All right everybody, I think it's time we can start. Welcome to the fair, welcome to our first presentation. We've got Syracuse University tonight. Thank you all for coming. I'm gonna let Mariale start the introductions here. Hi everybody, thank you all for being here. We're gonna see the presentation from Ampado. Ampado is working for Syracuse University and she's gonna introduce us about this amazing university. So let's hear it. Thank you so much, thank you so much guys. Buenas noches a todos y bienvenidos chicos. Un placer tenerlos aquí en cuanto tengo una oportunidad. Voy a ver quién está presente y a quién puedo ver verdad que me encanta ver las las caritas de los que están aquí. Mi nombre es, mi nombre completo de Sofía Amparo Silva. Soy la directora de Global Partnerships en la Universidad de Syracuse. Pero una de las cosas que hago y que me encanta, obviamente es reclutar estudiantes en América Latina, en ciertas partes de los Estados Unidos y también en el Caribe nacional e internacional. Los que me conocen bien me llaman Amparo, así es que ese es mi nombre, ahí está toda mi información. Si quieren, está mi teléfono, mi correo electrónico. El teléfono que tienen acá es de WhatsApp. Si tienen alguna pregunta, pueden obvio escribirme, mandar el mensaje o lo que sea. Pero vamos a tratar de cubrir lo más que se puede esta noche en cuestión de la universidad, las carreras, las oportunidades, etcétera. Y tengo una presentación un poco corta, pero espero que sí pueda expresarles en realidad todas las oportunidades que tenemos porque tenemos cosas maravillosas. Y voy a hacer la presentación en inglés porque los slides están en inglés, pero igual si se sienten más cómodos haciendo mi pregunta en español, bienvenidos. No hay ningún problema. Vamos a hacer primero la presentación y luego abrimos un espacio para que puedan hacerme preguntas y yo feliz les contesto lo que ustedes quieran. Para explicarles un poquito quién somos, la universidad de Syracuse, y ven, ya estoy yendo en español. Syracuse University is a private university in Central Upstate, New York. We have approximately 21,000 students in total graduate and undergraduate, so that is actually considered to be a mid-sized school in the US, believe it or not, is not considered big, right, which is interesting. We are known for a lot of things. Syracuse University is known for a lot of things throughout history, throughout the United States and the world. Some of our majors are known all over the world and I'm going to talk about them as we go through some of the careers and opportunities that we have, okay. I've chosen a couple of pictures. I don't think I have any snow pictures, which is not nice because we do have snow at Syracuse, right, but you all know that. And by the way, if you go into our website, we have this wonderful new video. So when you get a chance, make sure you watch the video. It's pretty exciting. I love that I watched it twice. I don't want to show it now because it would take too long and I don't want to take from the presentation. This is our campus. And this is how our campus actually looks. If you look at the leaves and the color is in the early fall, right? So the early fall in upstate New York, for those of you who've had a chance to visit New York or upstate New York in the East Coast, you will see that it's absolutely stunning. It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. We have lakes, we have mountains, and this is all very close to New York City, believe it or not. And I will talk about how far we are from New York City and also we have some opportunities in New York City, which is the amazing thing, right? Syracuse has a presence in several places in the US as well as all over the world. And we're going to talk a little more about that. I want to share with you one of the great things about the university. And by the way, I've been with Syracuse for about 36 years. It's a long, long time. More than you guys can even imagine, right? It's almost double your lives. And I love the institution. I would not, I think, advertise or promote anything that I didn't feel really comfortable with. And Syracuse University is something that I love. And as we say at Syracuse, I bleed orange. If you look at it behind me, that S is obviously for Syracuse. If you look behind me is the CEO of Syracuse University. I am talking to you from home right now. I am in Westchester County, New York. But it is not that far from actual Syracuse University. And the reason why I am here in New York, close to New York City is because we have an office in New York City. As I said, we have a presence all over the place. And I've always been at the New York City office. We have, as you can see, over 200 career programs or four options and choices, right? 200 majors, over 100 minors. And of course, you know, we're a research one institution. For those of you who are interested in doing pre-professional careers in health and medicine, if you wanna become a scientist, but I would say no matter what you wanna do at Syracuse, you will have an opportunity to do something that I think is critical as you approach your career. And for me, what is critical when you approach your career is those opportunities for you to connect with your career options, to do internships, to do related activities, to travel and a related activity to your career as well. And we have all of those things at Syracuse University. We are very strong academically. Academic advising is amazing at Syracuse. So it is perfect for the students who know what they want to do and it's also perfect for the students who are a bit undecided. So if you are in that place where you feel you're not exactly sure about what you're going to be doing, my advice to you is don't worry, because at Syracuse you can come completely as an undecided student and we will help you get to that point where you choose a career or you can come with some idea of what you may want to do and then complete that at Syracuse. They are having said that though, there are programs at Syracuse that you would have to know what you're going to be doing prior to even applying. And those are programs such as architecture, film, any of the art programs that require a portfolio or if you want to become an actor or if you want to become a musical theater person, if you want to become a musician or if you want to major in classical music, those are going to require a notation or portfolio. So obviously for those you need to be prepared for and I'll talk a little more about those programs, right? Our university invites industry experts all the time and we'll go through that as well. So you will see the types of things that we do on campus. So we're always combining your academic preparation with cutting edge research, opportunities to meet people who are going to guide you and lead you into your career path and also opportunities for you to practice what you're going to be doing. Because I think one of the things that is critical as you go through your career options is to have what we do it for three reasons, right? So the first reason why we want you to do an internship or related opportunity or related experience with what you're thinking of doing is because one, you need to know if you really like that career, right? And if you don't, then you have enough time to jump into something else at Syracuse because we have 200 careers, so you don't need to worry about that. Two, if you do like it and you already have an internship that goes on a resume and that resume is critical for when you graduate college. And so these are the things that we're going to be thinking about, right? Prepping you not only academically but towards your career choice and career path, whatever that may be. We are ranked nationally and we're internationally known for a lot of fields. I'm going to get to those. I should have turned off my email because they keep beeping me. But let me share with you some of the things that we have. So these are what we call our schools and colleges at Syracuse University. If you are going to translate into our system, Latin America, it would be the School of Architecture would be something like Facultad de Arquitectura is a professional division, right? Arts and Sciences and Maxwell are the careers that are in political science, science and natural science is math, history, sociology, psychology, economics, et cetera, et cetera. We do have a professional School of Education. We have the College of Engineering and Computer Science. And then of course, the way you have to see this is that within every field, every school or college that we have, there are different field options, right? So to give you an idea, the College of Engineering and Computer Science is going to have things like mechanical, chemical, aerospace, civil, computer and environmental engineering. So those are the things that we have within, right? So every division has careers and career paths. The Folk School for Sport and Human Dynamics has things like Sport Management, Sport Analytics, Nutrition, Nutrition Sciences, Family and Child Studies, et cetera. So there are different fields to choose in different places. Information Systems again has the fields, about three fields that are directly related to information studies, right? In Spanish that would be Informatica so that you guys know all those fields that have to do with that. And the Whitman School is the School of Business. So it's going to have things like Finance, Business Administration, Business Management, et cetera, all those wonderful careers in business. And as I said, Visual and Performing Arts obviously is going to have acting, film, drama, computer design and technical theater, you know, all kinds of artistic sort of choices and fields. So as you can see, we have something for everyone here, right? Sorry guys. So we like to pair Syracuse as we call it, as the student experience, right? Because we always think that a university brings several different aspects to your life. It's not only the academic aspect, but in particular when you're thinking about traveling out of your country to other places to study abroad, as you would do in your case, right? To study in another country, the experience is going to be complete. And so you will live with us on our campus, you become part of our community. And clearly becoming part of our community means that you are going to not only be a student at Syracuse, but you are going to be a student that is going to join different activities, that is going to do community service projects that may do one or two. Some students are very ambitious, study abroad programs that you are going to participate in our division one sports. For those of you who do not know what division one sports is, is the legal students, student athletes, I should say in the United States who are pretty much just before the professional athletes, right? So a lot of our division one athletes go on to play professional athletic sports in the U.S. and across the world. So if you are a fan of sports, I am sure many of you have had an opportunity to hear or see Syracuse play basketball or football. We're also excellent in football, football americano, right? And then of course we call it the football for Latin Americans, we call soccer. And then of course, you know, we're also pretty good in soccer, we're highly ranked. We are amazing in La Crosse and I believe, I'm a little outdated guys because this is like the first event that I do in probably months. But we've won I believe around 15 championships, national championships. So you can imagine that the craziness in Syracuse. So one of the things that happen at Syracuse is that you are going to engage at so many different levels that you feel as a part of our community because you are living in our community. And so when you are welcome at Syracuse for those of you who go through the process and then eventually do make it in and decide to come to Syracuse, you are welcomed by the Orange family at Syracuse and we consider ourselves one. We are an Orange family. It's pretty amazing. I've had the great opportunity to live through a national championship and see it up close and personal. And I cannot tell you how amazing that feels, right? And you probably do imagine because I know we're all fanatics of certain things, right? And you have your sports that you attend and you get so happy when your team wins, right? And it happens at different levels, of course, even in high school, but this is pretty amazing at Syracuse. We are a national and international community. At Syracuse University, we have students from everywhere in the United States, including the islands of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and as well as Alaska in one. I have students even from one, believe it or not. And then of course we have over a thousand international students as well. And they come from all over the globe. We used to have a little map in a different presentation. I can share that with Pili at some point of where our students come from, right? And you would be amazed to see where our students come from. So one of the things that is really exciting about Syracuse and I guess many other larger universities in the United States is that diversity is prime, right? And you are going to be in your dorm. You may find that your roommate is from Turkey or your roommate is from Venezuela or your roommate is from someplace in Tennessee. It depends, right? It depends who we pair you off with. But it's pretty exciting to be able to see all the things that we have at the university. By the way, we are one of the first institutions in the US that does housing in a way where you are able to choose the type of community that you live in. So at Syracuse we have something called Living Learning Communities and you will have an opportunity to choose where you want to live and with whom you want to live according to your interests. So if you're a student who is interested in engineering, there's a particular dorm when the engineers may be able to live together, do homework together and be a part of that community. They have different themes. We have things like diversity, art and leisure. I do talk about my nephew every now and then because he went to Syracuse, graduated from Syracuse, loved the experience. He's happy, happy even after graduation he decided to take a job and stayed around Syracuse. So he loves it and he lived in a learning community that was called life and he absolutely adored that entire community, their friends until this day. So that's one of the other things. When you go to college you can look forward to making friends probably for the rest of your life. And it's pretty amazing what happens here. Our international community is pretty intense, right? In fact, in May we are having a festival where different organizations on campus of international students will be having food and dances and typical whatever it is that we do in our country. So that's gonna be pretty exciting. And those are the kinds of things that you will be able to do at Syracuse. We have welcome into our campus. We always have something going on on campus. It's amazing to see the kind of people that you're able to see. One of the things that I miss about not being on our campus is that I miss some people, right? And then out of the times I've had the opportunity to see pretty incredible people. I've met Isabela Llende, I've met Khalid Hussaini who wrote The Kite Runner, I met Mario Balganyosa.  