Master of Occupational Therapy - Virtual Information Session

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Great, it looks like our waiting room is all in. Uh, so good afternoon everyone. Or whatever time it may be when you are watching this and where you are watching it. My name is Jen Redwanski and I'm the associate director for graduate admissions here at Stockton University. And we thank you for taking the time to join us to learn more about our Master of Science and Occupational therapy here at Stockton as we refer to as the MSOT program. I know that there are a number of you joining us live and thank you for for taking that time and I also.

Wanted to let everyone know we are recording this and so you may be watching this as a recorded version as well. So with that being said, I just have a couple of housekeeping items I wanted to share with you all before we dive in. First of all, I want to share that I'm joined by my colleague, our assistant director, Matt. Matt, do you want to say hi and introduce yourself really quick? He's going to be helping with our webinar today.

Hi everyone. My name is Matt Shaw. I work in the Office of Graduate Admissions. I am here listening in. I want to thank all of you for attending. My specialty really is the application process. So from a standpoint of applying through OT CAST, I'll be a good resource. And again, I'm happy to be here and I hope you guys enjoy the session and feel that it's extremely informative for whatever application term you are going to apply for. So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you for your help with this session. So Matt and I are are going to turn things over to our program chair in just a moment, but we will be on the sidelines to assist with any questions you have and really to hopefully have you walk away with no unanswered questions about how the MSOT program here works and how the application process works. What we would ask though is if you could hold your questions in the chat feature until the very end because more than likely we.

To cover all the questions that you have, however, if we miss anything, please jot those down and and drop those in the chat at the end of our session. If you are watching this recorded later on, we will also give you our contact information. So again, if there's anything that we may have missed, you'd like to learn more about, you are very welcome to reach out to us. And again, we'll have that for you at the end when we do get to that chat portion. What we would also ask is that you don't need personal information in that chat. This is being recorded and being shared with others.

Think of a more personal nature. We'd be very happy to assist you with one-on-one after the session concludes. So with that all being said, I am going to turn things over to our program chair, Doctor Kent, who is here to share more about her amazing program and the work of her faculty and students in that program. So Mary, take it away.

Great. Thanks, Jen. Hi, everybody. So as Jen said, I'm Doctor Mary Kent's. I am the current program chair and associate professor in in OT. So I'm very happy to be here with you today and talk about our program. So our program is 2 1/2 years, you do 2 years of didactic learning in the classroom and then six months full-time field work, level 2 field work. So you become a.

December graduate and it is full time which is important to to think about. OK, hold on.

OK. This is just a quick picture of the new Health Sciences building. We're not housed there. I'll show you where we are, but we do. There is a wonderful simulation suite in there that we have our students go and use. There's also an anatomy table that's a 3D anatomy table called an image. Our students go over there and use that as well. And we may be in there because we do a lot of interprofessional activity.

With PT and speech students.

OK, Just quickly, we are part of the School of Health Sciences and you can see through the Health Sciences the different programs that we offer. So we are one of the one of those in within that school. OK, We often get asked because you're applying after your undergrad, is there a degree that is better to have than another?

We don't care. We've actually had students who in the past had careers in finance and.

I had one student had been an FBI analyst and came back to school after a number of years. You just need to have a bachelor's degree and you need to be able to have done all the prerequisites coming in. Is it helpful to have psychology, Health Science, exercise? Sure, because it's more science based but it doesn't preclude you if you happen to be have another undergrad degree. You just have to make sure you have all the prereqs done.

OK, so we're going to show you a quick video about the program.

OK. So hopefully that gave you a really good overview of the program. Both Dana and Trevor are you can see it's a little dated that was we did that right during after we came back from COVID. They are both graduates, they're both practicing. You might run into them as you do observation hours. That's the outside of West Quad. That is where we spend you will spend most of your time.

So why choose OT you know I still say.

It's the best profession. It's one that I've been in OT, it's 36 years now. I can't believe it's been that many years and I still would choose OT today. It's allowed me to be able to work. First in I worked in acute care hospital that I moved to Pediatrics, that I did Pediatrics in almost every setting, outpatient schools, early intervention, private practice before ending up teaching.

