Picture of a sign in front of Brandeis University with white text that says "Brandeis Online Information Session."
Thomas Screnci: Hello, and thank you for joining this recorded general information session about Brandeis online. My name is Tom Screnci. I'm part of the admissions team here. This session should only take about 15, 20 minutes or so, so it shouldn't be a huge chunk of your time to learn about Brandeis Online, the admissions process and the tips and tricks with admissions team likes to provide.
Slide switches to show headshots of admissions reps Tom (tscrenci@brandeis.edu) and Jess (jessicaronan@brandeis.edu). General contact information is also listed below (online@brandeis.edu).
Tom Screnci speaks: oS with that, let's jump right through into our presentation. Here again. My name is Tom. I'm the associate director of Admissions and Enrollment alongside me. I have Jess Ronan as the senior admissions coordinator. We make up our growing admissions team. You can reach either of us directly through our email addresses here, you can contact our general line online@brandeis.edu and our phone number, which are both at the bottom. Jess and I both check the online@brandeis.edu email address. So whichever way you choose to email us, we will see it. So please feel free to reach out to us directly through our personal email addresses or general inbox.
Slide switches to say "Agenda." Bullet points say About Brandeis Online, Why Brandeis?, Admissions Info, and Next Steps/Q&A.
Thomas Screnci speaks: So today's agenda is introducing you to Brandeis online some differentiators about Brandeis, and then diving into the missions info, and then tricks, tricks, tips, all that kind of stuff.
Slide switches to say "Brandeis Online overview."
Thomas Screnci: So, jumping into a general introduction to Brandeis Online. All of our programs are a hundred percent online and a circuitous. So there are no set meeting times. Talk a little bit about that. A circuitous setup later on. But all of our programs are 100% online with no set meeting times, making it as flexible and as convenient as possible.
Our master's degrees are commonly 10 courses with a few being 13 courses. So that's the typical number of courses you would take for a degree, and our certificates are commonly 4 courses. There are a few minor exceptions to these programs, but in general you're seeing 10 courses for a degree and 4 for a certificate.
We offer 5, 8 week long sessions each year. So if you're thinking of doing a certificate, you can complete that in less than a year's time, going part time, one course at a time, and a master's degree. 2 courses you can complete in under a year's time as well. So you do have the flexibility of part time or full time but those 5, 8 week long sessions make it even quicker till completion. So that is a great, great fact to know.
All of our admissions is rolling, meaning as applications are submitted and completed, we evaluate them. So that's kind of important context of how we review our admissions decisions. We typically try to send out admissions decisions within a week's time of the application being completed. So that's important information to know as well.
And if you're just dipping your toes into online learning, or just your next degree, whatever it may be, you can take up to 2 courses without applying for any program. You can just try a singular course or 2 just to try to programs. Try out the online learning and have those credits once completed, applied towards any certificate or degree, if you so choose to continue forward.
Slide switches to list statistics: 98% of our students are working full-time while in a program; 12:1 student-faculty ratio; Average salary increase of 25% by alum at time of graduation.
Tom Screnci speaks: So that's a general introduction into Brandeis Online. It's also great to know that 98% of our students are working full time. So we are very much geared towards the working professional. We keep class sizes small. So you can have a great personal connection with your classmates, with your, with your faculty, with the advisor networks as well. So making connections is even easier in a smaller online classes. And our programs are yielding results with great salary increases on average for our students. So always great information to know as well.
Slide switches to say "Overview of Programs." All master's degrees and master's certificates are listed below. Full list can be found at https://www.brandeis.edu/online/academics/masters-degrees/index.html and https://www.brandeis.edu/online/academics/certificates/index.html.
So this is the current list of our master's degrees and certificates. We have added and expanded this a lot in the last year or so, and I saw someone joined our our session. So thank you for joining us. So these sessions have more than doubled these. Excuse me, these programs have more than doubled in the last year. So we've greatly expanded our certificate programs and added a couple of our degree programs. So these are all the pathways you can take.