That, and of course I'm revealing my age, right? When I say things like that because some of these young people are probably thinking who are those people, you know? What do they write and what do they do? But we do have speakers. So in one of our lectures was, the person was Trevor Noah and Trevor Noah is just amazing. We did a shared reading of his book which is called Born a Crime. So it's too bad that I cannot mail things to Peru otherwise I would mail a few copies but maybe when I come offered to bring them, right? I can bring them in. So yes, we have speakers, we have all sorts of activities on campus as you can see. We also have, as you see here, the Barn Center. The Barn Center is this amazing place where our students are able to take care of their wellness, right? Health, mind, body, speak to someone if they have to speak to someone. So if you needed to speak to a therapist, if you needed to make friends, if you needed, they even have, from what I understand, I have, I've been to the Barn Center but I haven't seen all the activities that they do but I know they have puppy therapy and so forth. So it's pretty exciting, right? You can go and relax or go play basketball, climb rocks, you know, whatever you decide to do at the Barn Center because we have absolutely everything. It is critical for us. I think a university is in such an amazing path in terms of preparing, you know, for what our students need and always being in the forefront of the needs of our students that we're always considering your student experience at Syracuse and it gets better and better every year. So I hope you look us up a little more and you'll be able to see pictures of not only Barns but some of the things that we do on campus. This is, I'm going to explain a little bit to you on how the process sort of plays out, right?  So the first thing that I will tell you is you don't need to worry about this, right?  First of all, when it comes to counseling and being able to do what you need to do you're gonna be fine, you're in good hands. But also it's important to understand that there's a place for everyone. I say this all the time. I remember being 17 and having so much anxiety and I'm a pretty cool relaxed person but having anxiety because at 17 you start thinking about what am I going to do for the rest of my life? Am I in the right path? You think that you have to make life lasting decisions, right? And if you really think about it in a way, yes but in a way, no, you have to make the right decisions. I always think if you come to the right institution those decisions are going to be guided by professionals. So although you are going to mark your way, right? You are going to say, I want to do this. I wanna go into a career of engineering or architecture or the arts or philosophy or whatever the case may be you are going to be guided by professionals. We have an amazing career services department. You have an advisor. In some cases you have career advisors and tutor and tutoring and counseling and PR advisors. So you really don't need to worry so much about like this is the end of your life, right? But after even saying that, I have to say that it is critical that you make the right choices, right? The right choices are important because this is an investment for you, for your parents is an investment in time and money and effort and you do want to make sure that you attend the place that is best for you and where you're gonna get the best options, the best opportunities, the best success when you end because at the end of all this you and your parents are going to be looking at what am I going to do as a career, right? Is the career that is going to matter? I'm sure they don't wanna see someone who graduates from college and it's like, okay, what am I gonna do for the rest of my life, right? You wanna graduate from college with a purpose, with an intention, right? So I think intention and life is important but at the same time, I say to students, be flexible and be good to yourself, so that if you, let's say start in a pre-med program and then the pre-med program is not for you and you switch to somewhere else, don't beat yourself over that, right?  What I always say to students is that I hope at the end of your road when it comes to career options, you are more than anything in this world happy with the things that you're going to do because that makes all the difference. When you're happy with what you do is not a job and I know that sounds really cheesy but it's not cheesy because I've been doing this for 36 years and I can tell you with all my heart that I wouldn't change that for my life. So in this sort of game as an accident, right? What I'm doing right now came as an accident but I always say it's the best accident that could have ever happened to me and I really love it, right? So you wanna be able to say that, whatever you're doing in your life, you wanna be able to say, I love it, it's tough, long hours, waking up early, staying up late, whatever the case may be, but I'm happy doing what I do and that's what I hope for all of you. So let me tell you a little bit about the process. So in order to apply for Syracuse University, you have two ways you can do this. You can do early decision and you can do regular decision. Early decision is not to be confused with early action. Early decision in our case is binding, right? Early decision is binding. That means that when you apply early decision you are doing it because you, your parents, your counselors have looked at the university, have looked at all the details of what you need to do and how you need to do it and you say, this is my first choice. This is where I wanna go, right? Do or die, this is where I wanna go. And if that's the case, then it does require that you sign a contract, that your counselor and your parents sign a contract. So you need to be serious about that, right? Not everyone has to do it that way and you can see the deadline right there on my screen. The other way you can do it, which is the way most students do it is regular decision. And regular decision is for students who obviously love Syracuse, but don't wanna make that commitment, right? Because the commitment may take a little more effort. You may want to just let it right and see how things play out at the end applied to other colleges. By the way, with early decision, you can apply to other colleges also. The only thing is that once you accept Syracuse you have to withdraw your applications from other places. The good thing about early decision is that we let you know early enough, you know, early enough in the process that you don't even have to think about the college process anymore. And it's phenomenal. However, I must say that with international students, even when we do regular decision, we do try and get an answer to you as quickly as possible. And the reason why we do that is because international students are gonna have to make some extra efforts, right? You're gonna have to work through the visa process. You're gonna have to make decisions that are much more serious than packing a suitcase and coming from New Jersey or Connecticut to Syracuse. It's very different. So we wanna make sure you have an advantage and you know, early enough. We are a holistic process of selection. And I'm sure you're gonna hear this a lot and you probably heard it before. What that really means is that we are going to look at several aspects of your application. First and foremost, we're going to look at your academic credentials, right? Because that's critical to us. We need to make sure that if you are admitted into a particular career division at Syracuse, you are going to be able to handle the work, right? Because it's going to be a lot of work. And so, you know, the transcript, your grades, the level of courses you've taken, how competitive you are in school, all those things are very important. But those things can only be as important as some other things that are going to come with your presentation, right? And when you present your application, you are going to also talk about community service projects, leadership abilities, sports, anything you've done in your community, in your school, you know, there are students who have done amazing things even under the pandemic. But if you're not able to do activities and you say to us, and you write it on your application, you'll have a chance to do this. If you say to us, well, I haven't been able to do activities because, you know, I take care of my elderly grandmother who has Alzheimer's or whatever, then that's also pretty amazing, right? That's commendable. So if you are not able to stay in school and do the soccer and the tennis and the whatever, because you're doing other stuff, that's okay, but you have to share that with us. So that's to us as important as you being the president of the senior class or being in the tennis team or whatever the case may be, right? So everyone has different situations. But if you have activities, if you have community service, if you have leadership, then we value you a little more because it makes you a more complete individual, a more complete applicant and the kind of person that we want to have on our campus. We will check to make sure that your profession in English and on my slide, which I have to update, I've only put TOEFL, but obviously we accept Duolingo, IOS, you know, whatever other type of testing you may be exposed to or have the opportunity to do, you can share those with us, okay? So it's not just TOEFL. And also, you know, there are situations where we may waive it.  You would have to make the effort. You have to write to me or to someone in my office and we'll take care of that. As I said before, some of our programs do require a portfolio or an audition. So if you are interested in things like architecture, by the way, I didn't show off. I should have been a little more show offy. Our School of Architecture is one of the top in the country and it's world-renowned. So is the School of Communication. So is our School of Business. Some of our programs are top five, top 10, top three. So if you, you know, I think rankings should not be the reason why you apply to certain schools, but it is okay to look at them, right? So if you're going to apply to a School of Architecture like the one at Syracuse, it's an amazing thing. I mean, we're at the level with others like Cornell and Cooper Union and, you know, places like that. So you can imagine the kind of competition that that has. So think about that, right? But it's not critical that schools are ranked for what you want, but there are certain advantages, right? If the programs are stronger. So I would definitely look at that. Make sure you take care of the portfolios. They're due pretty early in the fall. So if you are right now equivalent to a junior in high school and you are going to be applying next year, the deadlines will start coming up pretty quickly, right? And you do not start putting a portfolio or an audition in September. No, no, no. It's something that you are doing now to send it in sometime in the fall, right? So make sure you prepare yourself for that. You cannot do those things in a heartbeat. It's impossible. And so make sure that you're working on those things. We do offer merit scholarships to international students. So if you're a phenomenal student with great recommendations, good grades, and you fit the profile for a scholarship, we'll recommend you for a scholarship. And chances are you can get a scholarship. So we have merit scholarships that have a range, right? So the range could be anywhere from $15,000 to maybe $50,000. Sometimes it could be more because we have other types of scholarships on campus. We have leadership scholarships. We have the crown scholarship at Syracuse. We have all sorts of things that you may be able to have access to. And you don't have to apply, by the way. So one of the great things about Syracuse is that you do not apply for scholarships. Now we do not offer financial aid for international students. And the difference between scholarship and financial aid is then financial aid is going to be based on filling out financial aid forms, which you wouldn't be eligible to do because it's for U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. If you are a U.S. citizen living abroad, so if you were born in the U.S. or for some reason you have dual citizenship would be Peruvian and U.S. citizen, then you would be eligible for financial aid. But I'll be more than happy. One of the things that I do in the fall is I make appointments with you and your families and I'll be more than happy to sit down and really talk to you and your families. And the other thing that we were discussing with the group here is that I would love to be in me, my person. So maybe we can even do this in person. That's better, right? And I can explain everything to you and bring you all kinds of goodies. And I want to bring you guys stuff because Circus is great for all the things that we bring to students, right? And so it's a pretty complete process. It's not easy. You have great guidance, as I said. And of course, you have to meet the deadlines. It's really critical that you meet the deadlines because anything that delays the process is only going to hurt you in some way. So we want to make sure that we don't hurt you in any way, right? So I think I'm good with the presentation now. I'm going to stop sharing and I'll be happy to answer questions. And if there are no questions, I can continue talking because I have plenty more to talk about. All right, guys. So are there any questions? I had one to start out, actually. I wanted to know what the SAT test policy is going to be going forward and if you would recommend them to do it as internationals. So for international students, it's not required at all. It's not required at all. So I would say, unless you need it for somewhere else, don't even bother, right? Don't even bother. And for the students who are US citizens is optional. So because it's an effort, right? You have to prep for the SATs. You have to, I would say, put more energy into the language exams, like the TOEFL and the IELTS and the Duolingo. And because those are required, right? Unless we're going to waive it for you. So I would put a little more effort in that and not so much into the SAT. Unless you have to do it for, I don't know, but there are students who don't make too much of an effort and do amazing on the SATs. So if you're that type of a student and you do really well, then of course send it to us, right? But if you take it one time and the scores are not so phenomenal, don't get yourself into that mess because you probably don't want to send it to us. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Thank you. What else? What are the questions, guys? I have a question. Yes. I know Syracuse is famous for its sports teams, especially American football, but do you know anything particularly about the swimming team? We don't have a swimming team, sweetie.  We don't have a swimming team. We have great swimming facilities, but we no longer have a team. And I think it's for obvious reasons, right?  