All with an OT degree. So there's so many different things that you can do with your degree. You can work part time, you can work full time, you can do full time plus part time. There's many, many different things. You can work with many different people, many different types of abilities. And it's, it's very meaningful and it's very purposeful in helping others.

So why would you choose Stockton? Like the video told you, we've been around.

Since 1999, that's when we emitted our first class. So we have a very strong reputation of having very strong students. You know, we, you work hard in the program, but we also work hard as your professors to, to help you to make sure you're understanding the material and getting out of it what you need to be an entry level practitioner when you're done. We limit our cohorts to 30 students.

So that really allows us to get to know you.

Not just as a student, but as a person. And you get to know us. And that part is, is pretty nice as as well because when you graduate, you become my colleague. And so we are making sure that we're graduating students who you know, in future years, if I need OT, I want to be thrilled to see that it's one of my alum from the program that's treating me. We use a lot of innovative teaching techniques. We have all up to date equipment.

You do things from 3D printing in the technology class to.

All of the like they showed you a lot of the sensory equipment we have the simulation lab, you have a variety of field work experiences. So we do, most of our students come from New Jersey, so we have wide variety of of choices in New Jersey. We also have field work opportunities in other states if students are interested in that. We've been sending, recently we've been sending students to Colorado.

We've done Arizona, we've done.

One of the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia. So that's all options that that we can take a look at. We are an accredited program. Next year actually we'll be doing our RE accreditation. So if you're part of our program, then you might be asked to talk to the creditors about the program while we're doing that. But we have always gotten full RE accreditation. We don't think that's never going to be an issue.

We have amazing faculty who all have many, many years of experience in their areas of practice. And again, sort of what the video was talking about, you have lots of opportunities for student activities, not just soda. We do things like we run the Young Athletes Special Olympics, which is for kids two to seven and their siblings to do physical activities. The OT students run that.

We have opportunities to work with adults with autism doing social skill things, so there's lots of additional things that aren't part of classes that we offer you if you chose to participate in that.

And we, as hopefully you've looked on our website, we have really do have an excellent MBCOT pass rate. We're always pretty high. Almost every year it's well over 90%.

OK.

We have as a university kind of talked about a lot of the stuff. We also have outstanding facilities. We have a lot of IT things. Our classrooms are up to date. You know, we again, we have tons of clinical sites. There's lots of professional assistance available on campus. One of the things I want to highlight is the graduate assistantships. So if you apply, think about.

Applying for the for the GA position, our graduate assistants, you get awarded number of credits. Typically it's about 2 credits. So that means you give us work equity for not paying for those two credits.

In our program, because we're a smaller program, you work directly with faculty and you help us with whatever it might be. Those who are my G as helped me with what we call my our Get Fit project, which is an exercise in nutrition program.

For adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, others are helping faculty with research. One of our faculty members is doing research around.

Virtual reality. So they've been helpful in doing that. So it really kind of kind of varies and depends on what projects the faculty is doing, but we use the students to be able to help us with those projects. So it gets you involved sometimes in research. If you say to me, you know, I'm really involved in research, then we're going to try and engage you in that with us in in some way. OK, so our curriculum so like we talked about.

Our curriculum is a 2 1/2 year program, so it's a developmental model. So what does that mean? That means that the way that we develop the program is that each semester your knowledge builds on each other, OK? And we have higher expectations of of what you're retaining and what you're knowing. So the first semester is foundational courses. These are things like clinical conditions and science of occupation, which teaches about what is OT.

And then the the second semester you start.

Your evaluation and intervention courses, so semester 2, you have pediatric evaluation, pediatric intervention in your first level 1 field work. You also then have your mental health intervention course doing field work with that one as well. OK, So and then interspersed in that you're taking research classes, you're taking professional issues classes, all about how does what we do as OT fit into all of this.

