Recording Admissions Info Session

Hello, my name is Julia I'd I'm admissions counselor here at Western Washington University. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to join me and learn some more about western. In this presentation all talk about Bellingham, the Great City were in as well as more information about western or academic programs, campus life in ways to be involved on campus, and then once we get you excited about attending western will shift gears a bit and talk about the application. How we get you to campus.

We also talk about financial aid, sources of funding and then all wrapped things up telling you a little bit about our honors program.

So to start off for those who might not be familiar with Bellingham and Western Washington University, where in Bellingham, WA to town of about 83,000 people, and we're in a great location, about 90 minutes North of Seattle, 60 minutes off to Vancouver, Canada. If you wanna go to one of the larger cities, maybe see a sporting event. Enjoy concerts those large events, but still live in a smaller, quieter town. Great for focusing on your studies. We've ribbon named an outdoor lovers Paradise and you can see in that picture. We are so lucky with our location where right along the water on Bellingham.

Bay and directly next to campuses. See home the C Home Hill Arboretum. There's about 6 miles of trails right next to campus so you can get outside between classes. Maybe enjoy a bit of fresh air between your classes on campus were also about 60 minutes away from the Mount Baker ski area, so again, any kind of outdoor activity. We're pretty lucky that we have that, so if you want to go skiing or snowboarding, just enjoy the snow hike up in the mountains. It's pretty easy to get up to Mount Baker.

We also have our location right on Bellingham Bay so you can go out and enjoy some water sports. Enjoy the water or even mountain biking near campus, so those are some of the great things we have about our location. But for those who enjoy the outdoors from the indoors more, we also have plenty for you. Don't worry about 15 minutes walk from downtown Bellingham and Downtown Bellingham. You're going to find great coffee shops, so many great local stores to really fun place to spend the day exploring.

If you do come visit campus, which I really encourage you to, I hope that you'll set aside a bit of time to go explore downtown Bellingham. In addition to seem campus.

Aside from our location, that makes us truly unique. Are academics are one of the things that really stand out about western. We have 175 different academic majors right across our Seven colleges that make up Western Washington University. You can see a list of our Seven colleges there, but there are a few that I want to highlight for you would drink College of Education. I like to tell talk about because we started back in 1893 as a teachers college and we've really maintain that solid foundation in training teachers to the present day.

One of the best education programs in the state and we're really proud of Woodring College. We have programs in from early childhood education, elementary to secondary education, so you'll be able to find a program that's right for you. We also have Huxley College of the environment, which was one of the first environmental colleges in the United States Environmental Science, Environmental Sciences, environmental studies, and sustainability, or something that we have really prioritized. And we made it. It's clear, I mean, we made it a priority to have a place for students to study the environment.

Lastly, Fairhaven College of interdisciplinary studies last but certainly not least, on that list. Fairhaven college is a little bit different than the other colleges, because in Fairhaven, students are able to create their own major with the assistance of faculty and advisors. So, for example, looking at our popular majors list, if you want to study computer science, there are certain courses that you have to take to be a computer science major, and that's determined by the Department. In Fairhaven, though, we kind of flip that on its head. Your you know what you want to study. Hum, especially if your interests are in across multiple disciplines or geared towards.

Social justice then. Fairhaven College, might be a great option for you. You get to create your own course of study so you work with advisers to determine which class is best matched your interest in to build your own major. So if you are interested in social justice related fields or your interest lie between the multiple disciplines that I would really encourage you to check out Fairhaven College in there in missions and outreach coordinator is really fantastic to work with, so you'll have some great help along the way in making that major.

You can see some of our popular majors here. Just because they're popular doesn't mean there better there, just more popular. But all of our major stand out in different and unique ways on the bottom of that list you can see pre professional pathways. That's another thing I want to tell you a little bit more about in pre professional pathways. Those are for students who want to our plan to go on to Graduate School, perhaps medical school law school dental school for example, where there are certain courses that you need to complete to go into those graduate programs. For example premed, we don't have a premed major you can major in.

Anything and still be a pre Med student and still be prepared to go into medical school. How that works is you study whatever you want. I am the preprofessional pathway. The pre health care pathway is there to sort of the template to make sure that you were completing required classes that you're getting shadowing hours and doing other things to help strengthen your application. Outside of just coursework. We also have our pre healthcare advisor. She's in our career services center so available to you before you even start as a student at Western we have this advisor so you can.

