Yeah, I think that we will, yeah.
Problem is I can't see the screen.
Taylor Baird
03:00:16 PM
Welcome to the Sewanee Sessions! Please feel to introduce yourselves in the chat as we get started.
Welcome everybody will give you a few minutes to get logged in. Looks like we're getting some participants in today's session, so we'll give it a couple of minutes.
To let a few more people get in and then we will introduce ourselves and go on from there.
Joshua R.
03:00:41 PM
Hello, Joshua Ryan from Cookeville, TN.
Morgyn H.
03:00:48 PM
Good Morning, This is Morgyn Bentley and her mama Aimee Bentley-Henon
Taylor Baird
03:00:54 PM
Welcome!
Maybe we have everybody Tim, why don't we just dive into this? Everybody, I'd like to welcome you guys today to our swaney session on the enrollment process. Thank you guys for joining us today and we are looking forward to introducing you or helping you. You may already be introduced to this process, just kind of helping you navigate through some of.
Sarah E.
03:01:17 PM
Hi! Sarah Evans from Nashville, TN
Joey P.
03:01:19 PM
Hello, I'm Joey Pascarella of Oak Park, IL.
The things that you're going to be doing to enrolling and becoming a Swanee student, and we're very excited that you guys are going to be joining us next year. We should say that first, my name is Jeff Heitzenrater. I work here in the admissions office. One of the admission counselors, and I'm joined today by my colleague Tim and I'll let him introduce himself.
Jordan L.
03:01:34 PM
Hi, I'm Jordan from Nashville
Thanks Jeff. Hi everyone, it's great to see so many deposited students in the mix and some admitted students still discerning in their process. Like Jeff said my name is Tim. I'm a graduate of the University and I will say I wish this session had existed when I was an incoming student because I know that this this information that we all crave to know before we arrive on campus.
Andrew M.
03:01:48 PM
Hello, Andrew Mee of Houston, Texas here!
Jack C.
03:01:49 PM
Hi, I'm Jack from CO
Grant H.
03:01:54 PM
Hi this is Kimberly Haigney from Davidson NC. My son Grant has enrolled!
Kostas A.
03:01:54 PM
Hello! I am Kostas from greece
Lauren Anne S.
03:02:15 PM
Lauren Anne, Jackson MS
It doesn't really change that much from when you graduated college 10 years ago, 15 years ago, or if you're about to start college. You want to know who your roommate's going to be and how the the forms, how you complete all the necessary forms to arrive on time, and so it is really nice that you will have this centralized enrollment process. And so Jeff and I are here to hopefully help mitigate any stress that you have about the enrollment process.
Talk you through some of the forms that already are live. Some of the things that are going to exist, yeah?
Perfect, so yeah, let's talk about what we're going to cover. There's some checklist items on your enrollment app. Excuse me. Application status page in the Form section, there are some checklist items that are already available. Will talk about those, will preview some future checklist items that will be available to some of you depending on.
Whether you sign up for a for a particular program or where the work, study or any number of other things, we're going to talk a little bit about the your domain web page, which Tim will not brag about later, but he creates and edits all of our web pages so he'll be he'll be talking about that. And we'll cover a little bit on some of the plans for fall 2021, and all of you are certainly navigating through a system at your particular school or in your world or in your neighborhood or community.
Beware the sometimes the protocols change from month to month or week to week and we're starting to craft plans here. Asllani for what the fall is going to be like, so we'll talk about that a little bit and maybe most importantly there at the end will give you a chance to ask some questions, will answer those and Tim, I think what people will do is just type questions into the Q&A. Is that right?
Joe M.
03:03:56 PM
Joe from St. Louis
Yeah, so you can just type in your questions as you have them. This is a moderated chat shout out to Taylor Beardon Sharrow Burnett on the other end of this they are managing the chat for us so that we can focus on the presentation. They will approve questions closer to the end of the session, so don't be alarmed if you submit a question and it's you don't see it right away.
We just want to make sure that we go through the information 1st and then give you that that opportunity to to ask your questions. But go ahead and you know as you have them, feel free to start chatting them in and we'll get to them at the end.
Michael S.
03:04:27 PM
Michael from Dallas, TX
OK, perfect, so let's talk about some of the checklist items that are available now, so just so everybody's on the same page, you have a couple of portals that you can access, and one of them was your applicant status page and so with any luck, all of you are familiar with that at this point. That is where you saw your status. Paint your application status, you got your admission decision there. It is not the financial aid portal which is a different.