Umm And then you have other umm, classes, the practice skills things or things like a general practice course, a hands course. So these are like things that you need to know about practice that kind of don't fit into all the available intervention courses, but they all build so that by the time you're done at the end of those two years, let me take a step back. The third semester you do primarily adults.

And you'll do your adult level 1 field work. But you do.

Most things around adults your last semester, the 4th semester in class is older adults. So the same thing you do in a valid intervention course with older adults. So by the time you're done with those and your level ones, then you do 224 week level 2 field work experiences and they typically run made August and then September to December and then you'll be a graduate and then you'll be able to sit down and take the MB COT exam.

We have classes one time a week for each of the courses so that you know, they're anywhere from three to five to six hours long. Don't let that scare you. We don't just sit and do lecture. We do, you know, introduce a lot, a little bit of content and we do an activity. So a lot of our classes are very much lab based and hands on experiential things.

We do have a trip that runs and we have experiences with students who come also come from Columbia.

OTPT and speech students too, so you have an an ability to interact with therapists from another country. And the credit, it's 80 credits total for the program.

OK, so applying to the program. So you have to have.

3.2 cumulative GPA or better. OK. And later, I think it's in one of the frequently asked questions or it's in later. If you don't have a 3.2 GPA, we do not look at your application.

That is a minimal minimum requirement for us to review your application. OK.

And so this one thing to think about. So I know a lot of you and there's always a lot of questions about that there being two different types of degrees, master's or doctoral, OK, either.

Degree, Masters or doctorate allows you to sit and practice as an OT.

There is we have no plans to move to a doctoral program and that is on purpose because we believe you do not need a doctoral degree. Umm, which cost more money and takes more time to do to be an entry level therapist. Would we love for most of our grads to be able to go back to school later and then develop more skills and specialty area with a doctorate? Absolutely.

But we really believe when you sit down and you take that test, it's the same NBCOT exam whether you were a doctoral student or a master's student. When you get a job, they don't ask you if you are a master's student or a doctoral student. They just want to know that you're an OT who now has their state license and pass the NBCOT exam. OK? So hopefully that helps clarify some of that. We have another slide about that coming up, OK.

So all prerequisites need to be completed with AB minus or better.

So that includes anatomy and Physiology one, and two it's going to be intro to psych.

Anthropology or sociology, abnormal psych, human development or lifespan. And let me just say it has to be lifespan. So if you take a class that is just about children, we're going to come back and say you need to take another course that does.

Adolescents through adulthood OK, so try and make sure you're taking human development course that does lifespan development statistics OK so any of those you really need to make sure that you are are doing with AB minus or better. Now sometimes the question is can I apply if I got AC in statistics? Yes, but if you're accepted you're accepted conditionally and then you're going to have to.

That statistics class before you can matriculate into the program in September. OK, so so yes, you could still apply now knowing that you would have to retake a a test, I mean a course.

Other prerequisites include completion of a CPR class umm and again, that doesn't need to be completed before applying, but you need to do it before umm you start the program in September. Umm documentation of 40 hours of volunteer work with an OT. So this is another question that we get a lot and they say can it be with but it was with the PT but I saw OTS now you have to use R form. So there's a.

Form that you can find on our web page that needs to be used and it needs to be signed and the the OT needs to give their license number on that. OK so it doesn't matter what state, we don't care what state they're in but every state is licensed. So if you have an OT, they need to sign that form and give us their license number OK so.

Make sure it's Stockton's form so I know sometimes if you're in school program.

Or you're doing it through your internship. That can count as long as the hours are within OT, but you need to transfer those hours onto our form and have that signed. OK. There's also technical standards. So we require you to read the technical standards and sign that before you accept coming into the program to say that I can do all of these things that I need to do to be successful in the program.

OK, so applying for the program. So one of the big things that has changed now is that we are doing rolling admissions. OK, so we are as soon as your application is verified in OT cast or soon after it's verified in OT cast, we are reviewing that application. Umm, we are still doing face to face interviews umm, but what will happen is if we do the initial review of your application and.