But you can swim. We have club activities. So you can do swimming. You could do all sorts of things as club activities because remember, not every student that comes to Syracuse's division one, right? So there are students who just want to do the sport and they're able to practice whatever sport. We even have our own ice skating rink, guys, which is amazing. Yeah, it's pretty fantastic. We have our own ice skating rink. So I'm sorry, but no swimming team. And I know some of you are like amazing athletes. So I'm going to follow up that question with something else. If you are considering playing division one sport or division two sport or whatever it is in the US, then I would encourage you to take that very seriously, right? In the sense that there's some due diligence. You have to go into the websites, right? And look at what sports they offer. You have to look at what the criteria is and what the diligent is because you have to fill out a form. You have to pay a fee. And then you have to contact the coaches. The coaches have to be able to recruit you. So it's not just saying, I'm going to come and walk in. You could walk into teams, even at division one teams, you could, but that's not the most common way of getting into a team sport. For a team sport, you're usually recruited early enough. So if you're thinking about swimming anywhere, then I would target those schools where you think you would want to go find out just like with me. Now you know we don't have a swimming team, right? But find out if they have a swimming team, what division is the team and then what's the process to try and have yourself recruited to that team. It requires a little work, okay? Of course, thank you. Sure. Ambaro, one of my counselors has a question in the chat, I think she's going to write it down. Okay, Kedijo Alba. No, I think she was saying, gracias. Thank you for the, oh, how can we meet with a financial aid officer to guide us with a process in case we are US residents? You can talk to me, sweetie. And I can, so I can share this with you. So the way this works is if you are a US permanent resident or if you are a citizen of the US, you file the FAFSA and the CSS profile, the process is actually really clear. I'm not going to say, it's not hard, but I'm not going to say easy, but it's very clear. You go into our financial aid website and you file the form, right? There are two forms you have to do. You have to do the CSS profile and you have to do the FAFSA. So one is a free form, the other one is a paid form and you do have to meet the deadlines. All the information is on our website. What we also have on our website, which is really nice as a tool, right? We have something called a net calculator, which you can go into and you can enter your resources like your parents' income and assets and blah, blah, blah, and so forth. This is for financial aid though, right? This is not for scholarships, guys. And that will give you a sense of what your parents will have to pay. But clearly, you know, that's for students who are going to be able to file for aid. So that's US citizens and residents of the US, not for the international. The international remember what you are going to get a scholarship money. You're not going to get financial aid. Did that answer your question? Who was the student? Thank you, thank you so much. Alba, right? Okay, good. So yeah, but if you, again, if you have other questions, you know, I'll be happy to answer. The process of financial aid is interesting. It's complex. So even if a student came up to me and said, or even if you came up to a financial aid officer and you gave the financial aid officer, you know, my parents make this amount of money per year and they have five kids or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? It doesn't mean that the financial aid officer is going to be able to determine how much aid you're going to get because it's a government formula. It's a formula that requires a lot of information. And once you put all that information together. So the way that this works is, let's say that you are either a citizen or a resident, right? We send you the admissions letter first. So after we give you the admissions letter, you are going to receive within a week of that, you are going to receive a financial aid package if you file the forms, right? If you didn't file the forms, you don't get one. You are going to get a financial aid package and the package is going to tell you what you're eligible for. And typically is a grant from Syracuse University. It could be a couple of small loans, not a lot. Or it could be also some college work study, which is money so that you can work on our campus, et cetera. So that is the composition of a package. But remember that every student and every family is different. So some students are going to get packages that are really, really generous. And some students are going to get packages that are not so generous, right? Because it's going to depend on your personal situation. And remember that is for residents and citizens, okay? It doesn't apply to anybody who is considered an international student. Did I make that clear or did I confuse somebody more? Cause I don't want to confuse you guys, okay? What are the questions that we have, you know? I'm sure I can think of something. I think we have time for like one more. Is there anything else here? Anything else, anyone? So one of the things that I'm going to tell you is do not panic, okay? If you're undecided, feel comfortable with undecided. Please feel comfortable with undecided. This is going to be a process of discovery. This is going to be a process of you maturing, finding out what you want to do. What I will advise you to do is obviously apply to Syracuse because I love Syracuse, right? And I think you will be so happy. I don't know any unhappy people at Syracuse. And hopefully at some point maybe we can do a panel and maybe have a couple of Peruvian students. In fact, one of my Peruvian graduates is in Peru right now which is so unfortunate. Otherwise I would have looped her. She's on vacation right now. But it is an amazing place and you'll find your place in the world, right? That's what this is about. It's not about knowing exactly what you're going to do but it's about finding your place and finding your place comfortably and making sure always make sure that in this process you include your parents and your counselors. Be very honest with them so that everyone is in the same page because the success of what you're going to do now is going to depend on how much you share information with everyone else and how comfortable you feel with sharing that information. But I am available. So if any of you guys need me, I think I didn't do. Well, if you want to sign up for Syracuse you can actually just go into our admissions website. First you check on admissions undergraduate then you'll see international. Then you click on international. They give you options on how to get more information. They give you more tools that you can work with and all sorts of things. Okay? Algo más chicos. I think we have one more question. Okay. Yes, I have a question. Do you offer some kind of athletic scholarships? Yes. How the student can apply to that? Okay, so that's exactly what I was saying. And I'm glad you followed up on that because I didn't talk about the money, right? So typically an athletic recruiter, if they recruit you, they are going to give you some scholarship money. In some cases, it's full scholarships. So let's say that you have a start soccer player, right? And the soccer player is recruited by Syracuse University. It depends on who the student is and where they are atletically. But chances are that the student can get a full scholarship to attend Syracuse because remember, it's a division one team, right? So that's going to depend on the athlete and the abilities of the athlete and how much they offer you. So I've seen students who come to play soccer for us who may have scholarships or full scholarships. I know a young lady last year who was offered, I believe like $30,000. Obviously she wasn't a starting player because we also have division one for women. So yeah, you could potentially get a scholarship. So the coach, you have to look at the website on our athletic website, Anna. You'll be able to find all the instructions on how to approach the coach at Syracuse. If your question was how can I, if you're in Peru though, I would know, how can I get a coach to recruit me from Peru? Yes, you have to look at the website and they'll give you all of the instructions. As I said before, it is a process, okay guys? You're gonna have to put a little effort into that and do it now. It's not a process that you wanna start even two months from now. It's something that you wanna start this week, right? And start going for it because it takes a while to go through all that. Exactly, we're gonna make a video about that soon. That's all the time we have. Amparo, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Good luck with everything else. Okay, guys. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you always for your support. Gracias a todos. Ciao. Gracias, muchas gracias Amparo. Bye-bye. Lo maximo. For everybody else, we're going to start the next session at seven with Sienna Heights. Please, if you can make it, please attend. I think you're gonna enjoy this university when you might not know a whole lot about but hopefully after today, you will love. So we will see you back at seven at the next link. And until then, we'll take a little break. See you there, guys. Yeah. Yeah, let's start getting people in here and start the next chapter of this journey. We got, all right, sounds good. Got some people coming in. All right, well, next up tonight we have Sienna Heights University and we have Danilo Rela here to host this session. Really nice to see you again, Danilo. And thank you so much for coming and taking the time to talk to us today. So I'm gonna let you have the floor. You've got your time here. And of course, everybody here, if you have any questions or anything you'd like to ask Danilo, you'll have time at the end to do that. So Danilo, the floor is yours. Welcome everybody. As Andrew said, my name is Danilo Rela. I'm a senior assistant director of admissions here at Sienna Heights University. If you haven't heard about Sienna, that's totally fine. We are a small school, right? We're located in Adrian, Michigan. We are about 45 minutes from Ann Arbor, which is a famous city, about 50 minutes from Detroit. Adrian is a small town, but Sienna, you know, we have about 1,200 students on campus, very diverse school, very welcoming to international students. I was an international student at Sienna. I'm originally from Brazil and I graduated from Sienna Heights in 2018. Had an amazing time there. The professors are excellent. They really put focus on their personal attention. And I started with this slide here because I wanted to talk a little bit about one of the things that really drive Sienna as an institution, which is their mission. Sienna's mission is basically to assist students to become more competent, purposeful and ethical through a teaching learning environment that respects the dignity of all. So that was the mission established over a hundred years ago by the Adrian Dominican sisters, which was the congregation, right? They immigrated from Sienna, Italy and founded Sienna Heights University. In 1919, Sienna was started as a very tiny school to basically graduate professors and teachers to the Linaway County community. There was a big need for that at the time. To this day, education is still one of our biggest programs, right? We have a very strong, it's definitely in our top five programs. We are generally generating a lot of professors, teachers to not only the Linaway County community, but all over Michigan. A little bit about Sienna here, definitely was found in 1919, Adrian Dominican sisters.  So basically the focus of Sienna Heights is to really provide students with their well-rounded education, their holistic development. A lot of the students that go to Sienna Heights, they get out of there with a lot of critical thinking, ability to get out into the world and be self-starter, so not just wait to be told what they need to do. Students at Sienna, they're very proactive. That's a good definition of them. Sienna was based, was named a college of distinction in a Catholic College of distinction for the last several years, not only Michigan, but all over the US. We have about 16 international students from over 30 different countries and nations, lots of students from South America, Brazil, Venezuela. We have had students from Peru and then a lot of students from Europe as well. It's a very diverse place for sure. We provide a lot of scholarships for students and we're gonna be talking a little bit more about that later on today. In terms of the scholarships that we offer, we have athletics, vision performing arts, music, theater, graphic design, join, all of those things for sure. And then some of the newest programs we just launched in 2020 was cybersecurity, exercise science and agriculture and sustainable agriculture. Those are our three newest majors. In terms of the athletic side, we have started in 2018, 2018, yep, an eSports program that was actually one of the first eSports program here in the state of Michigan. And we had the first 100% female team in the whole United States. So it was an amazing experience to see that being started at senior heights. We also have a new wrestling, both male and female programs.  In 2019, we welcomed right before the pandemic, with them pandemic things became a lot challenging for a lot of schools for sure. But in 2019, that's when we brought the biggest amount of international students for that year. Typically, we normally bring around 15 to 20 students per fall, that year we brought almost 40. So it was almost double the size of students. And it was an amazing year for sure. A lot of students are here with us right now, they're getting ready to graduate and having a great time. As a liberal arts institution, we have what we call the liberal arts curriculum. So basically, regardless of the major that you're choosing to go to, you could be going for biology, business, technology, cybersecurity, theater, everybody that has a major scene will go through what we call the liberal arts curriculum. That consists of about 32 credit hours. The credit hours are divided into a lot of the general classes, the English, math, 11 science, social science, vision, performing arts. We also have religious studies requirement. And on top of that, we have those five classes here at the bottom, which is what we call the integrated learning classes. Those classes are designed specifically by Siena Heights faculty and professors. They are not classes that you're gonna find anywhere else, you know, in other schools. But basically the concept of those classes is to combine a lot of the humanities and the liberal arts aspect to Siena, right? So you have classes that are more focused on philosophy. Some other classes are more focused on sociology. Other classes are literature, religion. Some classes are very combined. So very interesting classes for sure. I was a business major at Siena, right? And even though those classes didn't really have much to do to my major, the Justice in Peace class right there at the end, I took him on my senior year, was by far the best class I ever had at Siena. The professor had a PhD in psychology and he was also a detective for the police department. So it was an amazing experience, very interesting way to, you know, kind of end those four years of my life. And ever since I graduated Siena, I became the international recruiter there, the international counselor. I work very personal, you know, personally with all of our international students, guiding them through the process. We have a lot of, you know, benefits. It's a very personal process that we put together. And I'd be working with you from the start, you know, to the end, lying until you become a student here. And even after that. So let's move on to the next one here. In terms of programs that we have a Siena, right now we have a total of 53 programs. Like I said, we added a few majors recently. Anything from business, you know, we have computer, mathematics, sciences. We have the education table right here, which if you are thinking about becoming a teacher, you know, living in Michigan, that's an amazing program to go to. We have different certification that you can find. We have the owners program for