Ask questions about being a pre Med pre health care pre law student at Western get advising tips on that might not otherwise be available to you at some other schools. Sometimes students have to wait until their second year to be able to get that advising, but that's going to be available to you from the moment you step on campus so that you can really plan ahead and prepare yourself for those programs. I also want to tell you a little bit about our student involvement in our undergraduate student involvement in research, so we have about 16,000 students on campus and 95% of those students are undergraduates where completely undergraduate focused University.

And there's, uh, unique benefit to that as we are undergraduate focus, that means that all of those research opportunities ways to collaborate with your professors. That's going to be available to you. You're not competing with graduate students to get those research positions for the attention of your professor are 99% of our classes are taught by our professors rather than graduate students, so you get to talk and work with people who are really experts in their fields who are very knowledgeable and also have the opportunity to perhaps help out in their research work with one of our graduate students on their research projects.

Or even do your own independent research. So that's just another opportunity that will be available to you In addition to the great academics inside the classroom.

Of course, it's not all about academics. How we do want you to do well, but there's a lot of there's a lot more to your college experience. We want to make sure that you're happy on campus if you're happy. If you have your community and support, then you're going to do well in your classes. So here are some different ways that you can get involved on campus and dive right into the great thriving campus community we have here at Western. With 250 different clubs and going back to what I said about 16,000 students, that means there's going to be at least a few other students with similar interests as you.

It can be hard when you start at a new school. Maybe you don't know. Many other students may be your best friends going to college across the state. It can be a bit scary to meet people and we want to make that easier for you so you can get that connection to campus in the beginning of our fall quarter we have two days of our IIS clubs and activities fair, so you can learn about all of the clubs in ways to be involved on campus in one convenient place.

All of our clubs table in Red Square so you can go and see what there about sign up and start going to club meetings. That's a great way to meet students with similar interests and stay involved in what you like to do. With 250 clubs. There's when I say there's something for everyone. There's really something for everyone. We have clubs ranging from academic interest like psychology club and Chemistry Club 2 clubs, four pre healthcare interested students, prelaw our professional women's group on campus. We also have clubs for more fun or not.

More fun, but for other interests such as our Harry Potter Club, which is one of our biggest clubs on campus, we have the serial eating club where they watch movies and eat cereal so you'll be able to find your people on campus and really just build that community and build that support network. Residence Hall activities are another great great way to get involved on campus and get to know the students that are living around you. You can join Hall Council and be part of planning events and making decisions relating directly to where you're living on campus.

For example, one of our residence halls on campus puts on a haunted house in October. A group of our Fairhaven Group of residence halls on the South end of campus put on the Fairhaven Karneval in the spring, so there's always something fun going on on campus and residence Hall activities are great way to get involved in planning and coordinating events.

So next we have our research and outreach programs, counseling center and career services center. Those I want to tell you a bit more about as well. We really want to make sure that you have what you need to be successful and what each student needs to be successful is going to be different. There's no one formula. It's not one size fits all, so we have a variety of resources available on campus. We have our tutoring center math if you need help with math or in courses. We also have our research writing center. We can go get assistance in.

Working on your papers and essays we have.

Our counseling centers available to students as well. They provide a variety of resources so you can get any assistance that you might need. Whether it's just learning healthy stress management techniques or meeting 1 on one with the counselor to find some other resources that might be a little too.

Best serve you. Then we want to make sure that's available to the most important piece of this is for you to advocate for yourself and tell us what it is that you need so that we can get you connected with the proper resources are clear services centers. Another one I talked a little bit about on the previous slide so you could go get advising advice if you're not sure what you want to major in, but you know what your end career goal is, they can help you out with kind of working backwards from there or help you work towards a specific career goal that you have in mind. They can also help you in preparing for interviews.

With a mock interviews you can get some practice in that, so that's another great resource that's available to you as a student, and once you leave western as well, that will always be there for you.

Below we have some more fun ways to get involved on campus athletics and inner mirales. If you want to be a student athlete then that's fantastic. You can get involved in our NCAA Division two sports, or if being a student athlete might be a bit more of a time commitment, then you're looking for, then we have intermural sports as well. When you get a team together with some of your friends, play against other students across the University so you can stay active. Continue doing your sport, but maybe not have as big of a time commitment.

Our liquid boathouse outdoor center and Recreation Center. Other ways that you can stay active and stay fit as well as get outside are liquid. Boathouse is on Lake walk come. You can go out there. It's accessible by the bus system.

You can go out to The Boathouse and run out kayaks and canoes. You can even take a sailing class. So if you want to learn something new and try out new things, we have those resources available for you to make sure that you get some help in getting started. Our outdoor center also has programming available for students if you want to kind of dip your toes into trying new outdoor activities, maybe mountain biking or kayaking, and you want some guidance as you try that, then they leave different excursions throughout the year that you can sign up for. Or you can just rent out equipment if you want to try something new and.

