Master of Business Administration (MBA) - Virtual Information Session

Mm-hmm. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We're gonna give everybody just a moment to get logged in and make sure your sound is working and that you can hear us. And, uh, we'll get started in just a moment.

I can see everybody as populating in.

If you're joining us live, for those of us who are, if you are watching this pre recorded, thank you for just bearing with us for just a moment as we get our live audience in all right.

Looks like we got folks good. All right, well, welcome. My name is Jen Radwanski. I'm the Associate Director for Graduate Admissions here at Stockton University. And we thank you for taking the time to join us for this lunchtime webinar or if you're watching it pre recorded, whatever time it may be as you're watching it. We're here today to tell you a little bit more about our MBA program here at Stockton University. And I am joined by my colleague, Dr. Diener, who is the program chair for our MBA program. And so before I turn things over.

To him to tell you more about how you be can can be a part of this program. I do want to share a couple of housekeeping items. Number one, I just want to let you know there is a chat feature for those of us, for those of you joining us live that is on the right hand side of your screen. Please feel free to drop any questions you have in that chat. We would encourage you to maybe hold your questions till the end, cause more than likely we will answer those questions throughout the presentation today. But if we don't, then please ask us those questions.

If you are.

Joining us from the recording, we are going to share with both our live audience and the recorded audience our contact information. So please don't hesitate to reach out with questions after our session. And again, we'll give you that contact information. If you have questions of a more personal nature and you're joining us live, please just make sure not to drop those personal questions in the chat. We're happy to chat with you about those offline, but this is being recorded and it will be shared on our website later on for you to watch at a later date. So we wouldn't want any of those personal.

Questions in that space. So again, we're here to share with you about our wonderful MBA program. And so Doctor Diener, I'm going to turn things over to you to take it away.

Alright, thank you Chen and thank you for that kind introduction. And, and please allow me to welcome everyone as well to our, uh, spring 2025, uh, webinar, uh, virtual information session about Stockton University's MBA program. Uh, we're happy to have you here with us today or, or watching this video, uh, down the road. Umm, so I'm Keith Thiener, I'm the current chair of the MBA program here at Stockton University, uh, for the general MBA and all six concentrations. I'll tell you about that in just a few minutes.

But first, I want to introduce you a little bit to our program, where we're located, when we have classes, things like that. One of the most exciting ventures we've had with our MBA program in recent years is our move from our Galloway campus to our Atlantic City campus. Our Atlantic City campus is located right on the beach and the boardwalk, a beautiful location.

Right there on the shore, just just literally right across the street from the beach. So we have classes there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night. Each class meets.

Usually for an hour, two hours, I'm sorry, I just misspoke. Usually for two hours from about 6:30 to 8:30 PM on either a Monday night or Tuesday night, a Wednesday night or a Thursday night. Umm, live classes, of course, can be supplemented by our online offerings. Uh, so a lot of students will take a, a live course, uh, one night a week and they'll take an online course as well, uh, to allow for a little bit more flexibility in our schedule.

All right looks like we're having uh, at least one, one participant with the audio issues. Uh, but there's uh, another participant here who, uh is able to hear uh, so I'll keep going for now and Dominique hopefully uh, oh oh wonderful Looks like it's fixed. Alright, excellent Uh, so just, uh, just catch up real quick, Dominique, I was just telling uh, everyone about our move to Atlantic City, which took place officially in 2020. So we're right across the street now from the beach and the boardwalk and our.

Typically one night a week for two hours, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, 6:30 to 8:30 PM. And we also offer some online classes to supplement those live classes. So a lot of students will take one live class and one online class to allow for a little bit more flexibility in their schedules. So that should catch you up, Dominique and anyone else who's watching. Just a little recap for you there.

So to tell you a little bit about the curriculum because.

The curriculum varies depending on if you're doing a general MBA or if you're taking one of our concentrations. Umm, but what's consistent regardless if you're doing the general MBA or the concentrations is these 8 core classes. Umm, so subject to limited exceptions, uh, all of our students take, uh, an accounting course, a management theory course, a marketing management course, a financial analysis course, business decision.

This business info systems course, employment law and ethics course, and our capstone course, business strategy and policy course. So these are the 8 core classes. Each of them is a three credit hour course for a total of 24 credit hours in the core. And in addition to those core classes, there are 4 elective requirements for the general MBA. You can select from a variety of electives. I'll show you some examples in just a few minutes.

Each elective class also bring three credit hours for a total of 36 credit hours MBA program and total. Alright, so I mentioned there's some limited exceptions if you come out of an undergrad program and you have more than 21 hours and accounting, marketing or finance.