We feel you're qualified to move to the next step to get an interview. You will then be notified and we're doing the interviews this fall and then you will know of your the admission decision soon after that. OK, so there is and the application deadline has not changed until November 20th, but.

Because it's rolling, we might fill those thirty seats before that time, so the earlier you submit, the better.

OK, GRE's are not required for our admission process. You can reapply. So if you applied in the past and you did not get in, you can definitely reapply. And we use OT cast for all our applications, but you also have to complete the Stockton application. OK, so that's on our website. And now we're going to pause for a minute. I'm going to let Matt talk about OT Cass.

Thanks Mary. So as Mary stated, your application is through OT CAS, just a couple like pointers on that application. If you haven't started it yet, feel free to do so. As Mary said, the one big difference about our program this year is we are doing a rolling admissions. So what's that? What that means is the sooner you are completed and then get verified, the sooner you possibly will hear back from the committee.

A couple pointers about OT cast. Take your time, make sure that you're filling everything out as accurate as possible.

It's kind of a beast of an application, but we utilize it because it's a centralized app system, so it makes it easy for you to apply to OT programs whatever programs you decide to do so. So you would make an OT CAS application, you'd pick Stockton University. You do have to put your own transcript entry within OT cast. So you you are actually going in and putting what your courses, if it's a prerequisite, you're listing it as a prerequisite and then you're putting the grade you received in it.

The application for OT cast. It's an actual company that verifies your information.

So when we're talking about getting verified, they're going through and just confirming that all the courses you put in there.

Are matching exactly your physical documents that you have to send there right? So if I went to Stockton University and I listed everything out and I had 1 little hiccup where I said I got AB in a course but my transcript states otherwise, that would be put into a holding pattern and they would contact you and say we can't verify your application right now because of a discrepancy. They would inform you exactly what the discrepancy is. You go back in and correct that discrepancy. So with that being said, sooner is better right? So if you are.

Are in the process of getting verified and you have a hiccup, it may delay your application a week. It depends on how quickly you can get it turned around and how quickly they can verify your app. But just give yourself time. So like I said, it's it's through the OT cast application. If you are applying to 2025, that application is live. The listed deadline as we stated is November 20th. If you have any other questions in regards to your process, feel free to reach out to us. When you are verified, your application gets imported into our stocking system.

You'll get an e-mail that says we've received your verified app here at Stockton, use this username and PIN to finish completing your account, and then once you go into the link, put the PIN in. That is how you create the application. So that's all that's needed from the secondary side of the Stockton system. So really it's just getting your app verified, receiving that e-mail here from Stockton, and creating your account via username and PIN. And then from there, you'll hear back from our admissions committee when your application is reviewed. But like I said, if you have any questions, feel free.

To reach out to our office for the application process, Give yourself time. It is, it is a little bit of a, a beast of an application, but like I said, if you're not rushing into it, take your time and get in there as soon as you can and just make sure that you are taking your time with that application.

And then I'll answer that question as I'm in here. So yeah, potentially the 30 spots, because we are rolling in mission, 30 spots are taken. At that point you would potentially be put on a wait list. So we utilize wait lists here.

For our cohorts as well, so wait list status, it is not a horrible decision to receive. You can be added to the wait list and then if anything happens, if individuals go elsewhere, those seats would open up and you'd be contacted right away from the Office of Graduate Admissions. So that's a great question. We do have 30 seats, however, we have a wait list and we utilize wait list each year and I think that basically.

Covered your T kasmir.

Great. OK. Thank you.

OK. So I also see the other question, when are they changing entry from Master to Doctorate Angel? I'm assuming that you mean Aota and a coat and they are not doing that. So there, that was defeated a number of years ago. They are not making it mandatory.

So you have to be an accredited program at either the masters or the doctoral level if sometime in the future, if they ever decide to make it doctoral only, which I really don't think they're going to do. But if they did and you were already a practicing therapist, you would be grandfathered in and you would not have to go back. I actually got my degree when it was still at the bachelor's level way back when, and I have many of my colleagues who are still.

