Master of Business Administration (MBA) - Virtual Information Session

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We did everyone just a moment to test their speakers and make sure that you can hear us and we'll get started in just a second.

If you're testing your speakers, I'll talk for just a second so you can adjust your volume accordingly. For those of you who are watching this pre recording, I apologize, we'll get started in just a second.

All right. It looks like we have everyone in who's joining us live, so we'll go ahead and get started. Hello, everyone. My name is Jennifer Redwinski, and I am the Associate Director for Graduate Admissions here at Stockton University. And I'm really happy to be joined by my colleague, Doctor Keith Diner, who is going to, who is the program chair for our MBA program. He'll be giving you a fantastic overview of this program. And so before we kick off and I turn things over to him, I just want to give you a couple housekeeping items.

First, I just want to share that there is a chat feature. We can't see you and we can't hear you. And if you're watching this recorded, we definitely cannot see or hear you. So know that if you're watching it live, you can use the chat. If you are joining us through the recording, we will give you contact information at the end so you can send your questions to us. But again, if you're live, save your questions towards the end because more than likely we will get to your question as we go through the presentation today. But again, that chat is there if you need us or have any questions as we go through.

I'm also joined by my colleague Matt Shaw, who is part of the graduate admissions team. So he'll be helping with any questions that we may have. And so without further ado, Keith, I'm going to turn things over to you.

All right. Thank you, Jennifer, and welcome everyone. Welcome to the Stockton University MBA program Virtual Information session. We're very excited to be here with you today to share a little bit about our program and everything it has to offer. So we'll start with kind of the big move. One of the most exciting things with the NBA program really in the last several years is that in September of 2020, I missed the the COVID-19 pandemic we did officially.

Move all of our live MBA classes to the Atlantic City campus.

So this point in time, we were offering all of our classes either in an online format or live in person in Atlantic City, just steps from the beach and the boardwalk. I I love walking around down there. I love just walking outside of the campus and walking across the street and having a nice walk on the beach or the boardwalk classes. They typically meet one night a week, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM on a Monday, a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. And a lot of students, they like to supplement a live class or two with an online course, which gives a little bit more flexibility throughout the week. So you're not.

In the classroom every night for two hours and instead maybe a night or two a week and maybe a little bit on online. So. So those are big exciting aspect of the MBA program. Stockton University is growing down in Atlantic City. We have more and more students living down there now and taking classes in the Atlantic City campus.

So moving on then to the curriculum and to the requirements for the MBA program. So there there is a Common Core.

Of eight courses and the Common Core applies to our general MBA as well as all of our concentrations. And I'll talk about those in a moment. But but the Common Core is up here on the slide. You can see there are eight classes including the capstone. Each of the classes is 3 credit hours each. And then we also have in addition to these eight core classes of 4 electives.

Also three credit hours each for a total of a 36 credit hour MBA program. We have Accounting, Management, Marketing, Finance, Business decision Analysis, Info systems and technologies. Employment law and ethics and strategy and policy are are capstone. So pretty much every student coming into the MBA program will take these eight courses. There's very limited exceptions for a student who has 21 or more credit hours as an undergraduate.

And accounting, marketing or finance, in which case they would be exempt from taking the accounting, marketing or finance course in the MBA program and instead they would take an additional elective. But most of our students take these eight core classes and are required to do so throughout the program. The only one with the prerequisite that you really need to think about in advance is the business strategy and policy, the Capstone course. There are these four courses that you're required to take. They're actually the ones on.

From my perspective on the left side of the screen, the accounting, management, marketing and finance are prerequisites to the business strategy and policy course. So we usually recommend that students coming into the MBA program knockout those four core courses pretty early in the program. So when they get to the end and they get to the capstone, there's there's no confusion, there's no prerequisite issues, there's no problems and he's able to seamlessly progress through the program. So in addition to those eight courses.

