics, finance, information system management, or marketing. Again, it’s another example of how you can personalize your educational experience.

Jason Williams: Then we move onto the marketing side, where you would receive, if you chose to go into this area, you would receive a bachelor of science in marketing. Again, you’ll have the opportunity to work in a variety of different settings such as, marketing departments, both in-house, and areas of marketing that are outsourced with advertising, public relations firms, not-for-profit organizations, government organizations. I think a lot of students when they think of marketing, they sort of think it more just from a agency perspective, but then you got to remember, a lot of organizations also have their own in-house marketing departments.

Jason Williams:   Even think about organizations like our state funded lottery systems, or government agencies, even large school districts have their own marketing department. Try to think from a very wide perspective, and not such a narrow perspective as it relates to marketing. Some of the common career paths, again, marketing agencies, promotions manager, market research analyst, if that’s kind of where your mind is, and also social media. Then again, you’ll still have the opportunity through Maryville University to pursue a graduate degree, if that’s what you’d like to choose to do.

Jason Williams: According to NACE, which is another agency that talks about salaries in specific areas in marketing, a bachelor degree from a business discipline, you’re going to be right around $56,000 a year. Now, again, please note that that may be different based upon where you are in part of the country, or in the world. Like obviously, if you were in California, that salary may be a little bit higher, whereas if you were in a smaller area … a different part of the country where your cost of living was less, then that might be a little bit less.

Jason Williams:   Again, still able to personalize your program with individual interests. It doesn’t solely focus on one side of marketing. There’s a foundation that gives you different areas of marketing from a strategic plan [inaudible 00:12:12] financial, and operations side. They both have also a well-rounded skillset will prepare you to engage in a every-changing job market, because of the passionate faculty that we have, and also the fact of also just passionate, but they’re also very astute in marketing. Then you’ll get to learn practical skills. Again, our program combines forward thinking for marketing courses, but then also provides you with the ability to do real-time course work in those marketing classes, where you can show your creativity, passion, and integrity.

Jason Williams: Again, every degree at Maryville University you have to have 128 credits. That would be comprised of these four different areas, compiled, excuse me, of these four different areas, business core, marketing core courses, your general education, and then again, the opportunity to personalize your coursework with general electives. These are what some of the courses look like from the business core, that we had shared earlier with business administration. Then these are the areas where you would take specific marketing courses like a contemporary communication, consumer behavior, marketing and digital media, professional selling, marketing analysis.

Jason Williams: Then again, you get a chance to personalize your educational career with different communication classes, other business courses, sales, and marketing. With that, I’ll turn it back over to you Michael.

Michael Lis:   Dr. Williams, I appreciate it. As Dr. Williams had expressed, one of the things that I really appreciate about Maryville, and some of my students have experienced thus far, is the amazing faculty that are both experienced in the fields that they teach, and well-educated with higher degree educational backgrounds. Students really appreciate that, and bring a good source of applicable knowledge to the curriculum, which has been a really great teaching experience thus far for many of the students that I’ve had the chance to work with.

Michael Lis: Now as far as our online learning experience, Maryville is extremely focused on the approach to students with engaging, interactive experiences as we’ve discussed thus far, and Dr. Williams kind of elaborated with the faculty, But the program itself, especially that it’s 100% online as a fully asynchronous learning environment designed for the working adult, or the avid learner, who doesn’t have the availability and the time to make it to a campus-based program. With your crazy schedules, with parenting needs, work habits, it makes it a lot … very difficult to attend a campus-based program. So Maryville has designed a 100% online program, that is asynchronous.

Michael Lis:   It allows you to adapt all of your personal schedules to your educational needs, and really kind of have an ability to structure your schedule to meet schooling needs here at Maryville. The learning management system that we’ve put together is called Canvas. Canvas puts the courses info at your fingertips, it allows you to access the Maryville online campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week from any internet capable device, regardless if you’re an Apple user, PC user. It works on several operating systems, and it makes it for a flexible learning environment for you to log in as a student when it’s most convenient for you.

Michael Lis:                         We understand that our student population online has lives, they work, they need to pay bills, they also may have families, or other obligations. With that being said, we make it convenient for you to get online and take your educational needs with you, no matter where in the world you are, and no matter what you’re doing. As long as you’re submitting your assignments on time, and participating to the online environment, those are the expectations that we hold students accountable to.