Practicing with just a bachelor's degree.

And that was fine because they passed the NBCOT. They've kept up on their continuing education. You know, they have their state license and that's all that they they need to do. OK.

OK, so frequently asked questions. Yes, we meet 30 students in each cohort. We have a cumulative GPA of 3.2 to apply.

Typically, the cumulative GPA and prerequisite GPA of applicants is higher.

I don't always like to give to give numbers sometimes, but it doesn't mean that we won't look at your application. So if you're at 32, please put it in and we will absolutely look at it. And it does not mean that you won't get an interview and it does not mean that you won't get into our program. OK, So what do we look at as the committee in looking at your.

If you're invited for the interview, so we're looking at your cumulative GPA.

And that's of all your college and university work. OK, So wherever you may have gotten, sometimes people did. You know, I did my undergrad here, but now I went back to Community College and did all of my prerequisites. I didn't know that I wanted to be an OT. That's fine. But we're looking at the cumulative looks at all of that, the GPA. And then we look at the GPA just for the prerequisites. OK, We look at your application essay.

We look at the recommendation forms.

And we really need the form, not just a letter, so of where they check off boxes. We really need that and your volunteer and paid experience with the OT. So again, that's why it's important to get the observation done and signed off by an OT. The interviews, we look at the quality of the interview. We're actually not doing a creative essay this year with the interview. You're just going to have the interview with one of the faculty members and we look at.

Your work and extracurricular activities, but hopefully that's all gets discussed as part of the interview. OK, so again, I just want to take a minute and look at.

At the the frequently asked questions part about the masters in OTD. Like I said, you a master's degree you were out sooner.

You end up costing less just because it's a masters and not a doctorate.

The difference is that you have to do a capstone project, which is the kind and you do some more research classes typically.

You still are getting the same curriculum, you're getting the same information, you take the same MB COT exam. There's no difference in that you vie for the same jobs. And I do not know of any employers at this time who make any differentiation between.

An OT entry level OT who has a Master's or a doctorate that they will take one over the other. OK.

Some other ones. Whoops, hold on.

You know it's not moving.

OK, there we go. No, we have it. There we go. OK, so some other things that are asked about it is, you know we do have students who were Stockton students are part of our program obviously, but we also have those who are not. I would say most of the time it is about.

Half and half that we're Stockton and stuff that weren't, you know.

We be careful that you are making sure you have all the prerequisites completed that we need. Umm, there is a list on the website under Frequently Asked questions for a lot of the area schools to make sure that your prerequisites are meeting our demands. If you have questions about if a class meets our prerequisite or not, you can talk to Grad Admissions and then be glad to help you.

Verify that.

Come on, doesn't want to move.

There we go. OK, OK. We are sometimes asked to meet with one of our faculty individually. We don't do that because we are the emissions committee, so we don't want it to feel like there is an unfair advantage if you go and talk to a faculty member before having your application.

Reviewed and an interview so we really.

Encourage you to go through graduate admissions. They know almost every question that you're going to ask of them. If they do not know an answer, then they'll reach out to me. And then if we need to, you know, meet about something very specific, I will. But general information about the program, anything else beyond what we're talking about here today, you can talk to grad admissions.

OK, so that takes us to the end.

So if we have any other.

Questions from people.

Awesome. Mary, thank you so, so much for all that information. That was really helpful. And I know we've had, excuse me, a lot of questions in the chat, so we've been able to get to some of them. But if you do have a question, please go ahead and drop it into the chat now. We'll take this time to to answer questions live for our live audience. Just remember, if you have anything of a more personal nature, we can handle those offline and we can do a phone call conversation and Zoom session or do it via e-mail.