But you're not sure if you want to fully invest in getting your own equipment.

We, uh, our study abroad programs as well. We have our study education abroad office that's available to you so that you can get a broad. That's a big thing that a lot of students are looking for in their college. Experience is having the opportunity to go abroad and we want to make sure that that's available to you and that you have help in finding that right program for you and our education abroad office. You can get some help in finding programs that match up to your interests as well as assistance in the entire process of what it takes to spend a few weeks or a few months or even a full year abroad they have.

Workshops to help you fill out your passport application. Make sure you have everything in order. Whether you need a visa to be in the country, housing getting financial aid sorted out, they can help you in that entire process so that you can just focus on getting abroad and having a great experience.

So now that we've gotten you excited about western about Bellingham, about her great campus community, well shift gears a little bit and start talking about what we look for in the application and how we can get you here. So starting with what we look for an application, there's no one formula to get admitted. There is no one thing that we need to see in an application. We look at multiple factors because each student in each application is different, so some of the things that we do look like. Look at our academic performance, contributions to your community, your achievements, and.

Diverse experiences. We do, of course, look at academic performance. We look at unweighted GPA, your grades, test scores, but we don't only look at that because you're not just numbers. You're not just GPA and test scores, so that is a factor that's not the only factor. We also look at your contributions to your community, what you're involved in, how you choose to spend your time as well as the celebrate your achievement so that your application is really an opportunity for you to showcase what you've achieved in how you've been a part of your community. And finally diverse experiences. If you just want to hold on to that one, I'll talk a bit more about that when we get to the scholarship section.

This presentation.

All right, so the application for first year students. It's online, you can find it on our admissions website for falls. The applications typically open up in mid September, so kind of keep that date in mind. So you'll fill out all your information as well as send us your transcripts. Your transcripts must show your grades from 9th grade through the end of 11th grade and then you'll fill out your senior year schedule. So what classes you're currently taking, we also asked for your official S80 or AC T test scores. We do super score the essay tea so we take your best score from.

Each section, if you took the SA team multiple times and scored better in math on one test and not as well the second time we use your best scores and compile those together for your best possible score and we use that in determining both admission and scholarships.

Some of my favorite parts of the application, though, are the activities list in the essay, so the activities list is that time for you to really showcase and highlight your involvement in your community and your achievements, your accomplishments. So in the activities list, it's really anything you do outside of just the classroom, so that can be being involved in music or dance in your school. It can be being a leader in your school, through ASV or different planning, a planning, different events. There's a lot of different forms that can take, or it can be working or caring for family members as well. Sometimes students don't have time to have.

A lot of extra curricular activities because they have other responsibilities, and that's OK as well. Please include that on your activities list that does. It counts. It's something that you choose to spend a lot of time to you and it shows a lot of commitment.

The essay is another really cool part of the application, because that's an opportunity for the person reading your application to get to know you.

Think of the essay as a conversation with the person that's reading your application. You want to tell if we want to know why you want to go to western wire prepared for college may be telling us about a certain experience that's helped you feel prepared for college. Again, there's no one formula for the application. It's really about you as an individual and what makes you unique. All the wonderful things that make you you.

If you're a bit worried about your essay, that's OK. It can be a little scary submitting hitting submit on that college application, so you can actually email your essay to the admissions counselors before you even submit your application, and we're happy to review that for you. Maybe give you a bit of feedback and send it back so that you can feel really confident when you submit your application that you're submitting a great essay.

There's also the optional tell us more essay, so this is if there's something that you think we should know that maybe not shown in your transcripts in your essay activities list, but you still think it's important for us to know when we read your application. For example, if you got an ammonia your sophomore year, and you missed a month of school and you're really, really sick in your grade stepped, if we just see here, great, stepped on the transcript. We don't really know what happened there, but if you tell us what was going on then we can better understand other factors that were happening at that time that might have impacted your grades. So it just gives us a better understanding.

And the more context you provide us, really, the better we can understand your application, because again, it really is on an individual basis.

Letters of recommendation are also optional. No need to send one in if you're happy with your application with your essay activities, list transcripts. No need to worry about sending a letter of recommendation in, but if you would like to send one and then we're happy to read that we do have a $60.00 application fee. But we also have need based fee waivers available. We don't want the application fee to be what prevents you from applying, and we don't want that to be a big source of stress for you. So at the time that you get ready to submit, your application will be an opportunity for you to request that fee.

And apply early so.