Umm, then you'll take an additional elective in place of that core course. Umm, but for most people, uh, we have these 8 cores and our electives. Now if you do choose to explore concentration, uh, we currently have 6 concentrations in the MBA program. Umm, those 8 core classes, they stay the same if you're in the concentration. Umm, but what's different is your electives. So instead of taking 4 electives from pretty much any area in the business MBA program.

You have to focus three of your 4 electives in a particular concentration area and you can take an additional kind of floating general elective from any concentration area that you like. So for example, if you're doing a concentration in business analytics, you would have three of your 4 electives and business analytics. If you're doing a concentration of finance, three of your 4 electives would be in finance. If you're doing a concentration of global business sustainability, three of your 4 electives would be.

Sustainability track and so on and so forth. Umm, so a lot of students will come in, uh, general, they'll take a class or two and they'll decide, oh, you know, I really like this area. I like business analytics. I'm gonna switch into concentration once you're in, as long as you haven't taken too many electives, it's pretty easy to seamlessly switch between concentrations once you're under the program. Umm, some students apply, uh, with the concentration in mind and that's perfectly OK as well. Either like, this is what I wanna do. I wanna go to marketing.

So they apply, uh, to the MBA with the marketing concentration. So, so whatever works, like I said, once you're into the program, it's pretty easy to move around from concentration to concentration early in the program. Uh, before you start taking too many electives, uh, to give you an idea now of the types of electives, uh, that we have.

These are the electives that typically run each year. Now they need to give a little caveat here. That's not guaranteed that each of these electives will be drawn every year, but we try to schedule these electives 3 in each concentration area a year. So each semester will have generally 6 electives, one in financial forensic investigations, one in business analytics, one in finance, one in global business sustainability, one in marketing, 1 hospitality.

Each semester, fall, Spring.

Summer, so each year you're getting an option of about 18 or so electives that you can choose from, four of those kind of four elective slots in your MBA. And again, if you want to focus in a particular area, if you want to concentrate, you would just take three of those four electives in that particular concentration area. So again, these are the ones that will usually offer. We don't necessarily offer all of them every year, but you can expect usually to have at least one concentration elective.

And each concentration, each semester.

For a total of usually 6 electives each semester that are being offered spring, fall and summer. All right, so you've got your 8 core classes and then you choose from among these classes for your 4 elective classes, 12 classes in total for 36 credit hour MBA. So in addition to the core curriculum, I'd like to comment a little bit on some of our study abroad opportunities. So we are committed to providing, you know, global learning experience to our students.

Some of the options that we have include.

A dual degree program with the National Shahi University in Taiwan, which allows students to go over to Taiwan to study for a semester. We're actually in the process of.

Renewing this agreement so our students can go over to Taiwan for a semester, take business classes in English there, and come back to the US and finish up their MBA degree. We also have some faculty LED programs where sometimes they'll offer an elective course which will allow students to learn about a particular.

Area or a particular region and then go visit it for a week or two. So a couple of years ago we had a hospitality class, which I learned all about hospitality in France and then they went in a couple weeks in France. Uh, we also have our standard study abroad programs through our office of global engagement where you could go for semester long or summer visits to other countries, uh, through our MBA programs. So these are some, some great opportunities and there are even some limited scholarships available.

To study abroad from time to time, which can help to kind of defray some of the costs of studying abroad.

Oh, Speaking of costs, uh, I often get the question about, well, what are some of the, uh, funding, uh, opportunities for Stockton's MBA program? Umm, our most common opportunity for funding is our graduate assistantship, uh, which our graduate assistantship provides students with an opportunity to partner with either a professor or an administrator here at Stockton University and do some work for them, uh, for a semester.

And kind of get a little bit of a work learning experience out of it. And at the same time to get tuition remission, uh, for usually one to four credit hours depending on the semester, uh, to defray the cost of your education.

So these are competitively awarded on a semester to semester basis. So you do have to reapply for them each semester, umm, and they're granted, you know, contingent on, on funding and contingent on, you know, availability of, uh, you know, professors and administrators to work with as well. Uh, we also have a graduate student scholarships. So when you apply, you can apply for a new student scholarship. And once you're in, uh, we also have our foundation scholarship program. Uh, they can apply for umm to provide.

Some money, uh, to help to offset some of the costs of your graduate education. And for US students, of course, we have student loans and financial aid available for qualifying students. Umm, which is, uh, you know, means of, of funding your education. And of course it those unfortunately, uh, unlike many of the scholarships you do, you do eventually usually have to pay those back. Umm, but we do have a financial aid opportunities just like you would have, uh, at your undergraduate studies.