Michael Lis:  We offer personal online program advisors. So along with myself, or many of my elective co-workers, and teammates here at Maryville, you’ll work with a online representative advisor to work through the enrollment process. Once getting accepted to Maryville, you’ll have the opportunity to partner with many other advisors, such as a student support specialist, that will help you on all things academic, from start to finish with your academic program. You have dedicated 24/7 technical support. You’ll also have support from our career services department here at Maryville, where you’ll have individuals who are dedicated to helping you develop the soft skills, and helping you transition from all things academic, to everything professional.

Michael Lis:   We, more importantly have other supporting staff and faculty to aid you through your enrollment here at Maryville, as well as your academic experience. For example, we do have an online library that is accessible, again 24 hours a day. Then we also have a dedicated research librarian to assist you with all of your research needs, a writing studio in the online virtual campus that will help you with MLA, APA formatting, just really kind of becoming that professional college writer.

Michael Lis:  Now the admissions process is one of the more simplistic processes that I’ve seen throughout my 14 years in the industry. Here at Maryville, the admissions requirement for a incoming freshman, or even a transfer student at the undergraduate level, you’ll need a high school diploma, or GED. Minimum of a GPA of a 2.5 out of 4.0 scale, with high school work. Applicants with below a 2.5 cumulative GPA, may be considered for admission on a probationary provisionary experience.

Michael Lis:  With that being said, students who are coming here with as little of a high school GPA, or a high school diploma, or GED, will require a 2.5 GPA. However, candidates that have a lesser GPA, that does not mean that you’re eliminated, or are not considered for admissions. Those will be reviewed on a case-by-case situation, but there are no standardized test required. So no ECT, or SAT results are needed. Students that are transferring into our program will need all transcripts from all undergraduate work, or all previous colleges attended prior to Maryville.

Michael Lis:  Applicants will need a 2.0 on a 4.0 scale. Again, students with below that expectation, or below that GPA may be considered on a case-by-case situation, but may have also some supporting documents that are necessary for admissions requirements. Associate’s degree, completions may be used to satisfy general education requirements. Students who already have a completed associate’s degree from a regionally accredited program, will have all of the general education requirements evaluated to see if they meet all of our expectations here at Maryville to transfer their general elective, or general educational requirements, sorry.

Michael Lis:  With our business degree program, there’s a really exciting feature for students who want to go further. Here at Maryville, for students accessing the undergraduate business degree program, and want to continue further into the MBA program, or other data programs, we have an early access program for these students. Maryville online offers an early access program to select candidates who have an opportunity to take 12 hours of graduate credit, while completing your undergraduate degree program. Now this applies to the MBA, to the master’s of science and cyber-security, master’s of science and software development, health administration, business data analytics, and the MA in strategic communication.

Michael Lis:  Students must complete a minimum of 75 hours towards your undergraduate degree, or at least 20 of those credits here at Maryville. You must have a 3.25 grade point average, and will submit your application towards the end of your undergraduate degree program for your MBA. You’ll work with your admissions advisor, as well as your student support specialist to work towards completing the early access master’s degree program, which would allow you, as a full time student, not failing any classes, complete both degree programs in just around four years.

Michael Lis:  For the application process here at Maryville, for those students interested, our next opportunity, or next term begins spring of 2019. Classes start effectively January 14th of 2019. Currently with the holidays right around the corner, it’s important that we make sure to acknowledge the deadline that’s on the right-hand side of your screen right now. The application deadline for all spring applicants is going to be December 3rd of 2018. You’ll need to request your official transcripts, electronically is preferred. It is the most efficient and effective way to get your transcripts from one school to the next.

Michael Lis:  You’ll need to complete your free Maryville University online application. Currently Maryville does not have an application fee for online students applying for the 2019 deadlines. You can access to application right to through this presentation at the maryville.edu/admissions/apply/. Also, you can click the link on the left-hand side of the resource list. You can access your application there as well.

Michael Lis:  Get started early on your transcripts. As we are coming around the holiday timeline, you know, a lot of these schools work on skeleton staff with many vacations out there, and early leaves, and things of that nature. I encourage any student applying for the January term to apply early, and request all of your officials before the holidays. If you have less than 60 college transferrable credits, we would need your high school as well. Transferring students, that are coming with more than 60 college credits, and maintain above a 2.0 GPA should not need their high school transcripts as additional supporting documents.