There are 4 electives and we offer electives in a variety of areas, including business analytics, financial, forensic investigations, marketing, finance, hospital hospitality, tourism and event management. And we're working on a concentration of global sustainability. And we're hoping to soon roll out some additional electives and sustainability in the very near future.

So if you're in the general MBA and and a lot of our students are, you can pick from any of the electives.

For the electives and you fulfilled your general MBA elective requirements. If you opt to take a concentration and to focus your studies in a particular subject area like business analytics, marketing, finance etcetera.

Then you take three of your 4 electives in that concentration area, and I'll show you some examples of some electives in just a second.

But, but keep in mind that if you do want to concentrate, you want to decide pretty early how you can apply at this point in time through our slate system for admission into the concentration. Or you can switch into a concentration once you're in the general MBA program. You can also switch your concentration if you'd like to once you're in the MBA program. But you typically want to decide on a concentration pretty early.

Because you want to focus those, those 3 electives in your concentration area. So. So again, we're pretty excited about rolling out what we hope will be next year, a global sustainability concentration. If not, definitely, we're, we're definitely shooting for next year, but we're hoping for at a minimum, maybe at the latest, the year after and we'll be rolling out these new courses in sustainability as well. But in the meantime, we do have these five concentrations which we can select from in addition to the general MBA program.

So to look at some of the MBA program electives, these are just examples and there there are other ones and not all of these are offered every year, but just to give you an idea of some of the electives that we have and the different concentration areas, we have business analytics, we have corporate fraud, we have financial statement analysis, research methods for marketing, hospitality and tourism research methods. If you look through the different elective offerings on this slide, you can see that in in pretty much every concentration.

We have several different electives that that we offer regularly throughout the year. We try to offer at least three electives in each concentration each year, one in the fall, one in the spring, one in the summer. So you have kind of a good variety of classes to choose from whether you're in the general MBA or you're in the concentration. And again, the list on this slide is just for example purposes, but we do have a lot of electives that we regularly offer and.

You can take a look at this year's and this semesters and the Spring semesters offerings by going into the Stockton system and you're searching for the classes right now.

So in addition to our kind of local Atlantic City classes and our online programs, I do want to take a moment to talk about some global opportunities at Stockton's MBA program.

So we have a contract MOU with NCU University in Taiwan. This allows you to spend a semester taking MBA classes in Taiwan, and they also are intending to send some of their students from Taiwan over here where you can actually actually go study abroad. There's some limited funding available for this as well if you're interested.

To go over and to spend a semester in Taiwan, it sounds like a pretty amazing opportunity. We also occasionally have a faculty LED program which is a short visit to another country that typically follows a class that's offered here at Stockton in person. So about a year ago we had a HTMS class that that went to France and they had the opportunity after studying all about French culture and French hospitality and tourism they went and they they spent some time over in France and.

Did the country visited what they were learning about? And then we also have a great Office of Global Engagement that provides A variety of different study abroad programs which you can also engage with them just lots of different places all over the world that you could go to well MBA student here at Stockton.

All right. So in addition to having some opportunities for global study there, there is a little bit of funding available for Stockton's MBA. Like most professional MBA type programs, there's not an enormous amount of funding available. But we do have graduate assistantships which are awarded on a competitive basis each semester. We do have graduate student scholarships, which are also available on a competitive basis. And for qualifying students, of course there are there are student loans available.

As well, we're always working on finding additional sources of funding, but at this point in time, these are the major funding sources that we have for MBA students. So at this point in time, I'm going to hand the the presentation back over to my colleague Jennifer, who's going to talk a little bit about the MBA admission process and and how to apply.

All right. Can you hear me OK?

All right. I'm going to dive in and share a little bit more. So one of the most frequently asked questions that we receive when folks are applying about the application process are what are the prerequisites. So I want to start with that really quickly and then we'll dive into the requirements for the application itself. So first, the undergraduate prerequisite courses are listed on our website and include financial accounting, macroeconomics or microeconomics.

Statistics. Excuse me? Operations management.