A different page, but that page will turn into your enrollment page and the way you'll know that is at the top. There will be a section that says forms and what you're seeing in front of us on the side is what what you should see, or a similar version of what you'll see in terms of populating forms. So the couple there at the top and we'll go into more detail about each of these. But you'll see these in order, so if you're thinking yourself, oh, I don't see all those. Why don't I see all those forms? So it just means you probably haven't filled.
On a previous form, that's necessary for future forms to then populate, and in this particular persons case so you can see they've signed up for FYP, and so the preform is no longer available on their on their site. Just as an example, this person also applied test optional because the self reporting your S80 and a CT form appeared. But if you did not apply to this optional, that form will not appear, so we'll go through that and what some of the nuances are differences might be between.
Your page and some other peoples may have another friend who's enrolling as well. They might have different forms.
Yeah, I think that's important to know is that all enrollment forms are not equal. Some of you are athletes, recruited athletes. Some of you are international students. Some of your transfers to the institution. So we have done this for many years. We we know what to expect when it comes to enrolling the class, but these forms are also say they take time to populate. So it's like when you go to Starbucks, you order on the app. The coffee is not going to be right there, right?
After you hit send an order on that app, it does take a little bit on the back end so your deposit and payment have to be processed and then once that's processed, an email aswani email actually has to be set up for you outside of our office before all of these forms can be set up. So once that's done then all of this will will come to fruition.
Taylor Baird
03:07:04 PM
Good analogy, Tim!
So here are some of the forms that could be on your list right now already. And like Tim said, there are some delays in the system there. You know if you paid a deposit one hour ago, you don't have any forms on your applicant status page yet because it takes the system a little while and some of behind the scenes processes in order to for some of these to activate.
Tim Neil
03:07:29 PM
Welcome everyone, happy to have you here!
One thing we're going to be emphasizing throughout this session is that some of these forms are much more critical than others. And while we I would argue that all of them, if they show up on your on your app, your enrollment page are.
Required you need to do these items. Some of them you will not be able to sign up for courses or show up. Move into your dorm before you've completed these items and we will do our best to help you with a series of emails and reminders over the course of the summer. But just make sure that they are the things that we're really emphasizing there. Things you do so so you can see those will go into detail on some of these forms, but Tim was talking about how some of the forms may not show up depending on what you do and.
For instance, the athletic Department would like to get gather some athletic biography, biographical information from you so that they can create an existence for you on, let's say, the women's golf page is an example, and so those those are forms that could populate, and they might not populate for everybody.
If you applied just wanted test optional.
Do not be alarmed that that form is check is on your applicant status page. This will not change your admission or scholarship decision whatsoever. We're just using that information for students that have taken the AC T or AC T. If you have great, go ahead and complete it. That's data that the Institutional Research Office has asked us to collect and so don't be alarmed if you see that. I think it still says Jefferson's optional right on that one.
Yeah, so don't be alarmed if you see that one if you have taken the SAT or AC T, go ahead and complete it.
OK, so one of the first two. There are two things that are going to happen. First, the first forms that will show up on your status page and one of them is activating your Swanee username. So the system here that we use it's 1 E 2 for you to do lots of different processes. One particular is rolling in classes is called banner and so you're going to set up a Swanee banner username which will then carry over an will be used in several or other different.
Systems on our campus. And so here's a brief description on how to navigate through that process. This is the actual taken from the actual. Activate your swaney username form an as you wander through these processes. One of the things that you might encounter is an issue or two. Sometimes there are items within our system that are slightly different. You know it might say enter your name or here's your Swanee email and.
You might be thinking, Oh my name is Robert Bradford Smith. I go by Bradford so you're typing in Bradford Smith where we have you in our system is Robert Smith. So there are pieces like that that could happen as you log in and complete some of these processes.
We are happy to field your questions here at the Office of Admission. If you have issues. As you're walking through the setting up, your username is an example process, but all of the behind the things password, the banner system. The email address is all handled on our campus by RIT Department.
Tim Neil
03:11:13 PM
helpdesk@sewanee.edu
And the easiest way to connect with them is by emailing them and you can see the message. The email at the bottom of the page here helpdesk@swanee.edu. That's a really important one to write down. Again, feel free to call us. You don't if you if you don't remember that, but that's where we're going to send you, because those are the folks that can help you to really fix any problems, login errors, you know if you lose your banner ID, we have some of that, but they are the experts.
Taylor Baird
03:11:40 PM
https://new.sewanee.edu/offices/university-offices/lits/help-desk/
Yeah, I would say in my time it's lying. There are two things that I knew by heart. My email and my banner ID. I always knew it. I still know it even if you later become a staff member of the University like I did, I still have the same banner ID number for students that are looking to actually change their email address.