students that have a GPA above at 3.5. It's basically an owner organization that you can join and have a lot of benefits while joining the program here at Siena. We also have the humanities pre-professional program. So if you're thinking about going from medical school, maybe you're thinking about going for a physical, you know, becoming a physical therapist, everything will be done through the pre-professional programs. Very, very intensive programs. We have right now a 95% acceptance rate into medical school. So dentistry, you know, medicine, physical therapy. Most of the students that go there and take that route end up finding very successful careers and very successful programs after that. And then we have one of our biggest ones, which is nursing, right? You might not know that, you know, but nursing is definitely one of the biggest majors here in the US. Very popular major, very popular career to go to. And it's also a very structured and very intensive program. So if you're looking for, you know, to be a nurse, it's definitely good that you find a program that will guide you through the process that will help you find internship, you know, place a lot of focus on the experiential learning and help you get ready for the test because everybody that graduates in nursing at the end of their career, they need to take the AMP plaques, which is a nursing, you know, certification task, which is pretty hard for sure. We also have social behavioral sciences, the criminal justice, you know, law and politics, probation, psychology, social work. And then we have division performing arts. You know, even though CNS is a small institution, like I said, we have about 1,200 students total as a population, our student to faculty ratio is about 12 to one. So class sizes tend to be very small. I remember doing my time there, the smallest class I had, it was about five students in a class. And it was an amazing, an amazing experience. You know, we have direct access to your professor. So whenever you need some help, whenever you want to ask questions, they're right there for you. Majority of the professors at Siena Heights, they earn a PhD, you know, they practice their careers in the field as well. They're not just there as Siena. And they also have, you know, office hours a lot of the time. So you're able to get to them, you know, if you have questions, email them, call them, they're always available for sure. And in terms of division performing arts, all of those majors that you see there, the arts, the graphic design, the musical theater, they all have scholarships available. So for the art in general, we have what we call the Art Portfolio Review Day. So if you have, you know, a portfolio of all of the arts that you've done and you would like to schedule a Zoom meeting to meet with one of the faculty department, they would be able to evaluate your art, talk to you about your goals, you know, objectives, and based on that interview, provide you with scholarships. So that's an amazing opportunity for sure. In terms of music, you know, musical theater, theater, we have what we call the audition date. So if you are away from the US right now, if you can come to campus, we can also do auditions by Zoom or videos, you know, you can definitely record a video with some of the requirements that they ask and send that to the theater faculty. And that would be an amazing opportunity to also qualify for very strong scholarships, sometimes even up to a food tuition for all of those things that I'm talking about. Moving forward here, in terms of student life, Sienna has over 60 clubs and organizations. So really anything that you can think of, you know, psychology club, we have the international club, we have chess club, outside of all of the many sports and vision performing arts opportunities that we offer, we have, you know, a lot of events going on all year round on campus. This picture here that you see, it's from our Holy Festival, which is something that we do every March, right before the spring season starts. So that's kind of a way to celebrate the spring season. All of these people here in this picture, all of our international students, you know, we have Ecuador, we have in Israel, we have a student from Malaysia and they're all having a lot of fun. We're actually gonna be having this event this Friday and we hope it doesn't rain, right? But it's gonna be an amazing opportunity to kind of kickstart the spring season for us. The temperature in Michigan is growing a lot. We are definitely a four-season state, right? So we have a very defined winter, very defined spring, summer and fall season. So it's an amazing way to explore all of those things and really enjoy the events that each season brings. As you may know, even though we are a Catholic institution, we are, I like to think of Sienna much more of a faith-based institution where we're very welcoming for people from all faiths and traditions and beliefs. The idea here is not really to converge anybody into a Catholic. It's really to promote mind, body and spirit evolution, right? So we want you to be here, participate, get involved in organizations, be yourself, be an advocate for what you believe in and just have fun. That's really the purpose of Sienna. And a lot of the students, as you might see through the picture, they do have a lot of fun. We do lots of events as an international club. We have at least two major events that we promote every semester. Sometimes we go to NBA games. Other times we go to American football games. Other times we go to the Cedar Point, which is one of the biggest roller coasters parks that we have here right close to Sienna. So it's an amazing opportunity. We do that every year for the new people to kind of enjoy it. Speaking now a little bit about finance, right? Finance is as an international student, right? I know myself, it's very important to find a school that's affordable to you, to your family, that you're gonna be able to maintain that pricing for the next four years. When Amber and I talk to students about finance, I always ask them to think in terms of four years, because that's what you need to graduate, right? You're not just coming here for a year, you're coming here to earn your degree. So it's important to always ask the institution that you're communicating with what's the pricing strategy looks like. Typically here in the US, tuition increases on an yearly basis to a lot of schools. As Sienna, we did something a little bit different. In 2020, even before we knew there was gonna be a pandemic, I guess it just happened at the right time, we created the Sienna tuition advantage, which basically means that in the course of four years of school, the students will only have one tuition increase and that's in their junior year. So basically their first time freshman year, sophomore year will be locked in in the same rate. And once they become a junior, they're gonna have an additional increase and their junior and senior year will also be locked in at the same rate. So that gives you a lot of flexibility to kind of put the numbers down on paper and evaluate how much will cost for you to graduate in those next four years of school. Unfortunately for international students, why we don't qualify for a financial aid through the American government. So everything that you qualify for will be institutional scholarships. So through arts, athletics, your GPA, all of those things is what will make it possible for you to come study in the US. So what universities will do for you and what we'll do as Sienna is sit down, have a conversation with you, evaluate what are some of the things you're looking for in terms of tuition expenses, room and board, what is the ideal scenario for you and your family and try to work with you on a very personal level. So if you qualify for, let's say a soccer scholarship, you're gonna have that included. If you have a GPA above a certain level, you're gonna receive an academic scholarship. We'll put every scholarship on top of each other to make sure you're receiving the most comprehensive award possible for sure. So here's a list of all the sports that we have available right now at Sienna Heights. As you see here, we have men's sports, women's sports, and we also have the co-educational sports, baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country. We have football, golf, lacrosse, track and field. Soccer is very popular for sure, as an international student, right? We have a lot of soccer internationals in the team, volleyball and wrestling. For women, we have very similar sports, just a couple that are not there. And then we also have the e-sports. If you play video games, we have over seven games that you are able to receive scholarships through them right now. And then we have competitive dance and cheer. So if you ever thought about being cheerleader or participating in some kind of way, there are opportunities for that as well. And because we're part of the NAA, we're a division two NAA institution, we are able to offer a lot of very comprehensive scholarships for that as well. And here is what I was talking about. So we do have, you know, we're a very heavy athletic institution. I would say about 72% of our student body participates in some way or another in the athletics of the university, but we're also very focused in the arts, right? So we teach NAA places a very strong focus in joints, ceramics, cheer remaking, you know, graphic design. Then we have theater, musical theater, music in general, choir, orchestra. There was a whole range of opportunities for people that want to continue to practice their passion. If you play an instrument and you want to be part of the assemble, you can definitely do that. As I mentioned, there are a lot of audition dates that we provide throughout the year. You can do them through Zoom as well, both for art as well as for musical theater. We actually have just remodeled our state of the art musical theater and theater as well. I think it was an investment of over $12 million and it's really grown our theater program. We went from having about 30 students to now having over 80 students in a matter of, you know, two, three years ever since we did the remodel. We put together, you know, very impressive theater plays, right? Every semester, at least two where students can come. The community comes and participates. We sell a lot of tickets for that and the quality of the work is definitely really, really professional. And then to finalize here, you know, I guess I gave you a pretty good overview of what CNN is about. If CNN is something that you would like to learn a little bit more about, I definitely recommend going into our website. It's cnnheids.edu, kind of browsing through the majors, you know, learn a little bit more about the student life. As well as on YouTube, we definitely have a 15-minute virtual tour that you could take with two of our students to really learn a little bit more about CNN. But basically, the steps to become a student there is really to just complete an application line at go.cnnheids.edu-applynow. And then that's where the page would take you to, right?  Once your application completed, you don't have to pay anything for it. So it's a free online application. Takes about 25 to 30 minutes to do it. And once you do it, you're probably gonna receive an email from me and then a follow-up call asking for, you know, transcripts, you know, any grades that you would like to share. If you are coming from a college asking for your college transcripts, if you have TOEFL, SAT, ACT, you would be able to send those as well. And everything would be used to evaluate you for acceptance. A minimum GPA requirement to be accepted in heights regularly, it's a 2.5 GPA. If a student has below a 2.5 GPA, then we might request, you know, some additional documentation such as letters of recommendation, maybe a personal interview to just kind of get a better feeling for how ready that student is for college. And if a student have a GPA above a 3.25, then they qualify for our owner's scholarship of $6,000. If a student, however, has a GPA above a 3.5, then they qualify for what we call the academic scholarship competition date. It's an event that we put together about four times out of the year. We're gonna be having our last event a couple of weeks from now in April. I would be happy to send Andrew the dates of the event. If any student out there has a GPA above a 3.5 and would like to participate in the competition, basically you'd be competing for a full tuition offer as CNA Heights, right? And then everybody that participates will earn some kind of additional scholarships. So it's an amazing event. Typically you'd be having, you know, two academic interviews with professors from the major that you're choosing to go for. And based on those interviews, you'd earn scholarships. The event's entirely online, so you can participate via Zoom. And after that, you take about two to three weeks till you get results back. As a final say, I would say that, you know, I'd be happy to speak to any of you that are watching like individually to kind of learn a little bit more about what you're looking for. See if Sienna is a fit for you. We have one of our Spanish professors there, right? Nick Maestro, Nick Kaplan. He likes to be called Maestro, but in any case, he always says that, you know, in looking for a school, especially for international students, it's very important to consider three things. Opportunities, you know, how many opportunities that school will provide to you?  Are you gonna have the opportunities to participating in the music or the clubs and organizations that you're interested in? The second word is access, right? Are you gonna have access to your professors? Are you gonna have access to resources, to books, to supplies, to food, to a decent living situation? And then the third word is fit, right? And fit is something that you can't really measure up to it. It's really a feeling that you have, right? When you go to a place and you meet people there when you have conversations and you kind of learn about it, you kind of just feel like, oh, that's something that would work for me. That's a place I would belong to. And those three things need to go hand in hand.  So with that, I'd be happy to speak to you a little bit about Sienna, talk a little bit about my experience. If you ever need to speak to some of our international students, a lot of them work with me at the admissions office, you know, talking to prospective students. And it's a great experience. So I'd be happy to do that. Now I'd say I'm open to questions if you have any questions. I'll break the ice. I have one that I wanted to ask a little more about. You mentioned about the art scholarships. Does someone have to be a major in those categories to get access to those scholarships? Or do they have to minor? Or are there any requirements there? Good question.  