Here we have the admissions deadlines. These are for first year applicants on the next slide will talk a bit more about the deadlines for transfer students.

So again, the application becomes available in mid September. Early action deadline will be November 1st, so if you applied by November 1st, you'll hear back by December 31st will get a response from us and you'll get expedited review for admissions based scholarships. So if you just want to respond sooner, maybe you want as much time as possible to weigh your options and make a decision. Then I would encourage you to apply by that November 1st deadline non binding. You can still ultimately choose another school, but you're going to hear back a lot faster so you have.

All pieces of the puzzle went to look at when you make your decision. If you maybe want to spend a bit more time working on your essay, then that's OK to our regular decision. Deadline is January 21st, so you'll have to excuse me January 31st, so you'll have plenty of time to work on that application. Get submitted in time.

So here we have some information that's more specifically for transfer students. Again, it's going to be an online application. You can find it on our admissions website, will send us your transcripts from any colleges that you've attended, as well as if you have completed less than 40 credits at the time of your application. Then we will also need high school transcripts and we may need to say CS 80 or AC T test scores. And if you need help in determining whether you need to submit test scores, you can refer to our admissions website For more information.

The US is a little bit different. This essay is going to be focused. You telling us about your career goals, your educational goals, why you want to study, what program you're interested in at Western to help us better understand why you want to attend western, in what program, why you're interested in that program.

Again, there's still that optional. Tell us more essay if you think there's something else that we need to know when we review your application so the deadlines are a bit different. You have a bit more time to submit that application for fall quarter. March 1st will be that deadline. Winter is September 15th, spring will be January 1st and summer will also be March 1st. Snowfall in summer have that same deadline.

Alright, so now that we've talked about the application and that piece of the process, let's talk about financial aid.

On that on the screen you can see faster.gov and ready. Set grad UAVs application.

So fast is the free application for federal student aid. Wasa is the application for Washington state aid. You don't need to fill out both, you don't fill out both forms, it's one or the other wall size for students that aren't eligible to apply for federal aid but do qualify for state aid. So if you're not sure which form to fill out, you can reach out to your counselor at your school or reach out to our office and we can help you figure that out and again apply early. The sooner you submit it, you'll get more you'll hear back sooner so that becomes available on October 31st in the priority deadline is January 31st. To submit your fax it or wasa.

And that's just a really great day to mark on your calendar. January 31st. That's when fast. There will still be do as well as your application to western if your first year student.

So here we just have some types of funding that you might be offered for your financial. You might be offered three or financial aid award and you can receive any combination of these types of funding. So we have Pell grants and state need grants. Pell grants are federally funded where state need grants are of course state funded, so it's just a different source and funding on those and you may also receive a variety of loans through your FAFSA as well. There's a few different kinds that you might receive and it will be noted when you receive your award letter, the amount of the loans as well as what kind that.

The type that you were being offered you can also choose to take out a private loan for your local bank or credit union that won't be listed on your FAFSA. That's up to you to determine whether or not you want to take out additional loans.

Work study might also be awarded to you as part of your financial aid package when you fill out your FAFSA, there's a box to check at that stating that you would like to be considered for work study. So if you are interested, make sure you check that box. You can receive work citian. Ultimately choose to not take it so you're not so you can go ahead and check that box. It's not. You're not going to have to work on campus, it's up to you whether you want to have a work study job. We have our student employment center available as a resource to help students find employment, so if you receive work study, you can filter by work, study jobs and look at the work study opportunities available on campus.

Or if you don't receive work study, there will still be plenty of opportunities for you to find employment on campus. We have about 3000 student jobs available on campus, ranging from delivering Mail on campus to be in one of the Wonderful Student Tour Guide to work on our office of admissions. To be in a kayak instructor through our outdoor center so there will be plenty of opportunities for you to find employment.

Next we have scholarships, which is much more fun to talk about them loans so we have a few different kinds of scholarships that I want to highlight. Here are admissions based scholarships are right there at the top and we have a few different kinds. The important thing to know is when you apply to western, you're automatically considered for all of our emissions based dollar ships. There's no extra application, so two birds, one stone on that application. So first we have our merit based scholarships. That's going to be based on your unweighted GPA and Test score.

Western is a wee school. The western undergraduate exchange, so seems from we member states are able will automatically be considered for the we scholarship. There's nothing extra you need to do.

And then we award at Western is a merit based as well, so that will be based on your GPA and test scores. We also have scholarships available for students that are coming from non we member states as well. So you will also be considered for those.