It is as Jeff was saying, you'll need to reach out to help desk at sony.edu, and they're not just changing it for any, just oh, I don't like the look of this email. They're going to change it for for an intentional purpose. Maybe legal name change. Or if you go by a different name, please reach out to them, but do know that that impacts a lot of systems we try and make login to the different systems easy by using a single sign on SSO so.
So if you log into Banner or if you ever work in our office and you have access to our system, it's all using the same login and so it will. It just takes a little bit of time to update so, but helpdesk is wonderful. They're really nice people. Be nice to them. They can definitely help you, just both with like Wi-Fi connections, tack on campus and so forth.
Yeah, we would encourage you not to do a Google search for their phone number either. You're gonna get much faster response from them if you just send an email to helpdesk@swanee.edu. So, and that's what we do as employees. If we have problems with our computer systems, we email them and they help us out at lunch. OK, so let's talk about the academic inventory. So this is a form that is critical in this.
Process and it is essentially an academic inventory and inventory of your high school academic record, so it gives you an opportunity to answer some initial questions. Information that will go to the summer academic guides and we'll talk about them in more minute. These people are going to be helping you with the course selection process throughout the summer, so you cannot. You will not get a course selection form populating on your.
Forms pay to the enrollment page until you complete the academic inventory, so it's really important to go through that.
There are lots of questions that come up sometimes. You know one of the questions in the academic inventory is going to be about your high school foreign language.
Her language languages that you've taken throughout high school. You know, Tim pointed out earlier that they don't want you to include if you took 7th grade Latin, they're not interested in that, but through 9th grade through 12th grade, they want to know. Or if you started some people start at high school level language course and in 8th grade they want to know that information. Any language that you say you have taken previously then a language placement exam is going to populate on your page and the academic guides want you to take.
Every single one of those placement exams, even if, for instance you've taken Latin, Spanish and German, and you only either intend to continue on one of those at Swanee or actually take a different language.
You need to complete those placement exams in case sometime in the future you change your mind or come back or at a second language then you've already taken that placement and I know exactly where you need to go, what level of language you need to enter into. There are other questions on there regarding calculus and chemistry and again these are very specific placement questions that are going to help them place you and you may not take calculus or much math if any.
Or chemistry at all, but the questions are important in case again, at a future date you decide to do that well, you might be thinking yourself. I'm definitely not doing science well. You might get to Swanee and decide that environmental science is incredibly interesting. For example, an you didn't have access to that type. Of course, in high school and maybe an environmental science degree requires chemistry, and you've taken it so they really need to know that placement information.
What else is? Oh yeah, you also have an opportunity to.
Oh yeah, so sorry. Got stuck there. Most of this information is going to the summer academic guides and this is a collection of faculty who are going to help you navigate through the course selection process this summer. So when the course registration form becomes available, you will begin to get information from the course selection.
Sorry from the course selection.
So academic guides and basically the academic guides are going to be able to help you pick your classes and all this information goes to them and you start a dialogue with him through email or zoom or phone calls, or all three of the above, and then you can also turn in some potential information about.
Advanced Placement tests and whatnot. Tim, what what do you want? You gonna give us some information on that?
I think it's just important that we're living in a flexible universe right now. Last year, our policy as an institution was that we notice that a levels the Cambridge international said they were not offering the A level exams. So what we did as an institution was, OK. We'll take the grade in which that student earned and their their final year of high school, and then a final high school transcript to be sent to us. Anyways, in the Office of Admission.
But you'll have to send a copy to the Registrar's office on campus and the academic inventory form gives you clear instructions of what they need. So if you do sit for the AP exams.
If you're in a country where the A level exams will happen, great will give you credit for those courses. If you earn certain marks, dual enrollment and ID for the higher level exams as well. The most important piece is that the Registrar's office is a.
A stickler for official documents so it can't be a scanned copy or anything like that has to come directly from those sources.
It's important to note too that the academic inventory is not the course selection form. We have gotten Contacts from some people who will fill out the inventory and say, oh, when will I know my class schedule? Well, you'll get an opportunity to very specifically pick classes through the course selection process and talking to the summer guides, but this is a really important first step, and so it's some.
One that you want to make sure you don't skip over at all.