It's important to note which I dive a little bit into in the next slide as well, is. All of our master's certificate. Programs are stackable into the degree, so you can transfer all of your credits from your certificate into degree program. So I think the next slide having given a little bit more information on that. Yes. So using the bioinformatics program and most applicable certificates as an example, if you decided to do one of these 3 certificate programs, you would have all those credits and all those courses transferable or stacked into the degree. And then you'd only have 6 more courses to go to complete the bioinformatics. So if you're thinking you just want a certificate, you don't need a degree. You can kind of work in bits and pieces, earn their certificate, have achieved that hold that, add it to your resume all that good stuff, and then later on decide you want the degree you can have those credits applied towards your degree progress. So it's a great way to kind of get 2 things in the same process. Start with the certificate, get a degree, and in the same process. Same timeline, get a certificate and a degree. So an amazing opportunity for those who are unsure or want to, you know. Add as many achievements as possible. That's always great to see.
Slide switches to show three different colored bubbles, each representing Cheminformatics, Genomics, and Drug Informatics master's certificates. The three bubbles are connected to a larger bubble representing the MS in Bioinformatics.
Thomas Screnci: This just is just breaking down the course selections of these 3 certificates, using this as an example, as you will see all 3 of them are using our Bif 102 of them are using our Bif 101 structural bioinformatics. So there's a lot of carryover similarities between these programs really just highlighting how we are making these programs stackable, flexible for you and your convenience. So you are going to see this across the board for all of our certificate to degree pathway programs is that flexibility in your programming.
Slide switches to say "Why Brandeis Online?"
Thomas Screnci: So jumping into why, someone might choose Brandeis Online. First, we have a, you know, a brick and mortar, so to speak, campus. We have a physical campus in Waltham, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Brandeis has been there since 1948. So we have a wonderful online and in person community with that community, we have a wonderful faculty providing a lot of industry expertise to our brand is online programs. This is just highlighting some examples from bioinformatics project and program management digital marketing and design as well as software engineering just to exemplify the expertise our faculty are bringing.
It's also important to note that all of our faculty engage with us part time. They are choosing to teach because they all work full time in their field. So they're bringing an amazing passion for students and great depth of knowledge, perspective, experience in their field to your classroom, to your topic. So it's wonderful people to learn from people who are dedicated to their field and to teaching students. So the expertise and commitment to students is wonderful. Definitely something that would have people considering and saying, maybe I should go to Brandeis.
When it comes to our Professional Advisory Board. This is another sampling of where our Professional Advisory Board members come from. Each program has a Professional Advisory Board who advises your program's growth structure development as well as its students. So if you're looking into having networking abilities, getting some guidance from industry professionals, in addition to those that your instructors will provide. The Professional Advisory Board. Each of our departments offers is a wonderful opportunity as well.
Similarly, our Brandeis students are coming from varying backgrounds, and some similar organizations as well as mentioned earlier, 98% of our students are working full time. So their expertise, their experience is also great to know we are seeing students who are fresh out of undergraduate with 0 to one years experience. And also, you know, many, probably most of our students are coming in with, you know, I would say at least 10 years, 5 to 10 years of experience or more. So you have wonderful perspectives, and experiences to to learn from in terms of your peers as well, so always great to have that kind of knowledge as well.
Brandeis University offers an amazing standard of excellence, being a high ranking university. And Us. News prince interviews, full accreditations for our online and in person programs. So you're seeing wonderful, rigorous curriculums with regular review to make sure our programs are relevant, are yielding results and are addressing the topics that are most prevalent. So always important to know that your programs are reviewed are getting the praise that you hope to see when you're looking at academic programs.