Our contact information is there on the screen, but for things that are of a more general nature, we're going to dive in. I know we've answered a couple, but Matt, I'm actually going to take this first question that I left here that I didn't answer in the chat and have you just share with everybody, 'cause I think it's a frequently asked question that we get. And I know you touched upon it, but just to reiterate once more, the once your application is verified, how the Stockton application process works and what people have to do after OT cast has sent us their information.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's actually just an e-mail. It'll state, dear first name, we received your msot application from the centralized app system cast. Thank you for choosing Stockton. To monitor your application status, you could set up your applicant status page here and then it'll be a specific username and PIN that are related to your account. You just click that account and then you head in and then you are responsible for paying.

The $50 Stockton fee for the account creation. So after that your account is created and then you get all information and contact directly through that account.

And that includes getting invites for interviews, that includes getting your admissions letters. So we release all decisions virtually, right? So in order for you to see those decisions, you will need to activate this account. So you'll receive, that is typically the day after you're verified, you'll be imported into the stocking system, you'll get that e-mail. And really there is no creating of another application. You're just generating your account so that you can receive your decision letter when a decision is made on your.

Verified application.

Thank you. All right. So we got, we have lots of OT cast questions and application questions. So first one is everyone, does everyone get an interview? Mary, do you want to take that one?

Sure. So the the quick answer is no. So what happens is that the emissions committee reviews kind of your paper file first. So what you submit on OT cast and through the the Stockton system and then based on that we make a recommendation of whether or not we should interview and then if you get a thing for interview, you will get.

An e-mail from Matt in the office that says, you know.

Where you have been invited for an interview and then it will give you steps to go through and you will apply.

To get an appointment for an interview and we are offering them every day of the week, so Monday through Friday, different times. And so you can try and find the time that that meets best for you. And then the only caveat we have of that is if you are more than three hours away.

You know, you're going to school down in Virginia. We will do a zoom interview for you and have that set up. But if you are within, you know, a couple of hours of Stockton, we can find a time and ask you to come to, to campus to, to do the interview in person. We found that the in in person interviews are much better and much preferred by the students to be honest with you.

Great. Thank you. All right. Another OT cast question. So if a student still in progress with their undergraduate coursework, should they be uploading their transcript now and how do they send an updated transcript once their decrease?

Yeah, absolutely. So when you are applying, you are very likely to have outstanding coursework that is very typical. So don't think that you're atypical in that scenario. What you're going to do is if you have planned coursework, you're going to put the plan of action right and it's going to be in progress courses. So yes, you should list if you are registered for the upcoming term into a course that's specifically your prerequisite, that's extremely important to have it listed there because then the committee can accurately assess, yes, they are going to do this.

Prerequisite because it's necessary to be admitted into the program and there's a visible plane of action here because they've listed it on their electronic transcript. What happens is there is a very specific two week period known as academic update. OT cast will e-mail you when that update period has opened. And in essence what you're doing is you're going in and you're putting coursework in the grades that you've received for those outstanding courses. So yes, if it is outstanding, absolutely.

And it will be listed as in progress. And then there are periods known as the academic update period. If you Google that on OT cast site, it's a very broken down list of what that entails. But that would be the time to then update your courses with the grades that you've received, outstanding courses. Yes. You're going to list that within your application, absolutely.

And let me just say, so for, for us, so say if you come in for an interview and you know, like we don't anticipate unless you've already gotten your bachelor's degree, right and you knew you wanted to be an OT already. If you're coming in and you're a senior this year, we're not anticipating that you're going to have all your classes done right now. So that is absolutely fine. It just becomes then you get.

You will get a notice that's a conditional acceptance and that just means that you need to get those prerequisite courses done with AB minus or better before you start in September.

So then, you know, between grad studies and myself, we end up making sure that you are doing that. So then we'll say, have you sent us a, you know, a transcript? And then you'll have to send us a certified transcript at the end that says, yes, I actually got my degree. So there's different steps. So it's absolutely fine if you do not have all the pieces that doesn't always, you know, work out. We know we have a lot of.

College seniors who are who are applying.

There's been a couple of questions about the the shadowing hours, the observation hours. And so I just want to say you do need to use Stockton's form. We do that on purpose and I know sometimes it can be a pain. If you've already done the hours, call back the place and just ask them if you can send them this form and can they fill it out again for you or if you can fill it out for them and just have them sign it for you and send it back, OK.