OK, another really important Step 2 involves paying your bills and making sure that that process gets initiate initiated and one of the first steps in paying tuition, room and board and fees. You know. Obviously minus scholarships and financial financial aid. Receiving is to fill out the financial responsibility statement. It's fairly easy form. It doesn't take long to to fill out. We did have a little bit of an issue initially when we sent out word that says hey go fill out the financial responsibility statement and then.
Actually wasn't available. You will be asked to log into banners so you have to have your banner login before this one will show up and you have to choose the correct academic year and that was the problem on our end. Is that Easter Semester 2021 wasn't available so sorry bout that confusion. For those of you who encountered that. But all of that should be should be dealt with now and you should be able to go in and fill that out. And this is the first step, like you will not get a course selection form if you have not.
Filled out this financial responsibility statement and essentially says yes, here's my name, and I agree to pay the bill, and I understand if I don't, that I will not be allowed to enroll in slide.
That I saw there is a question in the back end that came up about that. So Jeff, thanks for taking care of that. If you still run into an issue and you don't see Advent Semester 2021, go ahead and email yesr. 21 will show you that email at the end. We can make sure that it's.
It's taken care of, but it should be working for everyone.
Getting, yeah, we've had a couple of people fill that form out, so we think it's working OK. Activating your salon email another one. It's good to know the helpdesk@swanee.edu. There have been a couple students that have reached out to me and I know other counselors who have started this form and maybe they lost their login information. There was some part of it, they weren't sure about how the enter their email information in. And anyway that this should be fairly self explanatory. But again let us know as you get into this form. If you have questions.
We can deal with as much of this as we can, and then we'll definitely let the helpdesk step in. We had a young woman yesterday who reached out to the Help desk and they were able to get her all sorted out and she's got this one email account now.
It's important to know, as Jeff said here.
Also, any emails are based through Gmail and so some of you out there who do not have access to Gmail, especially our students living in China. I mean if you have access to a VPN, that's a great work around to get access to get your Swanee email address set up, because that needs to be set up because later in the summer we will only start to communicate with you via your new campus email address. So through this summer we're kind of sending you both.
Locations you know the one you applied with and then your campus email, but that really needs to happen. You need to activate that email for everything else to flow nicely. For students that are living in China, you're welcome to we chat me and I can connect some resources for you about how to how to handle that kind of stuff, but but it's also really nice. 'cause then you have access to a free Gmail account, Google Docs, calendar, all that stuff.
So one of the things that it sort of came to me there was there are a lot of these forms that will have a description like you see on the screen here and will take you to a different page to actually complete the required step. We would like for you to come back to this form and at the bottom check the box it says I have completed this process.
Inversely, if all you do is go in and read this form and check the box and don't actually log into that page and sign up for an email you haven't actually signed up for an email yet. So make sure those two steps happen in that process.
Yeah, OK, read the steps because it is very important. You know it says, do all these things and then return and acknowledge that you've done this. That helps us when we're going through as admission counselors to say OK, who's not doing their enrollment. We can keep track of that.
Yeah, and that's gonna happen. We have a process in our office where when we look later in the summer and there's some students who haven't done anything. That's when we start reaching out to you, saying it is time to get this stuff done so that you can show up here and be ready to go as a student. One last piece I will throw in before we move on is parents. I completely, completely understand that you really want to help your son or daughter with this process, but you need to empower them to complete this process themselves.
There are some of the steps that are going to need your help. I mean paying the bills and really good example where they they probably are going to need you to help navigate some of those processes. But and there are a couple of people you know, where, for instance, there might be a student sometime in the summer who goes somewhere where they don't have access to email or limited access. And yeah, I mean definitely parents can can dive in there and help out, and that's why you're there. But just remember you're a copilot and that your son or daughter is should be driving this bus through the summer all the way to college.
Make sure they're invested in this process because they'll be the one showing up here and then. You'll go home and and they'll be in charge, so not completely in charge, of course, but they'll be driving the bus while they're here.
OK, this one's quick. Contacted communication form really just gives us a chance for you to update anything that we have in our system. There are some fields in this form that will auto populate and it will be the information that you've given us either when you showed an interest in Swanee or when you completed the common app. Some of this information I do believe comes from fast as well and so those are pieces that you can say. Oh no, you know that's not my mom's email or ohh I'd like to add I know.
Other people on to this, parents or guardians or whatever else, so it's a good opportunity for you to to get in there and correct anything and make sure that we're have the right information about your parents and guardians and family.
And we share this information with our colleagues across campus. So it is really important, especially in those emergency situations that we're able to contact someone. So make sure to you know, talk to that neighbor or family member and just let them know that hey, you're going to be listed on here for Swanee.