With all that being said, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about admissions criteria for, for Stockton and then I'm gonna kick the can back over to Jen, uh, to tell you more about how the admissions process. Uh, she's in the office of Graduate Admissions, so she knows a lot about how, how it works. Umm, so, so one thing to keep in mind is that in order to be, uh, admitted to our program, you do need to have 5 prerequisites completed. A management accounting, econ, finance and operations management. Umm, so those five.

If you did not complete them as an undergrad, that's perfectly OK. We actually have some really streamlined, uh, quick ways that you can complete those prerequisites through some online vendors. Umm, you could complete them even in as quick as a summer, uh, before you apply in the fall. Umm, so, so don't let that stop you from applying if you don't have all those prerequisites, you know, feel free to reach out to me or the office of grad admissions and, uh, we can tell you that the, you know, the, the quick and easier ways to get those prerequisites through some of our online.

For our standard application, you need a few letters of recommendation, a personal statement, a CV, your official transcripts and application form and fee. Jen's gonna talk a little bit more about that stuff. For most of our students, there's AGPA kinda cut off at 3.0, meaning that if you have a 3.0 or above, you're not required to submit GRE or GMAT scores.

Uh, if you have below a 3.0, I'm talking about your undergraduate GPA.

Then we do usually require GRE and GMAC scores.

And there's one other comment that is if you're coming out of a Stockton University, a Business School program.

Currently it's a Business School program with a 3.5 GPA or above. Uh, you could get direct entry and general tell you a little bit about that. And we're actually opening that up to, uh, pretty much all the Business School program, I'm sorry, all the university programs, uh, in the next year. Uh, so all that being said, Jen, Are you ready to, uh, to tell him a little bit more about the application process?

I am, I'm gonna have to you have you move the slides because it will not let me do it for whatever reason. Right now I can't even see them, so that's OK 'cause I can do this off the cuff, uh.

Right, OK, Oh, wow, so we are, we are on the uh, how to apply slide now, so switched over.

Yes, thank you so much. But again, if I can't do this off the cuff at this point, then I, I shouldn't be doing this right? But I'm going to pull up my quick checklist over here to make sure I don't miss anything. So you heard some really wonderful things about this program and it is a really great opportunity and a beautiful location with absolutely amazing faculty. So let's talk a little bit more about how you can actually apply. So my role, you know, Keith and I work very closely together in working with our new students and sharing with them how they can become a part of this program he handles.

Endemic side and I handle the enrollment and admission application side. So first and foremost, we talked through some of the prerequisites already and some of the requirements. So once you know that you've met those, you will log into our application process which is right on our website and I'm gonna share that with you so that everyone has that for later on. So here is that link. Next, once you are there, there is a $50 application fee to start your application if you do qualify for a waiver.

You will have received that prior to starting your application. So just keep that in mind. If not, then you will be inputting your $50 fee. Once you do that, it's going to tell you to submit. Don't worry. Some people think, Oh my gosh, I didn't put any a lot of information. It's just my contact. That's not submitting your application for review. It's just submitting your application to to begin. OK. So once you do that, you'll see a lot of other things that happen.

And you'll receive a checklist of items that you'll need to load and we'll talk through what those things are so.

Once that waiver code has been put in or your $50 has been paid, the next thing you're going to see is going to be a space for your essay. So you'll be loading an essay in APDF format and you'll be able to see the prompt. You will not see the prompt until, again, you do that, umm, submission portion that we just talked about.

Umm, please make sure that you're not using AI to write your essay, Make sure that umm you have it proof read and make sure you are answering the essay prompt. Those are three most important things we would share with folks.

Who are beginning their application?

Next, you'll need 3 letters of recommendation. So as part of the application when you're working on it, you are going to put, umm, not you will not be uploading these letters of recommendation. All you'll be inputting is the recommenders, uh, name, title, and e-mail address. Uh, recommenders should be individuals who can speak to your academic success. They should be folks who you have either had as professors in, in class, as an undergraduate student, or in another degree. Uh, it should be individuals. Maybe if you are currently.

Working in the field of business who have people who supervise you and can speak to your work experience. But we do want to make sure you know that it should not be folks that are friends or family or you know, just because your next door neighbor has known you for 20 years and can speak very highly of you, they can't speak to your ability to be successful in a graduate program. And that's really what we're looking for in these letters of recommendation. So before inputting your recommenders e-mail addresses, we suggest you reach out to them. Let them know that you're doing this.