Michael Lis: All electronic transcripts can be sent to admissions at online.maryville.edu. I encourage any VA, military veterans, active duty, or spouses to send in any transcripts as well from the military. You can access those through the JAST website. Lastly, the application tips, find the link to our online application under the resource list on the left, and when prompted to indicate the location, you’ll select the online location. Then check out our admissions checklist also located on the resource list to see what other additional supporting documents you will need in order to apply thoroughly.

Michael Lis:   To discuss a little bit about Maryville’s tuition and financial options … First of all, Maryville’s undergraduate programs are all $500 per credit hour, so the bachelor’s of science and business administration, along with marketing are each $500 per credit hour. There are some corporate partner discounts for students who work with some our fellowing corporate partners, and those can be found on our website.

Michael Lis:  There is a one-fee associated with all students tuition costs. This one-fee occurs every semester, it is a $350 fee that is separate from the tuition cost. However, this $350 one-fee, it covers a lot of the fees that you would be assessed during any enrollment period. It covers things like graduation, and transcripts, and student fees, along with technology fees, proctoring fees, and other fees associated, so that there are no out-of-pocket surprises while you’re in school, or graduating from Maryville University. Covers all of your access to all services and resources provided by the university, and made available to you as a Maryville student.

Michael Lis:  Financially it is available for those students who qualify. You’ll work with a student service representative throughout your enrollment here to identify all of the resources that are available. 90% of our students are using some sort of financial aid to help cover their tuition cost. So you’ll work with our staff, and our financial services to assist you throughout that process.

Michael Lis: We’ve talked a lot about Maryville, the curriculum, the admissions process, and a lot of the various informations today. I want to take some time to open it up as I promised. We want to make sure we’re answering all of your questions. So please, for those of you who are in attendance today, if you have some questions, please type those questions in the Q&A box now. We’ll go ahead and open it up to some questions.

Michael Lis:  I’m not seeing any questions at the moment. Let me throw out a question out there, something I hear pretty frequently, a lot of online students are asking, “Do you ever have to be on campus?” I want you guys to know that Maryville students, there is no need to be on campus for any of the online programs. The online programs are 100% online, and don’t have any residency requirements. However, if a student is native to the St. Louis area, of the surrounding suburbs, and would like to use any of the resources that are available at Maryville, you can access the campus just like a traditional on-campus student.

Michael Lis:  All right, it looks like there’s another question, “Is financial aid provided by Maryville University?” I’m going to answer that in a two-fold type of answer. First and foremost, financial aid is available for those students who qualify. It is a process provided to you not by Maryville University, but by the Department of Education. Because Maryville is a regionally accredited school, we are Title IV eligible, which means that a student can receive financial aid in order to pay for their education through Maryville, but not necessarily offered by Maryville.

Michael Lis:  Now, there are private lenders options, and things of that nature. When accepted to Maryville, you will have the opportunity to work with our student services department, which will help you go through all of the resources that are afforded, or available to you. Hopefully Daniel that answered your question. Additional questions?

Michael Lis:   A lot of other students, and this is a question that comes up frequently in my conservations with students is about the technology. Here at Maryville, we utilize a platform … we use a platform that’s called Canvas. Canvas is much more user-friendly than some of the other platforms that I’ve used in the past in my own experience. But also, in my experience that I found that Maryville’s Canvas application is very digitalized, very user-friendly, and very easy to navigate. In addition to that, I find that it’s very accessible with many operating systems. You don’t necessarily have to be a tech-savvy individual in order to be successful throughout this program. But you need to know how to operate a computer, basic email and correspondence, be able to write, formal letterhead, and things of that nature.

Michael Lis:  All right, so there looks like there is another question, give me a second as I go ahead and look at this. So it looks like there … an individual dropped below a 2.0. For students who have below that 2.0, you’re not eliminated from opportunities here at Maryville. There are some supporting documents. When applying to Maryville, and working with an enrollment representative, we’ll work with you on getting some additional supporting documents to explain what had happened previously, and what you’re going to do differently to improve the GPA.

Michael Lis:  Students do not … we are not a university that discredits potential candidates from applying here just because of previous experiences. We definitely provide opportunities for students and give students that second-chance opportunity. Please don’t get discouraged. We here at Maryville will offer the support, the opportunities to really kind of help you boost that GPA up, and get back into an academic program that will help you succeed.

Jeannie DeLuca:  Michael, can I [crosstalk 00:30:33] on that?