The reason that we do it is because other schools forms do not require a signature and a license number on the form and we do and it is our way of verifying that you actually are doing the observation hours with an OT and not APT. Can it be with an OT assistant? Yes, they're an OT practitioner. It has to be an OT practitioner that's doing it. OK that you're shadowing and then.

The question Hannah can they once it's an OT cast, does it get sent to other schools?

Once it's in, if it's in OT cast, everybody can see it. So, you know, for instance, if I'm looking at your file and you have used the observation form for, for cane example, 'cause they have their own form as well, right? It's fine. So we'll see. And we're like, oh, there's canes for them. OK, where's Stockton's? And I'm sure that their, their emission committee does the same thing. They're like, oh, they're Stockton's worst canes, right? There's, you know, limited amount of schools. It's not like it's not a big deal that that other schools see some of those, those materials.

That's common.

Great. I know that we have a lot of questions. Some of them are a little bit more specific to individuals. What I'd like to do though, is I'm going to drop the link for our actual website, for the msot website in the chat, and I'd love for you all to bookmark that. If you're asking about prerequisites and all of those things, I would love for you to take a peek at that website. And then we're also going to put the recording of this session on there so you can go back and you can see these slides and refer back to them after you've watched them.

If you're watching this live and if you have really specific questions about your area, what you'll also notice on our website is there is a contact us button. And so if you're looking at your specific area and things you need to do to prepare to apply. I, there's a number of us that that you can meet with and we'd be happy to schedule a one-on-one virtual session with you in order to go over those. So I just wanted to drop that in there 'cause we, we're not going to be able to get to every single one of the questions in this space.

So the the next question we have is, does the verification happen with OT cast automatically on the 20th?

Or and how does that kind of timeline work?

So one more, one more time, Jen.

Yep. So for OT cast the verification, are they all verified on the 20th or are they verified before that?

Now that's the deadline to be verified. So if you have an outstanding element of your electronic transcript that you've been told, hey, we can't verify you, that's a deadline to get verified. So when November 20th hits, the applications don't become verified. You have to be verified by that date. So what that means is if you are not verified by November 20th, unfortunately you can't continue forward for a formal review of your application, right?

So you need to be verified before November 20th. So if you go ahead and get verified on November 26th, that would be considered late that that would be an application that has come in past our deadline. So that date, don't look at it as things occur on that date. Look at it as a last date to make things occur. So make sure that you're verified by November 20th.

Yeah. And and that's taken into consideration. So we know that, you know, some students have had to work full time through school. We also, like I said, have had people come back as second careers. And so they're not necessarily involved in that. So we do look at that. The questions, it's more an issue with the interview and questions are worded in such a way that you can consider.

Extracurricular or work experience to be able to answer the questions that that we're asking you.

So don't let that worry you.

Alright, we have another question. Actually I'm going to combine with two. Oh, we have a couple going back to the observational hours, if the students having difficulty finding some place to do their observational hours, Mary, do you have a recommendation on on how they can reach out to the agencies?

Yeah, don't reach out to me or any of the faculty because it's kind of your responsibility to find the places. What I will tell you is that OTS work in a lot of different settings. So we work in hospitals, we work in nursing homes, we work in assisted living facilities, we work in schools, we work in outpatient facilities.

In adults and kids, so there's so many places where OTS are.

So you need to think about that and think. So say if you've already observed an OT in school, try and then go see somebody, observe somebody in a hospital or a subacute which is a nursing home. You know, all you need to do is call the place and say I am a prospective OT student and I need to observe an OT for X amount of hours. Will I be able to do that and can I set that up? OK, so you need to take some initiative, but there are.

Many many different places and many many OTS out there that are are working for you to find them. And that if you had emailed me, that was exactly the e-mail you would have gotten.