And Introduction to Management. There are opportunities that if you did not take these courses at an undergraduate level that you can do so through things like Coursera and that information is on our website. So I would encourage you to take a look at that if you are still in need of those prerequisites. You don't have to have them completed upon the time of your application being submitted, but you do need to know that they are in progress and they do need to be completed before you start the program. And you would need to send us updated information stating that those courses have been completed and then we can share that information if you need more details on that.

So you can see there, that's the list on that first checkbox. The next thing is an minimum GPA requirement of a three-point O. If you do not have that minimum GPA requirement, the GRE or the GMAT is required and we will need that upon your submission of your application. Note that the GRE and GMAT does take a little bit of time to schedule and to study for and so you want to make sure you allot for time for that if you are considering applying to the program because again that will be a requirement in your application packet.

The next component that I wanted to share with you is a couple of checklist items that you'll need to have as well.

You'll be required to do an essay and that essay will be shown when you'll be prompted to do the essay. Once you have started your application and done your application fee or submitted your fee waiver, you'll need 3 current letters of recommendation and those will get done electronically. So you'll only need to have your recommenders e-mail address. But what we suggest is that you reach out to those recommenders ahead of time before submitting their e-mail address so that they know that it's coming.

These should be individuals who can speak to your academic success so or folks that yeah if you have business background or experience can speak to that and and so again somebody that can really speak to how you will succeed in Graduate School.

The next thing that you will need to share with us is also a copy of your resume or your CV that will be uploaded in a PDF format. And all of that will be done, as Doctor Diner said, in our slate application system.

If you have attended Stockton and have graduated within the last year or will be graduating, it does also allow you to maybe apply as a direct entry applicant. The requirements for that is that you must have been a business student undergrad and have a number of.

Prerequisites done through Stockton specifically and also have a 3.5 GPA, so that may be something you would want to look into as well if you're a Stockton student. For those of you who are international applicants, I do want to highlight that there are a few different pieces that would be needed as an international applicant, and those can be found on our Graduate Missions, International Graduate Student tab, but in particular the deadline for the application process is a little bit different and.

The transcript process is also different as well.

So one of the pieces you'll need to send to us, whether you're a domestic student or international, is a copy of your official transcript. If you did not attend Stockton, we can assist you. If you are a Stockton student, however, we do need to receive transcripts from all institutions. So if you received an associate's degree or have transfer credits from another institution, or maybe you completed another master's degree already, we'll need all of those transcripts officially sent to us from those institutions.

And the instructions to do so are on our web, but the easiest way is to have them e-mail to grad school at stockton.edu. Sending them electronically is the fastest and the most efficient way, but just make sure they get sent to grad school at stockton.edu and that comes directly to us so that we can load those for you.

You'll also notice on our website that there is an Apply button and so that will take you straight to the application page. Again, if you are a stocked student who is applying for the Direct Entry application, please make sure you meet the requirements 1st and you can click on that same button and you'll see both of those links on that page.

Umm. If you have further questions about the application process itself, please don't hesitate to reach out and we can assist you with that. If you're having any difficulties or have any questions in doing loading your materials, we're always here to to help. And again, you can use the same e-mail address of as the transcripts get sent to, which is grad school at stockton.edu.

So the next component that we would want to share with you too and Keith and I can kind of tag team on this one as well is telling you a little bit more of one of the sister programs for the MBA program, which is the MBA and healthcare administration and leadership. So Keith, do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Sure, Jen, I'll, I'll take that on for sure. So again, in the middle of the pandemic in September 2020, we launched a new healthcare administration and leadership MBA program and this program it's, it's unique.

And it's different than the Journal MBA because it's set up as more of an executive hybrid model where the students have the opportunity to come in on a Saturday and usually it's only about four Saturdays or so each semester with with a significant amount of online delivery in addition to those kind of for Saturday or so meetings each semester.

So that you know, a lot of the students in that program are healthcare professionals or have just come out of healthcare sciences undergrad programs and so they have pretty busy schedules. And so if you're looking for a program which focuses on a combination of business and Health Science, this is a great option for you. And again the, the setup and the way that it's delivered is more of an executive style and it's you don't have the evening classes on Monday through Thursday like you would with their general MBA or concentrations.