But if you do have the art capabilities and you just want to kind of be involved in more of a hobby way, you're still able to qualify to those scholarships. The scholarships that you need to be a major for in order to qualify for them are the theater and musical theater. You need to be either a major in a minor before the art. It's open for everybody. Okay, great. I have a question. My question is about that thing you said about the international students working for you, working in the department. How is it? Because I'm sure most of the students here would like the opportunity to work there somehow, but I know the opportunities are limited because of the student visa restrictions. So how is it that opportunities that you offer? Good, no, that's a perfect question. So I get the question a lot, right? For international students, regardless of the school that you go to, you're limited to work in only 20 hours a week and it needs to be inside the university, right? Some universities have opportunities in very diverse areas. So you can work at the library at the athletic department in the admissions office at the cafeteria. There are a lot of different places that you can work at an institution. It's just a matter of if they have the positions available or not. Luckily, at Siena, because we're a small institution, there are a lot of positions available all the time. So we're always looking for people to work at the cafeteria. It was always looking for people to give tours of the university for new students that are coming in. So right now, I believe in the admissions office, we have about six or seven international students from different countries that work with us and have been working for the past couple of years. They basically welcome the new families, talk about their experience to Siena, participate in events. It's a great opportunity because it practices their English a lot. And it's actually probably one of the best jobs to have as a college graduate is to be a, it's what we call the student ambassador. So we're always opening up for students to apply for those positions. It's an out-of-budget position, right? So it's nothing through the government. We pay them through Siena Heights, our budget covers those positions. But we have people that work in other places too. We have students working for the cafeteria, for the library, for the bookstore. We have opportunities all over the university. That's really awesome. And I have one more question about the scholarships. You were telling us about the sports scholarships and I wanted to know what does student require it in order to get this scholarship? Does student need a portfolio, like to send videos? Yes, so basically every sport has a different approach, right? But I'd say for international students because we're so far away, right? You can't really come to the US all the time and do a scrimmage or play a game. The best way to do it is to send an initial contact, you know, an initial email to the coaches of the sports that you're looking for and then attaching a video of your highlights. So let's say if you play soccer, it's the coaches what they're looking for, it's you playing for about three to seven minutes in a highly competitive environment. So if you play in a club right now, record yourself for a few games and then put together a five minute video of your best moments, send that to the coaches, presenting yourself, telling a little bit about your story, who you are, what you're looking for. And from there, they'll connect you to the next step. So typically if a coach receives an email from an international student at the university and they are interested at the student, they will then direct the student to me and I'll help them complete the application, you know, complete their process until we can put together their financial aid package. So basically this is how it is for most sports, you know, record a video of your abilities. If you're doing things such as track and field, right? Those are a little bit more difficult to do it. What they will actually want is all of your stats.  That's kind of what they'll be looking at. If you're doing esports, then it's based on the amount of hours that you have in that specific game. So, you know, the game that you have will have the statistics event by sending that to the coach, you'll be able to figure out if you have the skills, you know, where you at in your athletic, you know, capabilities and then offer those kinds of scholarships. Okay, perfect. Thanks for the information, Danilo. Yes, of course. I have one more question that is about the fit situation that you talked about, the fit. Your university is a faith-based university, Catholic, faith-based university. There are students that could be, like, reticent about joining a university faith-based, but there is a spectrum of, like, how much faith or religion plays in the education. So, you have studied there. So, I mean, I come from Conteficia Universidad Católica del Perú and I'm Jewish and atheist. So, I just had to take a course and it was, like, a science, ethics and religion taught by a philosopher and it was okay. I didn't have to... I wasn't forced to do anything and it was actually a pretty good fit for me. So, how do you think a secular or a Jewish or a Muslim student would feel in that environment? I don't know, could you elaborate a little bit? For those students that could feel, like, doubts about... Absolutely, absolutely. And that's a common question we get. You know, it's definitely common to think in those terms. It's basically what I said in the beginning, right? Even though Siena is a faith-based institution, they're very, very open to people from all faiths and traditions.  And I went to Siena. You know, I had studied in Catholic institutions before, you know, growing up in high school and all that. It felt, you know, like a very natural transition coming to Siena, I would say. They don't force you to go to church. They don't force you to go to mass. They also, you know, kind of like what you explained, they do provide one religious class that all students must take as part of their liberal arts curriculum. But that religious class is not only focused in Catholicism. It can be, you know, the history of religions. It could be theology. It could be things that are much more broad and not in focus to specifically to religion for sure. It's funny because we've actually had people tell us before that we are not Catholic enough, you know, and it's, we don't think that way at all. Siena is really a place where they want you to grow in a lot of different aspects. So like I said, mind, body and spirit, that's the culmination that they focus it in regardless of the religion that you come in for, for sure. Does that answer your question? Of course. That's great to hear. And I think that that's gonna placate some doubts. Yeah. And just to add to that actually, like in my little visit there, I talked to the students who were giving me a tour about that same question, you know, about how they felt about the religious aspect of the education. And they were very honest and said that like, you had a lot of different options for how to meet that requirement in the curriculum and that they never felt that they were ever forced to participate in any sort of activities or events or attend mass. So I think that a lot of times we have a sort of different perspective. If we grow up in Catholic schools here where it is a little more strict and more things are imposed, but at the university level, it's a lot more open, I think for each person to decide how they want to participate in that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Andrew, to add to that too, like you said, flexibility, it's definitely a word that you're gonna see and hear a lot from universities in the US, right? Especially the liberal arts. Everything is very flexible. Even for example, if a student comes to us and they have no idea what they want you to study, right? They're totally undecided. Because of the way the liberal arts curriculum is designed, students can come and spend their first year and a half having no idea where they're going for until they figure it out. So they can take in their first three, four semesters a lot of experimental classes. So let's say you have an interest in psychology, you can take an introduction to psychology. Let's say you wanna learn more about business or about biology and medicine. You can take those few semesters to explore your passion, see where your goals are and then choose your major and still graduating for years. That's what's most fantastic about the way universities work in the US. They work with you in a very flexible way. Siena is also a flat rate institution, which means that between 12 credit hours and 18 credit hours the cost is the same, right? So students are always having the flexibility to determine how many classes they wanna take per semester.  You can up the amount of credits without having any additional costs to it. So it's definitely different. I would say I'm from Brazil, the schools in Brazil are very structured.  Here in the US it's a little bit more different. There are a lot of surprises and good surprises to be honest, doing the way. Thanks. Perfect. I also wanted to ask a little bit about the timeline with the athletics.  For a new student, when would you recommend that they get in touch with coaches or start reaching out for that process? So definitely for sports, they're done in the fall term. I would definitely say the best time should start getting recruited, you know, to be able to get the best opportunities or definitely between October and December.  And then they start responding to students, checking out videos, students start completing the application. I always say that for international students, you know, the optimal amount of time to apply, be accepted, and finally arrive. It's about eight months, you know, the more time you give yourself to prepare, the more, you know, the easy that that process will be for you. Because it takes a lot, right? You have to apply for your visa. You have to pay fees. You have to translate your documents. You have to take a test. You have to complete a credential evaluation. So if you decide to do all that in three months, it can be a lot and it can be very expensive. So the more you stretch that time, you know, you do one thing this month, one thing another month, that gives you a lot more time to breathe and make sure everything's done properly. But definitely for sports, around that fall semester, that's when coaches start recruiting. But then if your sport is a sports that's done in the winter term, which is like January through May, then that would be the best time to do it, right? Let's say around January of the year before, you should start reaching out to the coaches and telling them of your interest. You just mentioned something about credential evaluation. Do your university require a credential evaluation for admissions? Not for admissions, right? For admissions, I'm able to work with the students' original transcript as long as they are translated to English. However, in order for the student to really come here once they make their decision to come to Siena, then that's when we require the credential evaluation, just as a way to prove that they graduated high school or that they went to a university abroad and they're transferring credits in. We work with WES, ECE, and then INCRED, which is a company associated to the NEIA. Okay, so a graduation diploma is not enough. You need the ECE or the WES credential and evaluation. Yes, yes, that's a requirement for all the students. Yes, so basically, let's say you finish high school, right? You would need to send your high school transcripts with all of the grades from first year to last year to the company and they would basically convert everything and that would be your original transcript to Siena. Thank you. Yes, of course. Any other questions from anybody? They're a little shy. They're letting us do all the questions for them, I think. Or is there anything you would like to add, Danilo, any advice for future students? You know, I guess we've talked a lot about the, you know, the ins and outs, the timeline is very important for international students. Like I said, you know, during the presentation, I'd really focus on finding the schools that you can connect with and finding the schools that can provide you the opportunities and the help that you need during the process. Like going to study abroad is not the easiest process in the world. You know, in the beginning can be very overwhelming. It's hard. Most of the time you go into a city you've never been to. You don't really know how things work very much. So, you know, a place where you can have those first year interactions and someone who guides you through the process, I would say it's very important for sure. Having an easy admissions process. What else? Well, finding the major that you're looking for, it's definitely, you know, it's definitely important, right? You can't just go to school based on price. I would say it's important to find a program that's good that will give you the career that you need. Once you are there at the institution, then take a opportunity, take advantage of all the resources available to you. Go to the career center, learn how to create a resume, learn how to do job interviews, participating as many things as you can. You know, apply to be a president of the international club. Apply to be an advisor for the club. Those are the things that will matter. And I would say maybe much more than the diploma in itself.  That life experience will be, you know, really, really valuable for sure. It's gonna change your perspective of the world. I always say when I came to the United States, I was 19 years old, right? I was just a boy. Still, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was very young. But going through the process here, I always say that, you know, I went from being a boy to becoming a man through all of the things that I did. I worked on campus. I participated in the international club. I helped, you know, as many students as I could that were planning to come to Siena as a student, students would always find me on Facebook, Instagram, and ask me questions. And I would always try to take them with you to reply and explain to them, you know, pay attention to this, don't do that. Really, really talking from that student perspective, I feel like that's very important. And that's why I always recommend, you know, if you're going to study abroad, regardless of the institution that you're looking for, try to connect with the student that's there right now. Ask them questions, you know, what's good about your institution? What are they doing that's, you know, exciting right now? What are the strengths and weaknesses of that place?  So it's important for you to know there before you make your decision for sure. First. Well, I have a question. I mean, what do you think an arbor particularly has to offer? Because most kids now want to go to Boston, New York, Cali. So what do you think particularly an arbor has like a attraction-wise or like community-wise that you can sell to the kids? So it's interesting, right? Because we are now located in an arbor per se. We're located about 40 minutes away, which it's still pretty close. It's a quick drive, it's not that far away. An arbor, an agent might help you with this here. I believe an arbor is one of the fourth best cities to live in, in the US. He was voted a few years back. It's a very, very liberal and progressive place, right? That's where the University of Michigan is located, which is probably one of the top universities in the world. So it's a place with a lot of opportunities for a lot of different reasons, I would say. Lots of students that go to Santa Heights find internships in an arbor in the surrounding areas. It's not as big as California or it's not as big as New York, for example, it's a lot smaller, but in terms of opportunity and quality of life, it's definitely there for sure. It's an amazing place. We are also very close to Detroit, which it's a place that's getting revitalized right now. So there's a lot of businesses going back to Detroit. There's a lot of investments going back to the city, right? I'm not sure if you guys know, but Detroit went through a period a few years back where it wasn't doing so well economically, but right now things are changing, which means there's a lot of opportunities surging right now at that area. So students are taking advantage of that as well. And to be very honest, a lot of our international students, not all of them want to stay around Michigan. We have students that graduate and they go to different states. They find OPT opportunities in different places. We have a student right now that's working in New Jersey. We have a student that's working for Disney right now. She found an internship there. We have students that went to work for Goldman Sachs in Japan. So as you know, the students, they go different places. They sometimes they go back to the countries and they start their own businesses. So it's really what they're looking for in terms of opportunities, I would say. Of course, there are a lot of advantages of small cities or smaller universities, I guess. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, actually, yeah. Adrian Michigan is, you know, it kind of reminds me almost like a smaller version of Ann Arbor in a way, a little bit smaller. Like it's very much a college town because you have other colleges there. I think there's three, right? There's three. We have a Siena Heights University, Adrian College and then Jackson College. Yeah, so there's actually quite a lot of activities. You see a lot of young people around the area and it's a pretty diverse crowd as well. So like Danilo says, you are very close to Detroit. I have told a lot of horror stories from Detroit for my previous years there, but it truly has gotten better. I did go downtown a couple of times on the last trip and I have to say I was surprised at what I was looking at. I was like, this actually looks kind of nice. It's good to see that happening as well. I think the area is really rebounding very nicely and would make a good home for a lot of you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you might know that already, since you're studying or studying the US, everybody after they graduate from a US institution as an international student, you can apply for a one-year work visa here. It's what they call the OPT or Optional Practical Training. I did that right before after I graduated. I did an OPT for Siena Heights and then I stayed with them after that and it's an amazing experience. I definitely encourage all students that graduate in either level, associates, graduate or bachelor to do an OPT, have the work experience here. Sometimes if you get lucky and you work for a company that promotes, diversity, you might get an H1B visa and extension of your OPT and that's kind of the process to get a green card and stay in the US, especially if that's your goal for sure, but there are a lot of different opportunities that you can kind of go for. Great. Well, I think that's about all the time we have. We're gonna have to move on to our next session in a few. Thank you again, Danilo, for taking some time to talk with us today. It's really been a pleasure having you and good to see you again. Thanks to everybody who has come here today and spent some time with us. I'm Danilo, I'm a counselor in Vasiena Heights. There's the address for the application right there. If you wanna check it out, obviously you guys with us, you can talk to your counselors if you're interested in throwing an application out their way. You guys still have rolling admissions, right? We do, yes, yes, for sure. Perfect. You have plenty of time, plenty of time. So just let me know and I'll help you individually through the process. Thank you, Danilo. Yeah, and Danilo was literally going to pick somebody up from the airport after he met with me. So that's the level of personal attention you're gonna get here at Vasiena Heights. So it's just something to think about. Like you said, I think it's nice to know that you have someone who will guide you through that process and help you feel right at home. Well, thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate that. I really appreciate the invitation. And like Andrew said, just feel free to contact me whenever you need to, okay? Thank you so much for your time, Danilo. Thank you. Have a good night. Thanks a lot. Bye, Danilo. Thank you. All right, we'll be starting our next session at eight o'clock. You guys have the links as well. We'll remind you through the chats and we'll see you there. We'll take a little break until then. Okay. Go ahead and start our next session here. So welcome. We got Elmhurst University here. Tony Morada is gonna be giving our presentation about Elmhurst. I was just up there at Elmhurst not too long ago, got to spend some time on campus, meet with Tony and really enjoyed my visit there. So hopefully you'll enjoy hearing about Elmhurst as well. Tony, thanks for taking the time to talk to us and you have the floor. Yeah. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Score. I'm very happy to be here with you all and all the students. I am Tony Morada. I am the director of international admission and student services at Elmhurst University. So I am the person that would work with you from the point that you contact Elmhurst to say, hey, what's going on at Elmhurst? Can I become a student? Up until graduation and beyond. So I'd be helping you out your whole academic journey. So that's something I have the pleasure of doing for over a decade now and I'm always excited to meet with students. So thank you for hosting me. I do have a fun presentation hopefully for you. It has information but then an engaging video. It's called Getting to Know EU. Kind of like getting to know you. We're not the European Union but we are Elmhurst University, hence the title. So I'm gonna go ahead and share that for you all and that I am always welcome to questions after we are done or if you have anything during, happy to do so.  Can everybody see a slideshow at this point? Cool, thank you. There we go, okay. Cool, so we are Elmhurst University again. We were founded in 1871. So we are in the 2021-2022 academic year which means we're celebrating our assessment at 10-0 which is a fun word to say that means 150th year. So it's been a pretty big year for us. We've had a lot of celebrations on a really cool stuff going on. And previously we were Elmhurst College. I actually graduated from Elmhurst when it was Elmhurst College but we became Elmhurst University to more reflect our academic programs over here and support that we're providing in 2020. We are a certified arboretum. So we have trees all around. You'll see this beautiful greenery in the background on this. I have snow in my picture because that's more accurate right at the moment. But we do have a lot of greenery and a lot of trees. With a lot of tree labels, you can learn all about trees. And we actually do an arboretum tour. So it's pretty fun to be here. It's a beautiful campus. And we do have about 3,500 students.  That will give you more individualized attention and create more community, which is great. And our undergraduate enrollment out of that is 2,900. So again, small, but good attention, good support. So I'll tell you a little bit more about the area where we get back to the school because I know that's a big draw for international students. Like where am I going? What am I getting into? We are in Elmhurst, Illinois which is a safe western suburb of Chicago. So hopefully you all know Chicago, Illinois. One of the greatest cities in the United States. It's my favorite, but it's a big city, lots of opportunity. We are right outside of it to the west. So you have the safety of suburbs. So suburbs are small towns kind of put together with a lot of houses, neighborhoods, but you're right near Chicago. So you have that as your background because we are a seven minute walk to our city center which is also where the train is to take you to Chicago. Our city center, our downtown in Elmhurst has coffee shops, restaurants, shopping and entertainment. We have an old-fashioned movie theater. Lots of food places, lots of really cool places to check out. And when we're close to a prairie path, what that means is you can hike, you can bike if you're into nature. There's a lot of really cool ways to get involved and kind of exercise and be around the area. Cause again, beautiful suburb, arboretum, lots of trees, lots of paths. We are seven minutes to Metro train which is the train that takes you directly to Chicago. So like I said, city is just a train right away. We are pretty close to Chicago which will give you a lot of opportunities as an international student. The debate we see a lot international students have is do I go directly into Chicago or do I go somewhere nearby? We find that students that wanna be nearby so they have the city kind of as a background playground where they can go experience, culture experience, music, festivals but then come back to the suburbs and acquire a setting that works out really well. You also have the benefit of having all the internships that are available in Chicago, all the companies that are big and the suburbs have those as well. So you have the best of both worlds. It is, I think, easier to get from the suburb to Chicago rather than Chicago to the suburb. It's just some kind of mental block for people where it's easier to go back and forth from the suburb to Chicago and back to the suburbs. So we are 30 minutes from Chicago downtown Chicago and there's lots of really cool things you can see there, the beam. If you've ever seen a picture of that big metal structure that looks like a cloud or a beam, that's us. One in Park, Navy Pier, Willis Tower, known as Sarah's Tower to all the Chicago natives and Michigan Avenue, great shopping, lots of great food. You can also kind of concerts, games. We have the Cubs, which most people know. We have the White Sox and we have Chicago Bulls. Chicago Bulls are back, they're doing pretty well right now. So lots of cool sports venues if you're an athletic person. I'm an endless restaurants because we are a center of the world pretty much. We have restaurants from all different cuisines. We have grocery stores from all different cultures. So you can really get immersed and really explore while you're here. So getting back to Elmhurst, now that you know a little bit about setting, your Elmhurst, you education, we are educating students to live and work in a global society. I was educated by Elmhurst and this is how I got invested in international and work with international students. Because at Elmhurst, I did get that global society education and I got connected with our different populations as a student and I saw the benefit of that cultural exchange.  You're gonna study subjects of different areas. You're going to take a lot of different courses so that you can kind of explore who you are and what your place is in the world before you get down into your major program.  We are a student center in education and student center services. We will always put you first and we always have your best interests at heart. And part of that too is when I talk to you, I like to see how you feel about Elmhurst, how you feel about your fit here. And honestly, if you feel like there's a better fit somewhere else, I'll help you get there. I would love you to join Elmhurst and I think that would be great. I would love you to come join our community via BlueJ. I want you to find the best place for you to grow and to develop. That's something that is core to our student center education philosophy. We do promote global awareness. We are very invested in a lot of things that happen in the world. We've had a lot of great speakers come to us, including Martin Luther King, Jr. Back in the 60s, we are always looking for ways to engage our students, our community in the world. And you get a lot of professional development. I already mentioned that we're near Chicago, so you have the benefit of the professional development, the internships, the jobs that that could offer you. But we have our own CPE Center for Professional Excellence that helps train you on resumes, train you on interview skills, and helps you find internships and jobs. Staff that's dedicated to helping you in your professional career. So a lot of really great opportunities and characteristics of Elmhurst. And then for area studies, you have a lot to choose from. We have 70 plus majors with 50 plus minors. So in general, you can find what you're looking for at Elmhurst. Our most popular majors are nursing, education, business, psychology, biology, and speech language pathology. But we have tons of other ones like computer science. We have sports management. Just the world is your oyster when you're at Elmhurst. So you can always check out our website, see what programs we have to offer. We have many questions. I'm happy to talk to you about all of them. I majored in English and education when I came through Elmhurst and I got my master's in higher education. And then you can take your studies from the next level. One of the benefits is we have 16 pre-professional programs with dedicated staff. So those are centered in medicine, dentistry, law, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, engineering and arts. Specifically our health professions has dedicated staff that helps you figure out your path if you wanted to become a doctor or wanted to go in dentistry. It helps you find schools, pathway programs, programs that we have connections with or that we have articulation agreements with so that you're either guaranteed admission or guaranteed transfer once you're done at Elmhurst. So a lot of really great ways to get you connected to further your career and your education while you're at Elmhurst. And then we do currently have 17 master's degree programs and we have a doctorate starting in nursing practitioner. So we're always expanding and always looking for ways to engage you. Our faculty also is pretty great. We have really good relationships between staff and faculty. Our faculty is highly personable. They'll get to know you, they meet with you outside of classes and they will involve you in the research. If you're looking to do research, you're looking for jobs, there are great connections and they will help you. They will take you to conferences and help you present so that you can get further in your field. They will get you connected with people in the community that are in your job area or oftentimes they're in your job area as well and have businesses on the side and they'll get you internships with them. We have faculty that always do that. So we do have 158 full-time faculty and 82% of them hold the highest possible degree in their field. So they're pretty well educated. And I think I said earlier, we're a small school so we have a 13 to one student to faculty ratio. You get a lot of attention, one-on-one attention at Elmhurst. That is something that I started off at a big school before I transferred to Elmhurst that I benefited from personally and found to be great for my learning style and my engagement in class. And the number of courses taught by teaching assistants is zero. So a lot of schools have teaching assistants that will actually take over the class, students that have higher degrees, but we will always connect you with those professors. We do not use teaching assistants. And then we have a lot of student support. We have a learning center for access to disability if you need it with individual tutoring. We have a writing center, math tutoring accommodations that could be set up. We have mentoring throughout your college career, but we also have a first year seminar that I'm actually a college-like coach for where you take a course, but you're also connected with the student affairs professional that helps you throughout your first year and your second year. And often stays in contact with you throughout your entire college career so that you always have that guidance of that person that's your go-to person that you can ask questions of and look for resources from. Our faculty do have office hours. So they will always let you know their office hours that you can connect with them and meet with them. And now, because we're in a virtual world where we have been, we're back in person now, but things have shifted. So you have a lot of really cool virtual opportunities as well, and that's not going away. Even though we have our in-person courses and connections, we will continue that virtual world for you as well because we found that to be a benefit, especially for people that prefer that method. And then we have our wellness center. So we do have doctor on hand, doctors on hand, nurses. You can get vaccinations shots. You can get basic medical treatment counseling. So there's a lot of ways you can connect to the wellness center if you need to. So we're happy to talk to you more about that as well. All right, so we talked a little bit about careers, but I want to touch on that a little bit more. RCPE, our center professional excellence, is a really great connection for our students. You will get career guidance there. So talk about whatever you want in terms of if you want to be a business major, if you want to get your MBA, that help guide you towards that. We have a really cool study away program that is always sending students off to different countries and short learning experiences or longer learning experiences. So you can go for a few weeks, a semester, a whole year. You can go for the summer for our breaks.  