All right, we have some more questions about graduate assistantships and meeting with graduate assistantships and applying for graduate assistantships. Matt has dropped in the chat. Yes, anyone can apply to be a graduate assistant that is at point application that you would apply for that. Not everyone is granted an assistantship, but everyone can apply. So it's not a guarantee. So we strongly encourage you to put put your hat in the ring and and to definitely apply for those positions. And someone had also asked that there is a possibility to meet with a graduate assistant and I'm assuming that means.

To like talking to someone who's currently in the program and what I would encourage you to do is we do have an in person open house coming up on October 6th. It's a Sunday. This is for all of our programs, but in particular Mary and I work together to make sure that she has current students and program faculty at that event. That is going to be an in person event. It starts at 10:00 AM and you can register in the same place where you registered for this event.

And we would love for you to come and you can physically see the space, you can walk around campus, you can actually meet with students.

And you also have the ability to meet with all of the resources here on campus, everything from our learning access program to residential life. All of the offices will be here on that Sunday, October 6th, 2024. Depending on when you're watching this, we still probably have this out there. We, we have a number of in person events. We'd love for you to come and, and to meet everyone in person.

And let me add that with the interviews, we are trying to have Aga there to talk to all the students because when we used to do it as a group, we know that the everybody really loved talking to the students. So we are trying unless something happens, we should have one or two students available to talk. If you get accepted to an interview and and if something happens, you can't attend October 6th, something happens. And if you're invited for an interview and you don't.

Somebody we can set you up with one of our students virtually and you can talk or text to them as well. So our students are very happy to answer any and all questions, you know, and we can even specify it as somebody who's been an undergrad at Stockton, somebody who wasn't an undergrad at Stockton, if that's of concern as as well. And can I just say, so one of the things, do we need to have our hours completed?

No, submit what you have and again, we know that that's an in process thing, but you would need to make sure again by the time whenever they're done, make sure you're resubmitting and uploading to OT cast so that we have that. You would definitely need to have them done before you start you start the program.

All right. We have one more question and this is a question that we get frequently and I think this is a really good one, that if someone doesn't have the 3.2 GPA, what are things that they can be doing before submitting their application to to assist in enhancing that application? I can help with that too, Mary, if you would like. But do you want to, do you want to share 1st and then I can jump in as well.

I'm just going to say if you're not at the 3.2, we don't look at your application. So Jen will have some suggestions, but that's probably going to mean you're going to need to retake some classes to, to boost up your, your GPA. So even if you say, well, I'm a 3.18, it's a 3.2. So that, that's a pretty hard fast rule that, that we have. So we will not look at it if it's below that.

Yep, and that's what was beginning going to be my recommendation is looking at the possibility of retaking credits because or retaking classes to to increase that GPI. So we will take into consideration all of the courses taken. And so if you do retake a class that will add into the increase to your GPA. So you may want to consider that that can be in progress at the point of application. So keep that in mind and you'll just need to note that that is in progress.

But we you know it is recommended to retake those courses, especially anything core course or prerequisite, they may not meet that requirement.

Definitely doing that before is important.

Alright, we're going through and just checking a few more.

Alright, Yeah, we have some questions about international applicants. We would definitely encourage you to definitely make an appointment with us and we can we can talk about that with you further. And the like I said, if you go to the link that was supported there, we do have a contact us button that that we can help to, to look through specific situations for each candidate. So thank you for asking that.

All right, well, that is bringing us to our time here. Doctor Kent, I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to to meet with us, to meet with our prospective students and to share your wealth of knowledge. I say this that we are so unbelievably lucky to have amazing faculty here at Stockton and our graduate programs. And it's our biggest strength as an institution and within every single one of our grad programs. And yours is absolutely no exception to that with you and the faculty that you have and how much you care about the students and how much support you provide to them.

So I hope you were all able to see that in this session and that you consider applying to our program. Our graduate admissions team is here to assist you as well. So please, if you have additional questions, if you're watching this later as a recording or you come across things as you're working on your application, our whole team is here to help. So please don't hesitate to reach out or contact information is there on the screen. And we hope you all have a wonderful day. We talk, hope to talk with you soon. Take care, everybody. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Have a good one.