If you remember back to the slide, what do we look for when I said hold on to diverse experiences, I'll tell you a bit more about that later. This is where it comes back into play in our multicultural achievement program. We're looking for diverse experiences and diversity of experience, really. Again, there's no one formula. Know one thing that we're looking for. So in the multicultural achievement program, we're really looking for students that have noticed a need in your community and that you're doing something to actively address that need. And there's a lot of different shapes that can take, but we really just want to see that you were engaged in an active participant.

In your community.

We also have our leadership and distinguished scholars programs. Students will be invited to apply to these based on the information provided in their application. We have distinguished scholars programs for students interested in Engineering, Education, Marine Science, Biology, chemistry. So if you have a really strong interest in any different major or program of study, maybe you have previous experience relating to marine biology or chemistry. Then make sure you do mark that in your application you can select that as one of your academic interests.

Or show it in your activities list so that we can invite you to apply for one of these programs.

Departmental scholarships are available to current students and sometimes perspective as well. So if you know what Department you're interested in, it's good to check that out and see what scholarships might be available to you either now or down the road when you're a student in that major.

The washboard, the oregoncollegeboard.org, or just great resources. Non western resources to look for scholarships the washboard dot dot org is especially great for Washington state students because they connect Washington students with Washington scholarship providers, so it's a bit narrower of a competition there. Where is the collegeboard.org is open to all students across the country, so those are great external resources. If you're just looking for other scholarships and don't, the best advice I can give is don't let thinking you won't get a scholarship prevent you from applying.

You don't know what that end result will be an it's always worth applying to that scholarship.

We also have our scholarship center and as another resource act available to our students, they have a list of scholarships on their website that you can browse through and they can also help you in your process of searching for and applying to additional scholarships. So that's another resource that you can go turn to to look for additional funding.

So here we have just a summary of our tuition cost of attendance for 2019-2020. So for Washington state residents are tuition for full-time students is $5543.00 per year. We are the second lower tuition is the second lowest of the four year universities in Washington state. Out-of-state students tuition will be $22,890.00 per year, so at the top of that chart you have your direct cost. Those are the costs that are built directly to you from the University, and there are a set number. There's really not much fluctuation in there.

With the exception of what meal plan you choose so your tuition, your student fees, so you have your student fees. Cover things like these student technology, Phoebe Health Services, your student bus pass that you get on your student ID card. That's all lumped into that one amount of fees.

Below that you have your indirect cost, so those are the costs that will change from will vary between students. There is no set number that those are. It's really up to you. You're in charge of those costs, but this is what we use in an estimate to give you to show you your total cost of attendance at Western textbooks transportation. Your personal costs though is really very. Your transportation costs might vary. If you could be a lot lower if you're relying just on your bus pass as opposed to if you bring a card to campus or our community and back home pretty often.

Similarly, your personal and miscellaneous costs could be a lot higher if you're enjoying all the great food and coffee we have in Bellingham, them, that could be a little bit of a higher cost, but this just gives you an estimate of what you can expect a year at Western 2 cost end. Your financial aid will be based off of this number.

Alright, so finally I want to talk to you about our honors program at Western are honors program is great for students were really engaged. Maybe you have a lot to add to the classroom conversation or you enjoy smaller seminar style courses. It's a great way to really dive deep into various topics and it's not extra work. You can complete our general undergraduate requirements are Jaguars that all students have to complete. You can complete them through honors so it's a different way of satisfying those requirements, but it's not additional work.

To apply to the honors program, it will be a separate application. You must have already applied to western, though you don't have to have been admitted to apply to the honors program, so you can submit your application to Western and then immediately fill out your honors application and the reason is they do use your admissions application materials in determining admission to honors. You also send in a writing sample of your best written work and a short essay on why you want to be in the honors program and what you have to add to this program. If you're interested in learning more about the Honors Program, I would recommend connecting with the folks over at owners.

They are lovely people and it's a really great program. You can find out more information directly from honors and keep those deadlines in mind at the bottom as well. Early action will be January 15th. Regular decision March 15th. So if you are interested in honors, keep those big. Keep those dates in mind.

All right, and finally to rap things up. Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about Western Washington University and contact us. We're here to be a resource to you, so just let us know if there's anything you can we can help out with. Do you have any other questions or you want to learn more about western? You can visit our admissions website admissions at WWW to see a virtual tour of campus to connect to virtually within admissions counselor. If you want to video chat with somebody or give us a call, we are answering our phones and we're here to chat with you.

And get your questions answered.

I hope that you'll be able to come visit campus one day that you will be able to see all the wonderful things that make western a great place to study. You would get to come see that for yourself, and when you do visit, I hope you'll stop by the admissions office and say hi.