Michael Lis:  Yeah, please do. Do you want the full question, or are you okay with answering where I left off?

Jeannie DeLuca:  No, I’ll just take it where you left off. My name is Jeannie DeLuca and I’m the director of admissions and advising for online programs at Maryville. Thank you all for taking the time to be with us tonight. I just wanted to reiterate what Michael said. Maryville is really about access for students. We know that sometimes things happen 20 years ago, or 10 years ago when students were in college, and maybe they didn’t do the quality of work that we know that you’re capable of doing. We really do look at each file individually. Don’t get discouraged. Go ahead and apply. Like Michael said, there are some additional documents that can help. We would look at what’s called an addendum, where you would come and explain what may have happened in the past, how you’re different now.

Jeannie DeLuca:   Again, we don’t want your past to keep you from moving forward. You can also submit letters of recommendation. We would look at that. We really truly do look at everything in your file. We look at every student individually, and we’ll do our best to make this happen for you. Thanks Michael.

Michael Lis:  No Jeannie, thank you. I appreciate you jumping in there and adding a little bit of your expertise in this field as well. Hopefully that answers that question in its entirety. Again, we’ll be available to answer that question more in depth when you speak with a representative about applying here to Maryville.

Michael Lis:   I have another question that came in about the minimum credits per semester. Thank you again for these questions. Let’s go ahead and kind of address that. For an individual that is attending full-time, a full-time student would take 12 credits per semester. We break each semester, which is 16 weeks in length, into eight-week sessions. A full-time student would take two classes every eight weeks, for a total of 12 credits per semester, 36 per year. However, if a student needed to drop down to a part time status, a student would take one class every eight weeks for a total of six college credits per semester.

Michael Lis:   Any other variation outside of that, you would work with your student support services to kind of discuss financial aid ramifications, and things of that nature that may apply to any less than six credit hours, or more than 12 credit hours. Does that make sense? Jeannie anything to add on that?

Jeannie DeLuca:    Yeah, I would definitely say I would advise students to start out on a more part time basis if you’ve been out of school for a while, and especially if you’re new to online learning. You can start out doing one class at a time in that first eight-week session, and that will give you an idea about the workload, how much of a time commitment it is. Then you can always pick up your pace, you may find that doing one course is just enough. You may find out that you feel like you could take another course on. You can always add a course for that second eight-week term, or pick up your pace at a later time.

Jeannie DeLuca:  The nice thing about Maryville, is you’re never locked into any one full-time or part time format. Some schools you’re kind of in a cohort model, where everybody takes the same classes every semester. Here I can’t stress enough that it’s very individualized. You may do one class every eight-week term, and things may slow down at work for you, or personally for you. Some people like to take less classes in the summer so they can spend more time with family, and then they pick up their pace again later.

Jeannie DeLuca:     I can’t stress enough how individualized it is, and how we really want to work with you. But again, I always think it’s a good idea to start little bit slower, just so you can kind of get the feel of a new school, a new system, new online, and see how that is. Then, you can pick up your pace later.

Michael Lis:  Perfect, thank you so much Jeannie. All right, so I have a question from one of our individuals, transcripts, and just the process of transcripts. When applying to Maryville, if a student comes in as a complete freshman, no previous college experience, a student would be required to have their high school transcripts, and online application. If you are coming in with transfer credits, or previous college experience, when applying to Maryville, upon completion of your application process, you’ll need to support your application with all previous colleges attended.

Michael Lis:  The reason for that is because every applicant will be runned against the database, the National Student Lending Database, which will show schools that you’ve previously attended, or received federal funding at. We’d need to make sure for accuracy proportions, that we make sure that we have all previous college transcripts from all previous schools attended. Hopefully that answered question [Tawanna 00:35:54].

Michael Lis:   I just want to say thank you guys for the questions you guys are asking some really great questions. I appreciate your involvement in this, and hopefully we’re getting some clear answers to all of you with all of your questions. I may turn this next question over to Dr. Williams, or Jeannie, but I think this might be a great one for Dr. Williams, but the question is, is there 24 hour seven help for those students who live in different timezones? If extra is help is needed to explain something, what kind of assistance is there to support them? Dr. Williams, do you want to shed some light on that one?

Jason Williams: Sure. That’s a great question. For our students who are learning online, there are professors when they are administrating their classes to where they will have, I guess, chat sessions at different times during the course of the course, so that there could be, okay, every Wednesday night at 6:00 I’ll answer questions for three or four hours. That way, no matter what timezone, the students can get their questions asked. But also, our faculty are really good about getting back to students within 24 hours.