'Cause as soon as you hit submit on, on those emails, they're going to be receiving a form, it's going to be sent to them automatically. So give them a call, let them know that, you know, ask them if they be a reference for you, let them know that it's coming. Remind them of the deadlines for your application. Umm, and uh, the last part of it is make sure that when they do say yes, that you copy and paste their e-mail into your application. Don't hand type it, uh, leaves a lot of room for error one, one letter off and they're not gonna get that e-mail address.

Or e-mail sent to them for your recommendation and your application will not be reviewed until all of those letters have been received. So biggest.

Advice I can give you, please copy and paste those e-mail addresses so that you make sure that they're correct uh, next you can upload, uh, you know a screenshot as a, a space holder, but we will have to have your GRE or GMAT score sent to us if that is something you need again, that's only for individuals who do not meet the 3.0 undergraduate cumulative GPA requirement umm, so again you can take a screenshot to hold that space, but then again when you take the test, please make sure you have those scores sent to Stockton and.

Link that I put in the chat you can go to the admission criteria tab to find the codes for Stockton if you're taking the GRE or the GMAT uh, and again, I did mention cumulative GPA. The other important piece that you'll need to keep in mind is that you will need to have transcripts sent to us. So you will have those sent to uh, we, we recommend doing it electronically. You can have them sent via regular mail electronically really is the way to go these days. Uh, it gives you tracking. It also allows you to.

Get it to us quicker and we can upload it automatically if it's sent to us electronically. So that's very helpful.

So again, it will be coming from every institution you attended. So if you have an associate's degree, you transferred from another institution, we need every single transcript sent to us. If you were a Stockton student, we can pull your Stockton transcripts. If you graduated in just the last few years, we have access to those. But otherwise, we would have to have the others sent sometimes. So please, just, you know, keep that in mind.

And then again, our address and our e-mail and you know, clearly school name is on the admission criteria tab for you to do that as well. And then the last component that you're going to be adding is your resume and you'll load that as a PDF. So transcripts have to be sent to us. We load those for you resume, you can load that one yourself. So those are a couple of the items that you'll need in order to complete your application. It's not a very difficult process, but we would want you to know that we're here to help you through that process if you.

Have any additional questions?

For our international applicants, umm, I will share with you that that process is a little bit different, umm, for international applicants, uh, we do need to have your transcript sent to us from an evaluator. We have an international transcript evaluation process. There are evaluators out there that are accredited, we can accept from Wes, ECE or Spantran specifically. Uh, so if you're an international applicant looking to join us, you will need to make sure you'll have those sent to us.

We also, umm, in your application, it'll ask you to upload a copy of your passport and umm, we also suggest scheduling an appointment with our, uh, designated student official for international students here in our office. So Matt Shaw is actually our designated official for international students and you can find his information on our contact us page. Again, same link that I put in the chat. And we'd encourage you to schedule a meeting with him to talk further about the process for, for international applications.

Them.

All right. So Keith, I'm going to turn things back over to you to talk a little bit more about some of the other opportunities within the school business.

All right, Jen, thank you so much. I, I really appreciate you covering that in such detail. Uh, so, so we have a couple of.

Other potential opportunities. Now, now, now I'm having trouble with the slides and they're not uh, uh, OK.

It let me just do it. So I don't know what that was. So I think we're good though. I think our audience can see it. So we'll just ping pong back and forth.

All right. Yeah, I think it, yeah. Alright, excellent. Thank you. It's, it's up, it's up on my screen now too. So, uh, so we do have an addition to our general MBA and our 6th concentrations. We have also our MBA and healthcare administration and leadership, which is a really innovative program that synthesizes knowledge of business with knowledge of Health Sciences.

And it the the way that it's set up is they have a variety of business professors and Health Sciences professors, as well as several healthcare professionals in the area that are interested in the industry teaching the classes. So instead of meeting on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night and supplementing it by online, the NBA House set up as a as a hybrid program.

So usually they'll meet four times a month. I'm sorry, four times a month. That's, that's not correct. 4 * a semester, uh, each semester, uh, on a Saturday.

And everything else is done kind of through Blackboard, through the online learning and part.

Uh, so this is a really exciting program if you're on health care, if you want to go into health care management, if you would like to be a health care executive. Uh, it opens up some doors. And, and I'll, I'll tell you, I'm connected to a lot of the students who come out of this program 'cause I also teach in this program and they're doing very well in the healthcare industry. Umm, so, so we've definitely had a lot of success with our alumni out of this program. Uh, we also have a brand new.

Opportunity in the School of Business. AMS in accounting.

Which is just kind of formally doing this hard launch of this fall of 2025, which is, is primarily designed for students who are interested in pursuing their CPA exam and their CPA credential. And it's a, it's an accounting master. So you, you come out with the Ms. Masters of science and accounting and it's being just launching, it's a brand new program. It's been designed very well. And it also has a couple of similar concentrations where you can do the forensic financial.