Also meets in Atlantic City and a great, great group of faculty both Health Sciences faculty teaching at business faculty and we even in that program we have some some local professionals who come in and teach in our program as well from some of the kind of local healthcare facilities. So I don't think that presentation on the NBA would be complete without at least a mention of our our MBA Hal program as we call it the MBA and healthcare administration of leadership. Jim, did you have other comments on that program?

Nope, I think you've covered it all. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And I also just want to mention for our general MBN or concentrations, we are almost exclusively staffed by full-time tenure faculty or tenure track faculty. We have the occasional outlier where sometimes we, we have to add a class at the last minute or or one of our professors goes out on leave or we'll have a, you know, an adjunct faculty teaching the program. But one of the nice things is that you, you really get dedicated faculty who are working with you with small class sizes where most of our classes have only between 20 and 25 students.

In them. So you get to know your professors, you get to work closely with your professors and we try to build the community. And what I hear from a lot of students is when you know, they tell me why they chose to stop an MBA over other NBA programs, it's because we really are the local connection there. In South Jersey, you're able to come in, you're able to meet other working professionals or students and the South Jersey region and really start building a network in this area. Whereas if you do like an online program out of state, you might build a network, but they're not local and and you don't build that community that face to FaceTime that you get in the classroom like you do with us.

So it really is like a fantastic program.

Students, A great variety of students. Some haven't come back to school many years later, some straight out of undergrad. It's a good mix, good variety. And with that, Jen, I guess we'll open it up to questions if we have any questions from the participants.

Yep. If you have questions please feel free to drop those in the chat and and while you're typing those, I just want to add Keith, thank you for for adding that component about the faculty and then the community building. I actually had a student e-mail me just this morning and they said what about Stockton's programs is unique. What is what is stand out that I should know about about your programs that I should come to Stockton. And without question I I didn't hesitate to to type back to her and say it's our faculty you know the faculty and all of our programs and especially this one the NRMB health program and there are exceptions to care.

They're present, they're accessible.

You know, I can. I can keep you one of the fastest responders to emails I've ever met. I'm forever grateful for that. And I'm sure you do the same with your students. And so having that attention, having someone who's there to listen to, ask questions to, you know, that's something that other programs probably don't have. And so if you're really looking for that opportunity to connect with amazing faculty and to have that one-on-one attention, this is the type of program you would want to look at. So I just want to reiterate that.

Call.

Channel, just to add on to what you're saying is every MBA students in their first semester, once you're officially in the program, you're assigned A preceptor which is an academic advisor for the MBA program and and one of the really unique aspects of Stockton is twice a semester we actually cancel classes the particularly the undergrad classes.

To to have time to meet with your preceptor, to meet with your academic advisor and get someone on one coaching and kind of.

Not just career advice, but also curriculum advice and kind of just checking in to see how you're doing. So I talked to easily 50 MBA students during precepting week. Not not everyone comes to the meetings, not everyone signs up for them, but very, very easy to have those conversations in stock to make sure that we have time for it as well.

So we do have a question from our audience. Thank you. It says I see four face to face classes, 2 synchronous and eight asynchronous classes for the Spring. Is this a normal mix?

Hey, Mark, that's a great question. So in the in the spring and in the fall, we will usually have a mix of face to face and online courses.

The the kind of exact proportions of each are very slightly, it's usually actually a little bit closer to 5050 than kind of your the data that you're putting in in the post represents. But sometimes we do have a semester where we have a little bit more online or sometimes we have a semester we have a little bit more face to face.

In the summers at this point in time just because student demand and in the past when we've tried to run face to face classes in the summer, there just hasn't been a lot of demand. So right now in the summers we offer exclusively online classes in the MBA program about fall and spring. You get a mix of online and face to face classes. So there's not really a normal mix per SE, but but you can say in most semesters is typically about half and half.