Jason Williams:  I can’t say that happens every single time, because people have lives, just like our students have lives, but usually our faculty are outstanding at getting back to our students, but then also setting up chat times to where students can just log in, and ask questions.

Jeannie DeLuca: I can add to that Michael.

Michael Lis:  Yeah, go right ahead Jeannie.

Jeannie DeLuca:   With the online classes, it’s totally asynchronous, which means you never have to log on at the same time as anyone else. There may be a couple exceptions, I can’t think of any right now, but I think there … you don’t have to log on on that same time, but sometimes there is group work, like a project, but you don’t have to log on at a certain time. We do take into account if you’re in a totally different timezone. Within the Canvas system, you can post questions, both to your colleagues in your class, your peers in your class, and as well as to the professor.

Jeannie DeLuca:  Like Jason said, you typically will get a response in 24 hours, that is pretty much the norm from what I hear from students, that’s what they tell me is happening. Like Jason said, it may not always be the case, it may be 36 hours, but typically you’re going to get an answer back in 24 hours.

Michael Lis:  Thank you team. Hopefully that was a sufficient answer, and clarity for that question. I have another question about the high school diploma. Hopefully I can answer this in its entirety, but a high school diploma equivalency is needed. A student must be a high school graduate, or GED holder in order to apply at the bare minimum. However, in order to apply, we do not require your high school diploma, we require a high school transcript that shows date of completion, a GPA, and a course-by-course breakdown of all of the high school classes that you took. Does that add a little bit more clarity on the high school diploma?

Michael Lis:   Going back to Christina’s question, while I’m waiting for some response, Christina did the answers provided by Dr. Williams and Miss. DeLuca help you in clearing up the 24 hours, seven days a week access and accessibility to instructors, faculty in answers to your questions? Perfect. I want to say, is there any other additional questions? You guys have thrown out some really good questions. Looks like we have another one.

Michael Lis:  Daniel, I’m not sure I fully understand your question. You’re asking about evaluations to pass a class, are you talking about grades, or how you are evaluated in a class, just so I can get some clarification. I’m going to take a stab and just go ahead and assume that you are asking about the evaluation, and you can please feel free to put some more clarity in your question, and then I’ll pass it over to Dr. Williams for a little bit more clarity. But when you begin every class here at Maryville, you will have a rubric along with a syllabus that will kind of explain the expectations for that particular class.

Michael Lis:   The grading evaluation will take part in the assignments that you turn in, along with the assessments and tests, and things that you get a long the way throughout the curriculum. Dr. Williams, if you don’t mind maybe shedding some light as an instructor, kind of how these students are graded, and evaluated during their eight-week sessions.

Jason Williams:  Sure, the students are evaluated in a variety of different ways. Sometimes it is a quiz, sometimes it is a test. It’s all dependent upon how the faculty member feels the curriculum will be best absorbed by the student. Sometimes it’s in a realtime project, or project that has been crafted for that specific theory that the student needs to learn for that course. It’s in a variety of different ways. It’s not all one way of learning, because at Maryville we know that students don’t all learn the same. We give students in courses different ways to be evaluated so that they can be successful.

Michael Lis: Perfect, thank you Dr. Williams. Daniel, I hope that fulfills your answer to your question. If there’s more that you’d like to have us elaborate on, please let us know. We’re about 10 minutes left of this presentation, feel free, are there any additional questions? You guys have thrown us a lot of great questions, and hopefully this information session was helpful to provide a little bit more elaborate explanation into our business degree programs, and our marketing programs. Keep any questions coming.

Michael Lis:   I will let you know, a lot of students too, ask about the application process, and my experienced students will ask, “When I apply how long does it come … take for a decision to be made?” I will let you know that when applying to Maryville, once your completed elements of the application process have been completed, your enrollment representative will put all of the supporting documents together, and present it to Jeannie and her team, and the admissions board for official review. They will take some time and review the documents, and review all of the elements associated with the application process. Typically, I have seen applications be reviewed and a decision made usually within five to seven business days, sometimes they’re even sooner.

Michael Lis:   I don’t want to process, but Jeannie, if you want to elaborate a little bit, or on any of the application timeline from when it’s received by the admissions board, and how long it takes to get reviewed?