So even though you might want to come to Elmhurst to study, which is awesome, you probably want to see the rest of the world too. It will help you do that. But we do have a really well-developed honors program that has a lot of benefits if you're part of it. So you can live in an honors community, get access to honors lectures, honors tutoring, a lot of really great ways to further your education that way, grad school preparation, mentoring and shadowing and service learning. One of our core tenants of Elmhurst University's mission is service and be connected to our community. So we look for ways to help you do that as well. And for us, it really is all about real-world experience. Students who complete a pre-professional internship experience and our school is 83%. So we do try and get you connected to an internship that is built into our academic programs, which is really important as an F1 international student if you are an F1 visa holder because you have limited work opportunities. So we find ways to help you do that. So you can get the authorization and be able to get out there in the field and get that practical experience. And because of that, we've had 2,000 plus internships for our students and pre-professional experiences. Big companies like NBC TV, Morgan Stanley, the Congress of the United States, City of Chicago, hospitals, House of Blues, one of our biggest music venues and Merrill Lynch. So a lot of really great companies. And that's because of the connections we have as faculty and staff. And then adventure awaits.  So here's the countries that we've sent people through, some of them. We've sent to about 68 countries. I'm sure that's higher by now, but we do have the short and long-term experiences I mentioned before. Places like Spain, England, Italy, Jamaica, Tanzania, Germany, Argentina, Antarctica, Ireland, Australia and anywhere else. The world is your oyster here. We also not only do we have developed programs, but we also, if you're interested in going somewhere, we find a way to make that work for you. So you can always talk to our director of study way and she'll help you with that. And then just in general, there's a lot of really cool ways to connect to an alumnus. You can always try something new. That's the benefit of college or university. You have an academic major, you have a path, but you have a lot more to you than what you are going to do as a profession.  So we do have student organizations, teams and clubs, about a hundred. And we do have in terms of sports, we are division three for NCAA and we have 20 teams. Our basketball team is actually in the final four for our division right now, which is a pretty big deal. That's the first time in our history. So right now it's a period of athletic celebration. We also have a lot of service projects, 2000 a year, typically a little bit different with COVID. We have eight fraternity societies if you wanna get involved and have that leadership opportunity. And we have about 400 students that participate in that Greek life. That's another great connection. And then we have a Blue Jay first program for our first generation college students. Students that their family has never gone to college before university need a little bit more support in terms of figuring out how to navigate it. And we're here to help you do that. We are a first generation, about half university. We are becoming a Hispanic serving institution as well. So that's something to know too. So we have those support services for you. So you can immerse yourself here in our campus life. We do have housing dormitories for you on campus and about a thousand students live on campus which creates a really good community for you, especially as an international student coming from abroad. It's important for you to be on campus and have that experience. I've worked in housing dormitories before. So I'm always happy to talk about that experience and get you plugged into it. It is optional, but primarily our first year students do live on campus just because it's easier, makes more sense, you get better connection. But then we do have apartments right on the periphery of campus right on the outside and all around us. So if you do want to live off campus, you are able to do so. And we do have public transportation that takes leave to Elmhurst pretty easily. We also have 12 houses and apartment buildings. So if you're looking for more of that independent style living, you can get that as well in addition to the six residence halls or dormitories as most people know them. So a little bit of our mission. Now we talked about Elmhurst. We do have early action type deadlines. We're a little bit past that at this point. But that's okay, we have rolling admission. So you can apply and get admitted at any point. The key thing there is that we want to be able to get you admitted at a good time to be able to start the I-20 process. You need to be I-20 to be tied to the school and to get your visa, if you need an F1 visa to come here. Right now there have been delays with visa. That's based on everything happening in the world. So it's important to move a little bit quickly, but I'm happy to help walk you through that and look at your application. As soon as you have it in, we get it reviewed. If you're missing anything, I would let you know so that we can get your application submitted and complete, get you admitted as quickly as possible so that I can work with you to create the I-20. And then you can get your visa interview, which we talk about tips, tricks, things for the visa interview to help you as well. We do require obviously the application. We look for high school transcripts and we do evaluate the high school transcripts in-house. You don't have to worry about getting those evaluated. And then you can either submit an SAT or ACT if you've taken that. If not, that's okay. You can choose to be test optional right in an essay. We have been test optional for fall 2022 and we're gonna continue that in the future. So you do have the option of doing an essay if you have not taken the SAT or ACT or if tests aren't your thing. Sometimes that's the case. So you do have options. You can also submit letters of recommendation if you want. And we also look at dual credit and AP. So if you have courses that you've taken that you think might help enhance your education, we can look at those as well. For international students, we also do look at your English proficiency. So that's something that will require like TOEFL, ILTS, Duolingo. If you have taken the SAT or ACT, the English sections or reading writing sections, we can look at those as well. So that's something extra to look at, something that we need to. You can ignore the early action because they're past that, that's okay. Because again, we are rolling admission. So something to look at, depending on when you're applying, if you're applying for this year, that's awesome. We have plenty of scholarship for you if you're applying for a future year. We have scholarship competitions that you can participate in that could give you free housing, free room and more, or an extra scholarship in general. A little bit about scholarships before I start my video. We do have a pretty good competitive scholarship package for international students. As a first year student, you'd be looking at between $21,000 and $25,000 off the bat just based on admission, $20,000 just for being a first year international student. And then $1,000 to $5,000 depending on your academic merit. If you start somewhere else in other college or university, we flip it to have the academic merit be about $8,000 and $20,000. And then the international student grant just for coming here as an international student is $5,000. So again, you could get up to $25,000 in scholarships just based on admission alone. And then after that, if you need a little bit more, we do have other scholarships you can apply for as well that could add about $5,000 to $6,000 depending on what you're looking at. So with that, I'm going to play a video called your Elmhurst experience. I really think that this video captures kind of what you can expect coming Elmhurst. So I hope you enjoy it. Are you ready for one of life's greatest adventures? You'll find one at Elmhurst University. The Elmhurst experience is getting to know each other.   The best part is, we're here to guide you through it all. I knew as soon as I stepped on Elmhurst campus that this was going to be my home for the next two years. It sounds so cheesy, but it's so true, you just know. As you move through the application process, you'll become best friends with your advisors. They will help you answer questions about financial aid, scholarships, campus life, and class schedules. Elmhurst will call me every week about the financial aspect of it and about helping me see which credits we transfer over. Just believe what you see because the people really care about you here. The college search is all about finding the right fit. And by the time you arrive on campus, we're confident you will feel like one of us. When I was looking at other colleges, it just didn't feel like people cared and wanted you there the same way that when you came to Elmhurst, they just really wanted you to be there and to learn and grow. And I felt like I would be comfortable coming here. The Elmhurst experience is joining our Blue Jay family for life. Our Blue Jay family welcomes you with open arms. This is a place where you belong and are comfortable to be yourself.  When you get here, the fun begins. Orientation and move-in days are campus-wide celebrations. Classes start and you'll begin to form your Elmhurst network right away. The goal of first-year seminar is to make the transition from high school to college as smooth as possible. It's an instantaneous way to have a niche at Elmhurst.  Anything you need, we're here to help because that's what family does. I could just tell that there was that sense of community and it just feels so natural and like a home. Obviously the teachers and the professors and everything that we have here for education is amazing, but it's how I feel here that makes it even better. The Elmhurst experience is learning from the best. The academic programs of Elmhurst make the country's best of lists every year. Choose from 70 majors and 15 pre-professional programs or challenge yourself intellectually in our honors program. The honors program helped me understand real-life impacts of what I was learning in the classroom by actually taking me there. Another important opportunity for our students is to be able to do research and then be able to present their research at national conferences. We believe that relationships between our students and our faculty and staff is at the core of the experience here. We place a great emphasis on being partners in our students' success stories and in their educational experience and we feel that that's the best way to experience education and to be transformed is to feel like you're on this path but you're not alone. You can trust us to prepare you for relevant, emerging careers in our evolving world. One of the other benefits of an interdisciplinary degree is that you have access to the faculty and to the departments across the campus. So rather than being just in one primary department, suddenly you have faculty and mentors from art and from English and from computer science. The Elmhurst experience is exploring your passions outside the classroom. Elmhurst is more than a place to get a great education. It's where you can have a great time. Explore more than 100 student activities, clubs and organizations. So I've been involved in lots of student groups on campus. It's a really fun way to like meet people but also to give back. Check out a game or two. With 20 NCAA Division III teams, there's plenty to choose from. I ran at Elmhurst during that time I studied abroad in seven different countries. I think that really speaks to the Elmhurst experience. There are ways to be involved on campus. There's ways to still compete at a high level but I was still able to do some things because I went to a place like Elmhurst that supported me to go and see the world and do other cool things as well. The Elmhurst experience is preparing for the future. We believe that a strong liberal arts foundation enhanced by professional preparation will best educate our students as citizens and leaders. Our campus resources help you to be the best student you can be and land the best career opportunity in your chosen field. Your time with us is designed to prepare you for a rewarding life after graduation. When students go on to graduate and go on to live amazing lives and do things personally and professionally, their fingerprints are still all over this institution. We know your Elmhurst experience will be iconic because it's customized for you and by you. So the question is, what will your Elmhurst experience be? So that's a fun video to see. Hopefully it shows you the green year of Elmhurst where I have the snow in my background. And it is a beautiful campus. Like I said, I grad your fellowhurst. It's in my DNA now. So that's why I'm always happy to welcome people into the family. You also saw our president quite a bit in there. You will never interact with the university president more than you will at Elmhurst. He is always around. He loves to talk to students, especially international students. We hosted internet, we host Thanksgiving every year at his house. So that's a big American holiday. He loves to host the students. He takes international students on camping trips to Michigan. So he is very invested. He will get to know you. He had his, I think daughter help Maru stitches because she's a doctor for international students. So he's very invested. So that goes from the top all the way down because of that, because of his investment and interest and dedication to you all. That's why we have people like myself and other people that are really dedicated to you. So hopefully that shows you a little bit about Elmhurst. You can apply for free on our website. We also are on the Common App. So if you're applying on the Common App, we are there as well. The application looks a little bit different. Honestly, our application, our website is simpler than the Common App. But if you're already doing the Common App, that's okay. Click Elmhurst, send it to us too. I'll get that as well and I'll contact you and let you know what we need, what we're missing. You can reach out to me anytime. There's my phone number. There is my email. Please feel free to contact me. I am pretty prompt in my responses and I'm always happy to work with you. So I think we finished the presentation part a little early. So we have time for questions. So I am happy to welcome any questions, anything you'd like to talk about. I think that you're thinking about, it's on your mind.  