We've been doing online learning for over 2 decades. Now, actually, so we have wonderful knowledge and perspective to to improve and adjust our online learning platforms with class being small by design, empowering professors to to teach how they want to teach. So whether it be online notes, recorded videos or sharing other resources they feel are most applicable. We provide the faculty with a lot of resources. And you as a student, the training and knowledge to get used to online learning. So if you're new to the platform and online learning, you have an introductory course, and advisors as well, who are going to assist you with online learning how to adjust to that? So you always have support, whether it be technical support which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or those through your advisors, through peers, instructors, plenty of online assistance. If you're new to online learning. And if you're experiencing online learning, I think you'll find it. You know, one of the one of the better online experiences when it comes to online learning. So that's something about our almond approach there.
So the flexibility of our program is something that is very, very attractive to a lot of students. We have set weekly paces for our courses every Wednesday morning. Class materials are posted, and you have until Tuesday the following Tuesday at midnight to submit the work at any point in that week you are allowed to do your work, whether it be midnight of Saturday or right in the morning. 1st thing Wednesday, when materials are posted truly up to you.
With 90% of our students working full time, that flexibility is key. We understand that. So we try to make our programs as flexible as possible. So you have that on a weekly rotation for the 8 week course sessions to do your work now. Yes, you may have some live commitments to that. Won't let you be as flexible group projects and things like that are going to demand you to schedule things in person. Live, I should say, live. Maybe zoom calls or phone calls, whatever you decide to do. But you know, by and large the program is completely convenient and flexible for you. Outside of maybe group projects that require some you know, live sessions, you could say.
Lastly, just highlight again, the ability to test drive our programs without committing to a certificate or degree program. You can take a course for professional development to test drive online learning. And you'll see if it's right for you. So you can definitely do that whenever it's convenient. We have registration open for our fall, one and fall-2 session. Now fall-1 doesn't start until the end of August. We're a little bit of a gap as we adjust our academic schedule, but you are welcome to apply and enroll now, or you can wait until end of July or mid July to start this registration process. But you can test, drive our programs if you feel kind of give it a give it a go before fully committing. And it is called the 1st and registration form, and it's on our take a course web page. So that is where to find it as well.
Slide switches to say "Admissions Checklist."
So I've given you a wonderful summary of what the online learning experience is like what Brandeis is about. Now, I'm going to dive into the application admissions process starting 1st with the degree application. The certificate application is a little bit different, but this degree application checklist is complete, comprehensive. As you see, there's no application fee or standardized testing required.
We just require these official documents and items here. Application, of course, official transcripts from all previous schools a resume statement of goals, and at least one letter of recommendation.
The statement of goals. Sometimes the last thing for us to receive is you just answering the question, what's you why? Why applying to Brandeis? Why this program? You know what motivates you to seek this degree or certificate degree in this context here. So typically 500 words or more, it can be multiple pages long. If you want to give us a lot of detail of your professional career, context to any you know, learning, situations, degree changes, career changes as well, truly up to you as to how long you want it to be. But 500 words or more is the requirement. And really just you answering why, you're applying to the program. So please give as much context as you want to know any information you want us to know that might not be in a resume in your professional experience. Life events, changes things like that, always great to have as much context as possible on a student. So please feel free to share that, and please be sure to proofread and make sure Brandeis is spelled wrong. I've definitely spelt it wrong before myself. So no, no pressure with that it does happen, but always good to proofread.
The resume is your opportunity to highlight your skills. The resume for Brandeis Online is typically different than a typical work resume. You can provide multiple pages of experience on all your professional experience. So if your resume is 3 pages 4 pages totally fine, I know the typical recommendation is one to 2 pages in length. Right? It can be as many pages as you need, giving us as much detail on your experience projects. You've worked on, maybe coursework certificates, things like that. So please dive into great detail. We're not critiquing your formatting of your resume too much. It's really just what's the body? What's the what's the meat, so to speak, of your resume. That's what we really care about. So give us as much detail as possible. Truly highlight your eligibility for a program.