Concentration or the business analytics concentration, uh, within that program as well. Uh, so, so it's another opportunity if you're interested in pursuing ACPA. Uh, so we have some big things happening here at Stockton. We've got our general MBA 6 concentrations, our healthcare MBA, uh, we've also got our accounting Ms. program now and all running out of the Business School. Uh, if any of those interest you, you can always reach out to me or, or to Jen or the office of grad admissions. Uh, the contact information is here on this slide.

And we'll open up the floor at this point for any questions that you all may have. Anything that maybe we haven't covered that you'd like to know a little bit more about? Are there any gaps in our presentation? So Jen and I will hang on for a few minutes if any of you have any questions. And if not, you know, thank you for joining us today. And definitely, you know, enjoy the first day of spring. It is March 20th. So spring is officially here.

That is correct. I forgot. Umm, awesome. Well, thank you so, so much in sharing all of that. I also just a little shameless plug again, depending on when you are watching this, if you are watching it live or sometime within the next week, uh, this week in March, if you do have any interest in the NBA Hal uh, program, healthcare administration leadership or the accounting, uh, uh, program, we do have information sessions for those as well. So the MBA and healthcare administration and leadership is March 27th at noon and then the.

Count the MSN accounting is April 28th at noon, so please feel free to check our website for those. In addition, there's one other that you may want to check out on April 15th. We have one that's being run by our Office of Financial Aid and it's how to finance your graduate education at Stockton. So again, if you're looking at all of this going, this sounds really wonderful, but how in the world would I pay for something like this? Please join us for that April 15th session or if you're watching this after the fact, we can share a recording with you of it.

So that's a great way to to learn about the different opportunities in financing your graduate education.

So the question is, is the option to play a sport there? Is there an option to play a sport there if you still have eligibility? So that's a great question. If you've completed your undergraduate degree in a shorter period of time and you do still have athletic eligibility, that can be accomplished. It was something that we would encourage you to talk with our athletics department about first. And then if so, then you can reach out to me or one of my teammates. You're an academic or you know, through admissions to talk through the academic aspect of that.

As far as the schedule is concerned, the and and Doctor Pienaar all kind of defer to you as well. You know, it does depend on the sport, but knowing that many of these classes are in the evenings, would you would you want to chime in on that part of it?

Not yet Atlanta we've had this time before, particularly with some of our, our dual degree students and, and it is really a matter of setting up a schedule. If you know, you have like one year of eligibility for that year, make sure you set up your schedule right, so you can attend both practices and your classes. Umm, and not knowing you know when your practices will be, when your, when your games will be, umm, I can't really advise you as to how to do that. That's something that you could work with your, with your coach with, in your athletics department with, to make sure that you know, you know when the, when the games are, when you need to be at the games, so you can minimize any absences from.

And again, you can also supplement with some online classes as well to provide a little bit more flexibility.

That's a great question.

And School of Business also offers summer courses too. And so again, it goes down to finances and, and how your schedule, your finances and all those different things work. And it's different for every individual. But sometimes that can help to maneuver your schedule a little bit for any student, not even just a sport, but if you're working, if you have a family, the flexibility of this program, having some summer options can, can, can help alleviate that scheduling too.

I mentioned, I don't argue mention that 'cause I did, I did fail to mention earlier that, umm, the, the program, if you're doing it part time, then we recommend usually that, uh, if you're working full time, that you start with two classes and, and it's considered part time here at Stockton. Umm, and if you take two classes a semester, fall, spring, summer, fall, spring, summer, uh, you're done in two years. Uh, so it's still total 36 credit hours. So, so if you're looking, we do set it up so that you can.

Right now.

Complete the program as a part-time student and a two year period by taking year round classes and you still get like a month off at the end of the summer regardless between like that last summer session and the beginning of the fall. So you still get a little break there. Umm, but again, it is set up that way so that so you can take those summer classes and you can finish a little bit, you know, a little bit earlier.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it is it some of our programs are not as flexible. This one is definitely one where it does provide flexibility and opportunity to work around, you know, a busy lifestyle and a busy schedule, no matter what that looks like. So it's a good opportunity. All right, I don't see any other questions in the chat. So it looks like we have covered everything. But if you think of something after the fact, please don't hesitate to reach out to either of us. We are here to assist you both through the application process and any questions you have about the program. But again, thank you for taking.

Time to learn more and we hope to hear from you soon. All right, take care everyone. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Have a good day everyone.