Great, Mark, thank you so much for your question.

I don't see any additional questions coming through. So I'm going to take that as a sign that it's okay to kind of wrap up here. For those of you who are watching this virtually and watching the recording, Please note our contact information here so you will notice.

Our e-mail address or phone number and our website and so thank you for for taking the time out. We have one more question. When is the deadline to apply for fall 2024? So that's a great question.

So the deadline for summer is, well, let's start with go back. Spring is December 1st, summer is March 15th, and the fall is July 1st. So you'll want to get your materials in as soon as possible. But applications are open for both the spring and the fall. Summer applications will open shortly. So that's a really wonderful question.

Yeah.

Another question is, is there an advantage of attending the December orientation versus the January orientation? Yes.

100% If you have the opportunity, you've been accepted, and you are invited to the December orientation, you will get to choose your classes sooner. So we encourage you that if you have already been admitted to, go ahead and to apply or to register for the December orientation, because you'll get a chance to to have more opportunities for course work.

Yeah I'll mention as well just a dovetail on what Jen said that the deadlines you provided they are priority deadlines. So if you do get it get in your application by those deadlines you do get your application considered much quicker if if you missed the deadline for whatever reason or you know one of your letters recommendation is is not in. We do our best to review applications as long as we still have space in classes for for that next semester. I wish sometimes we do sometimes we don't. It just kind of depends on you know how many how many students are rolled for each semester how many classes we have offered but we do do our best if if you do miss that deadline to.

Your application if we can, if we can get you into the classes.

Alright. So it looks like Jen, we do have another question on on internships and do you want me to handle this one?

Sure. And and just Julio, we did cover this a little bit in the beginning of the presentation. So full details are on the web, but but Keith, please feel free to go ahead.

Yeah, absolutely. So in in the general MBA program or any of the concentrations you can complete an internship. The the internship is treated as general MBA elective.

Now, in order for it to count as an NBA elective, you have to, you do have to jump through some hoops and you do have to kind of get that internship approved in advance as an MBA elective and complete paperwork. And there has to be.

An agreement between Stockton University and the employer there, all these, all this paperwork we have right now, we have Donna Howard, who handles all of those things.

And she's great resource and students emailing me about internships. I refer them over to Donna and she helps him get all the paperwork together.

But for assistance, we have a great career development office. We have a business representative in the career development office who regularly meets with students and regularly refer students out to her.

To, you know, to help with internship placement as well as career placement. So yeah, we do have assistance and trying to find internships. Again, not all of them count as an elective in the MBA program, but some of them do in the event that you're able to kind of get that approved and all that paperwork done in advance or if it's with one of our kind of regular employers that offers internships.

So and.

I see a comment from you about assistantships as well.

My apologies. When I said that we covered it earlier, I met assistantships, not internships. And so I'm what I'm doing right now too is I am dropping some links into the chat for everyone. So there's a few things that I think are really, really helpful. The first link that I've dropped in there is just the overall MBA website and there's a number of tabs on that website that will kind of help you with the process. So we've got the curriculum that we reviewed, the learning goals for the program overall, the admission criteria that we covered and then the deadlines. The second link is the overall financial information for the program, so.

Whether you're in state, out of state, it's per credit and that information is all listed there. And then the final one that I put in there is the graduate assistantships that we talked about, which are those. It is an application that you do when you submit your application for the program and those are per semester. So those are a few things I just wanted to highlight on there as well.

So, so with that being said, I think that that gets to all of our questions. I just wanted to thank you all so much for being here. If you'd like to see a copy of this recording, we will be sharing it online, but I can also e-mail it to you. It takes about a day for it to process and we can give that to you tomorrow if you want to send us an e-mail at grad school at stockton.edu. So Doctor Diner, thank you so much for taking the time to share your words of wisdom about your program and all the great aspects of it. And thank you to our participants for watching. We hope you all have a wonderful day.

Thank you Jen. Thank you everyone. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Take care everyone. Bye bye.