We also require official transcripts from all your previous institutions. We require transcripts for your bachelor's degree. So if you have a master's, it's great to know that and see that. But it's technically not required for the application. If you attended multiple schools, we will require a transcript from all previous institutions, you are allowed to submit unofficial or copies of transcripts. And while we can make an admissions decision, with that we will require an official transcript by the end of your 1st academic session for you to stay fully enrolled and admitted to the program. So official transcript from all previous schools sent to online@brandeis.edu, or the Physical Mailing address right there in the middle of the screen, 415 South Street in Waltham are 2 ways to do that.
So most programs require one letter of recommendation. Our Jewish professional leadership program requires 2 regardless. We are always looking for a current or former manager or supervisor to write a recommendation. If you are a newer graduate don't have as much professional experience. Someone who oversaw you in an internship or a project of some sort is a great second tier choice, and then, lastly, any type of former manager supervisor, maybe not in a related field is fine. Obviously no family members recommendations. But someone who can talk about you in a professional capacity is great. So you can send 2, 3, 4, however many you want sending. One is completely fine. That's the minimum that's your meeting the requirements. That's totally fine. But you are welcome to send more if you if you so choose. If your recommender is not the most, let's say, fluent in terms of writing recommendations or writing essays. Things like that. Please please be sure to add them into your application, as you see a screenshot of here on the right hand side, because we will send them instructions and give them tips on what to write. So if they're nervous about writing a letter of recommendation, we will give them some tips and tricks, so all the reason to add them into the recommendation earlier instead of later on. So we can give them. These prompts a little quicker.
Slide switches to say "Master's Certificate Enrollment."
Tom speaks: That completes the breakdown of the Master's degree application materials. When it comes to the certificate, it is much more straightforward. You're just filling out the master's certificate application on our website, which includes submitting a resume and telling us about your prerequisite, your bachelor's degree, and that is it. From there we review the application and we'll approve it. And you can start your program there.
And for the 1st time registration form for the non degree non certificate students. You fill the form on our website. No resume is required. It is great to have it, of course, though, and from there you can start in to register for your single course.
So those 2 processes, a little quicker, a little more straightforward than the degree program, but the degree application in my experience having been in admissions for quite some time is very straightforward, very much possible to get done in a week or so's time, and, you know, move on to getting your decision and enrolling in classes.
Slide switches to say "Tuition." Cost per credit is $1220, Master's Certificate is $14,640 with $500 deposit.
So one of my goals is to make it as seamless as possible when it comes to the tuition price. Here is the current breakdown. You know, showing our dedication to our students. Brandeis has not raised tuition since Covid has started. So as students have looked more into online learning, we have remained committed to our students and being as affordable as we can be.
This slide here. The little chart is using the certificate as an example every course is charged per credit, and you were only billed on the courses. You were currently enrolled in. You are not paying for a certificate or degree in advance, you know, full full bill in in advance. You're only paying per course per session. So if you're working bit by bit, you know, working slowly and paying fully out of pocket, you're only paying per course, which is great to know.
You can, of course, qualify for for loans, payment plans, things like that, please contact our financial aid team here, you see at the bottom for questions, application processes, things like that, as it relates to financial aid.
Slide switches to say "Next Step."
Next steps, as we're coming to the end of our presentation here is just to reach out to admissions once again. online@brandeis.edu is our general email address as well as our phone number there. And you can, of course, find us on social media as well follow event updates which is fine on our website as well, and any other happenings, opportunities as well. So social media is a great way to keep up with what's going on at Brandeis Online.
And you can also keep up with us by reaching out to us directly as well. So please feel free to email me or my colleague Jess at any point in time, always happy to help again. We also check the online@brandeis.edu email address. So, however, you choose to engage and reach out to us. I myself and Jess will will see it. But regardless, I wanted to say, Thank you for joining us today. It is 1:20. So I stayed right on track of my my timing. So good predictor. There, pat on the back to myself for that one.
And please reach out to us with any questions. And for those of you who are watching the recorded session. I'm gonna end the recording now. Thank you for watching the recording and hoping to hear from you soon and have a good rest of your day, evening, and thanks again for joining us.