Jeannie DeLuca:  Sure. Typically once we have everything, all of your transcripts, and your application itself, you’re going to get a decision within five days, if not sooner. Sometimes when it gets close to the deadline, it may be a little bit delayed, but we really try to make a decision within five days. The only exception to that would be if you are a student who was below that 2.0, and you maybe needed to submit a little bit more paperwork, like an addendum, or something. But, generally even that is not going to take more than a week. I would say most of the time, when everything is processed, and we have everything, it’s more like three or four days before you get an admit decision.

Jeannie DeLuca:  The one thing I will add is students sometimes forget that they may have attended a couple classes while they were in high school, they took some college credit, that’s probably the thing that will delay some applications if students just forget that they have college credit from more than one school. We do need a transcript from each university or college you attended, including anything that you would have taken while you were a high school student.

Michael Lis:  Thank you so much Jeannie. I haven’t seen anymore questions pop up in the Q&A, but I will say there’s always the one big question out there, and this will probably be my ending question, but what about graduation? Even though you are an online student, and taking 100% online classes, I will let all online students know that you do have the opportunity to participate in a live graduation ceremony with all of the traditional students, as well as your other cohorts online at Maryville University for the official graduation commencement.

Jeannie DeLuca:  Michael, I would definitely add to that, we welcome online students to participate. I had the opportunity to be kind of where students were lining up who were in our online master’s and accounting program, and they were meeting each other for the first time, I was seeing them hug each other, because they felt like they knew each other. A lot of people think in an online classroom studying, you’re kind of isolated, and you don’t get to know your professors, and you don’t get to know your peers in the class, and I want to stress that that’s not the case. These students had worked on projects together. They were taking a lot of those same classes, so as I said, they really felt like they knew each other. It was neat to see them at graduation finally have the opportunity to meet each other in person. Definitely, you want to celebrate that, and attend if at all possible.

Michael Lis:  Thank you so much Jeannie. It looks like Daniel has another question for potential international students. I do want to let you know Daniel that educational documents from foreign countries at the undergraduate level will need to be submitted for an evaluation of US equivalency as a course-by-course breakdown. At the undergraduate level, we are unable to match all curriculum. What we’ll have to do is have your previous foreign transcripts evaluated by a NACEs approved organization.

Michael Lis: We typically recommend organizations like World Evaluation Services, or formally called WES, or organizations like Education Perspective. These are companies that will evaluate, and equivalate your foreign education to a US equivalency, so that Maryville can be more apt to go ahead and evaluate it for equivalency to our programs, and be able to give you the proper transcript evaluation, and available transfer credits as well as acceptance that an international student who has previous foreign transcripts might need. Jeannie you can feel free to add anything that I may have missed on the international evaluation process.

Jeannie DeLuca:  No, I think you covered it.

Michael Lis:  Awesome. Daniel does that answer your question sir? I do want to take this opportunity to just thank everybody for all of your great questions, your great responses, and for your participation today, for everyone who submitted a question, thank you. At this time, I want to thank our presenters, and thank Jeannie, as well as Dr. Williams for being on our presentation and webinar today, and for all the information that you guys shared. I want to thank all of our participants and prospective students that attended today. This will close the Q&A portion of our webinar. If anyone has any more questions that they think of later, or you have an aha moment after today’s presentation, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Michael Lis:  All of my contact information, it should be on the slide that you’re viewing right now, you can feel free to reach out to me, via email, or via phone. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. Any questions that I can’t answer, I’m more than happy to get you the answers. I can always reach out to Jeannie, or any of our faculty as well as Dr. Williams, and many others should you have further questions.

Michael Lis:  Again, if you look at the left-hand side of your presentation screen, you’ll see all of the resources that are available to you. You can schedule an appointment, you can start your application for admissions, and you can visit maryville.edu as well. I do want to call to your attention the application deadline for the spring of 2019 is on Monday December 3rd. So go out and get started on your application so we can help you get started with the enrollment process.

Michael Lis:  I want to thank everybody for taking time out of their day to join us today, as I know many of you have busy work schedules, and family obligations. I want to thank you again, and thank everybody who helped make this presentation possible. Well if nobody has anything further, I look forward to the opportunity to speaking with you guys, and want to thank again everybody for taking time out of their day to attend this webinar. Everybody, have a good rest of your evening. Enjoy time with your families, and whatever else you have planned for today’s evening. Have a great day everyone.