I'm open to whoever. I have one question. I understand that NCAA Division III universities doesn't offer scholarships based on, athletic scholarships. I want to ask if, do you offer some kind of financial help to the athletic teams involving them based in the athletic performance? Yeah, so that's a good question. So you're correct. So Division III, there's a bunch of, there's different divisions for athletics, Division I, II and III, we are D3, which means we cannot offer athletic scholarships that also limits what we can do specifically for athletes. But that's why we, in terms of how we formulate our financial aid package and our, not financial aid, but our scholarship package for international students, we try and give more upfront rather than having to apply for a lot of different things, which is why we give about 20 to 25,000 and we do have those scholarships that could add about 5,000. So standard, we see a lot of students get up to about $30,000 in scholarships, just any student. And then the benefit of being an athlete at a Division III school is you're not playing necessarily for the Division I, trying to go pro right from college, maybe. And there is that chance, but there's that balance of the education and the student experience with that athletic experience. So that's another benefit. So in terms of your direct question about if we can offer anything specifically for athletes, we don't, and many Division III schools can't just by nature of the rules, but in terms of our scholarship package to begin with, that's why we do that. We do that not only because of athletics, but also because we know international students can't get financially cannot do fast but the government funding. So we try and give you as much as possible to take away nearly half, if not more than half, depending on what scholarships you add on after admission as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Now it's my turn. Yeah. I would like to know a little bit more about your honors programs. I don't know, is there more pressure involved and added value, a burden? Yeah, that's a great question. So I mean, in terms of the pressure, not really no. I mean, you will have to maintain a slightly higher GPA, but the, but in terms of like pressure, you don't, it's kind of like, you can do what you want in the community. You don't have to do a lot of extra things because of it, you just have access. It's like when you, when you're part of a streaming service, you can get the higher access club and get better streaming, streaming all over your house, you have to be in this one place. With the honors program, you get access to additional support to further academics, additional speakers, additional opportunities, different study away programs, study away opportunities. There's an honors community in our dormitories so that you are living together and you get programming based on that. You get seminar courses that you have access to that are specific to your major. You get different level of pre-professional level research. So there's a lot of different benefits that you can get because of it. So hopefully that helps you a little bit in terms of that. Cause, and what we look at is based on your application, once you're admitted, it will be clear if your honors eligible specifically. And honors eligible means that you have certain scores, you have a GPA of 3.5 or above. It has included SAT or ACT before, but for international students that, that's way because you don't necessarily have to have it. So if you have a 3.5 GPA or above, you will be eligible and then you'll be contacted to ask if you want to be part of the community and part of the program. Cause you don't have to. You can opt out if you don't want to do that at all. There is an integrated curriculum requirement, but the requirement means that you have the option to do it. And if you do the requirement, that program, you get a little bit extra, you get an honors castle, you get a certificate, you get a little bit more because of it. But if you don't do it, there's no harm, no foul. It's just a matter of you have those opportunities unlocked for you. A building on that, you see, does it cost more? Do you have access to extra scholarships? So the honors program itself does not cost more. The building, so the dormitories are priced a little bit differently depending on air condition or not. And the plus is that the building that honors community is in is one of the air conditioned buildings. So we do have a few air conditioned, we have a few non air conditioned. And depending your preference, you might prefer one or the other, but the air conditioned does that a few hundred dollars. But that's where the price differential is. In terms of scholarships, it's not really extra scholarships based on the honors program, because really the benefit there is that you're getting the extra stuff already. So it doesn't necessarily add anything, but there are other scholarships that are academic based or like talent based or like music, theater, different ways to get scholarships based on that. But there's no other like extra costs outside of the AC for the building, for the program. Thank you, that's great. You found sorts of my questions. Awesome. Anybody else? I know you were focusing a little more on the rolling and mission date, but I know a couple of people here will be applying at the end of the year. Do you anticipate that November 1st continuing to be your early action date? Yes, yeah. So if you are gonna apply at the end of the year, if you're gonna apply towards the beginning next year for either spring 2023, I have to get my dates correct in my head or the following fall, you can do that early action. And early action is really, it adds a $500 scholarship. So it's a little bit, not a whole lot, but it's just enough to kind of make it beneficial to you to do so. But it's not binding. It's just a matter of, you've got the early action, you've got the notification, you've got, you know that you've been admitted. And then it's up to you if you want to come. And I do stay engaged with you. I will contact you, reach out to you, see how you're doing to see if you have questions. As soon as it makes sense, we start working in the I-20 process so that you have that in plenty of time to get your visa. So the early action does have that benefit maybe getting all that stuff started early as well. So that will be there every year. Okay, great. And are you planning on keeping the same test optional policy by using the essay in lieu of a test result if someone is applying next year? Yes, next year and into the future as far as we know. Because while it's, we went test optional a little bit before COVID because many colleges and universities went test optional because of COVID because it became even harder to get the ACT test. A lot of them were the early SAT, a lot of them were being canceled, we scheduled, not accessible. So we had already gone test optional just because it was more holistic. We got to see a little bit more for the student and kind of reach students that didn't have access to the test or just more great test takers. So we've seen the benefit that will extend past COVID, past when everything clears up and it's, so we are gonna keep it because it's just a better option for our students. Personally, as a psychologist, I think that's great. Thank you for your affirmation. Any other questions? And regarding the English test, do you accept IELTS, SOPL, Duolingo? Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah, we accept that. And let me, I'm actually, I'll share my screen for the proficiency section. Okay, perfect. One second. Can you now see the website? Yeah. Okay, cool. So here are our English proficiency requirements. So we do, like I said, we can do the ACT or SAT if you've taken it. We look at the scores for the appropriate sections. But you can see we have the TOEFL, 79 for the standard one, the IBT. IELTS is 6.5 composite and Duolingo is 100. What we also look at is additional proficiency options, but in terms of these scores, if a student is close, so like with Duolingo, if it's like a 90 or 95 out of 100, or if TOEFL, it's if it's like a 75, 74, or else it's like a 6.0, then we can also look at doing a interview, proficiency interview, because close enough so that I can meet with the student virtually, me and Zoom, collect an essay, if you've already done the test option essay, great. And then we can do proficiency that way. So there's options so that you don't necessarily have to retake the test, which is nice. And then we also have additional proficiency options depending on background. If there has been college English coursework that could count for proficiency. If students are citizens in a high school in specific countries, that could work too. But also like American international schools, if a student has studied there and has passing grades in English, they could get proficiency wave that way. So there's a lot of different options that help. And if a student never has a question, they can reach out to me and I'm happy to talk them through them options. Thanks, Donnie. Yeah, thank you. That's great. What's the secret to the Midwest kindness? I still can't figure it out. It's probably pizza, lots of pizza, it keeps you warm and happy. I don't know, that's a great question. I think it's just every, as everybody knows, every culture, every area has a different approach. But I think in general, good people know to be good people. We all know that there's a way to treat other people, a way to respect other people. And really, as long as you're looking out for each other and that you were seeking the best opportunity for other people, that's the best approach. So is that Midwestern? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it extends everywhere. Everywhere I go, everywhere I talk to, people are pretty approachable. Are we New York? No. There are differences. I think it's just, we have just the right pace of lifestyle probably too. So you have the city, so you have that quick pace, but we're not a huge city. But you also have the Midwest, you have the farms, the grains, the livestock, kind of that slower pace that you have the suburbs in between. I think that helps Andrew, I think that helps. But again, pizza, if you like pizza, that makes you happy. Happy people, it's definitely nice to people. Definitely put me in a good mood before I left town, getting to Gino's before I got on it. Oh, Gino's, yeah. Yeah. I brought it up, because honestly, I do genuinely feel that when I was on campus visiting with you guys and also just walking around and talking to some other people that I saw here and there in the halls. And it's something that was transmitted well in the video also, and it's very real. I think it is something that is different in some of these places that we don't see everywhere is that same sort of a welcoming attitude and spirit and that genuine personal interest in people is something that I noticed at Alharvst. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think, I mean, you're right. Like in general, the Midwest specifically suburbs and parts of the city and like different places tends to be pretty welcoming. But in terms of our campus, I'm sure you'll find places just as welcoming but nowhere more welcoming. That's just built in our DNA as blue jays and Alharvst. Everyone will talk to you. We're small enough where you will get to know pretty much everyone on campus. You'll see people that you see every day. You'll get to know them. People are approachable. People like to help you. And again, that's kind of top down from our president being everywhere at once and talking to everybody and just sitting down at a random table of students at lunch just to check in and say hi down to someone like myself just being there for you and reaching out and wanting to really get to know you and be invested in who you are and what you're doing. Because I mean, a lot of schools will see what academic major you want and tell you're admitted or not. And then kind of you're off to the races and good luck. But here we will walk you through it and not just look at your major but look at who you are as a person, what you want to do in life and where you want to go and talk to you about how you can get there and how you can be engaged in that life that you want in the world in general. So that's something I'm really proud of for being a blue jay and being an Alharvst. And now being able to give that to other students. So hopefully, you know, students here come join us and kind of see that firsthand and get that experience. Yeah, that's really great to hear, especially given the fact that kids are like traveling from Peru and entering and doing this new like phase of their lives. So it's really nice to hear that there's people for them. Yeah, I do a lot in the international field. I always tell people, it takes a lot of bravery to be an international student. It takes a lot to say, I'm gonna leave my country where I've been my whole life and go experience something new while trying to get an education and experience new culture and get to know people. That is to me, one of the hardest things someone could choose to do. So we need to be there to meet everybody that's doing that and be there and be supportive. So that's why I'm in this field and that's why I'm at Alhours because that's what we do. Happy that we can provide that for you all. Couldn't agree more. Yes. If there's no other questions here then, I think, unless there's anything else, Tony, that you'd like to add or comment on?  Any questions during application, even if you're not sure you wanna apply and you just wanna find out more or you just wanna talk, I'm really interested in comic books, comic book stuff. I don't know, Andrew, if I show you my office, but if you wanna talk about that, I, yeah, come on by sending an email, ask a Zoom meeting. I'm happy to meet with you and just get to know you and talk to you about who you are and what you wanna do and if you wanna be at Alhours, what that looks like for you. Great. Well, yeah, we'll be looking forward to it. Thanks again for taking the time to talk to us today, Tony. I really appreciate it, honestly. And thanks again for having me at the visit there and it was a real pleasure for me getting to know Alhours and hopefully for everybody else here tonight too. So yeah, you've got his contact information there in the chat. If you wanna grab that email and hang onto it and elmhurst.edu is where you can also go to find out more information about Elmhurst University. So thanks again, Tony. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Tony. Thank you for the time. Thank you. And that'll be it for tonight. That's our last meeting of the fair. We'll see you tomorrow. Looking forward to having you guys back tomorrow. We've got Navarra and Purdue. So make sure that you are here again. We're starting at 6 p.m. with the University of Navarra and then we will be having Purdue at 7. So just like we did today, you're gonna have a chance to check it out. Hope you're here. I'll see you tomorrow.