OK, So what are some future forms that are not populating right now but are about two one of them that is really, really critical is the University Health form and this one is also mandatory in order for you to show up and move into your dorm room. The health form is created by the Wellness Center is actually evaluated by the Wellness Center staff here at the University and so that one should begin to populate on at the end of this week.
Taylor Baird
03:26:11 PM
Info about the Wellness Center: https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/flourishing/wellness-commons/university-wellness-center/
It's it's important to fill that out as soon as possible. This is probably the form that we have the hardest time getting everyone to complete before they enroll, so the sooner you can get this done, the better off you are. Obviously there may be some complications with accessing doctors depending on what the protocol is in your area or your comfort level, maybe with getting into a hospital or to a doctor's office, but we would really encourage you to to get that completed sing.
This was a big awakening for me because, well, when I had never had to make a doctors appointment in my growing up, my parents always handled. That would be a good test for you students to do that on your own, but talk to the talk to your parents about what you know. What doctor you need to see, but it is really important that.
The form that you have to complete has to be completed by a physician and so you have to, you know, typically schedule an appointment for that, and so go ahead. Now go ahead. This form will be live later this week. Go ahead now and just say need to schedule a checkup or physical for our son or daughter, or for myself going to College in August, and I think most physicians would be familiar with that.
OK, so let's just be honest to your people. The reason you logged in today was because you want to know when am I going to sign up for classes? When am I going to get my class information? When do I sign up for a dorm and when will I find out what dorma men and who? My roommate is? OK, so let's acknowledge that so the living form is the form that we use here at Swanee to initiate the dorm assignment process and so that one is going to populate.
In early May, in fact it should be next week. The Residential Life Office is the staff at coordinates that entire process. This is a form that will ascentia Lee say it's a short form and it'll say click here and go fill out this living form that will go directly to the residential life office. Their hope is to have all, well, they're going to ask you to describe yourself and describe your ideal roommate and they have a whole process that they've fine tuned over years.
And you should know that the system is not the same everywhere. You know it's 1 E. For instance, you cannot pick your roommate and you might say to yourself, why is that? Well, the residential life office would tell you that over the years they started noticing all of the problems or most of the problems they were having with remaining assignments were in situations where roommate freshman coming freshman chose their own roommate and the assignments they were making, statistically speaking, were actually working out better. So they just got rid of that.
Picking pick your own roommate process, but there hope.
Their hope is to get that information to you in July and I would say they would much rather give it to you in early July versus mid July, but it just depends on number one, how long it takes them all through that information. #2 does everybody turn their form in on time and #3.
Really, does the pandemic rage again this summer and does that mess up our onboarding and orientation process for the fall so?
Double fingers crossed, we really hope none of that happens and this fall looks like.
Every fall, except for last year and that information could get to you early.
Jeff, I still remember where I was standing when I got the email of who my roommate was, so I cannot. I can empathize with you all, as incoming students and parents that have an incoming student that stressing about this will my roommate, you know be someone I get along with? Where am I living? All of these things and we we get that and we want to mitigate as many changes as possible because there are.
While there are 19 residence halls and you know doesn't themed houses, we want to make sure that accommodations are met, so I know that there are questions about accommodations an on the living form. There will be clear instructions on who to reach out to. If you have an accommodation that needs to be met that is considered as the residential Life Office is making their selections and we want to make sure that students have students like themselves around each other so.
While we don't have an all first year residence Hall, we do try and mix students up with different classes so you have those mentors from older generations on campus that you can ask about favorite professors in classes and so forth. But really, giving students a shared experience but also inviting them to meet other communities that they wouldn't necessarily be exposed to. Like if you're an athlete on the soccer team and you would like to live with another athlete, they're going to try and mix you with at least another sport so that.
It's not, you know you're not with the same people all the time. And then after that in March or April you can choose where you want to live. You can choose what themed house you might want to live in or what.
Group of students you might want to live with and you can physically choose the exact room that you want to live in so that that is something to look forward to. We understand it. There's a lot of stress around it, but also a really fun formed to complete.
Shiro Burnette
03:32:04 PM
Here is a link to Student Accessibility Services where you can view our accommodation options, including those related to housing: https://new.sewanee.edu/offices/the-college-of-arts-sciences-offices/student-life/dean-of-students-office/student-accessibility-services/
Absolutely the other process. We're changing a little bit this year is that we want. Well, I should say in the old days when you showed up and you would get your student ID, you come and stand in a big long line at overit telecommunications and you'd wait in line and you take your picture and they would print out your ID there. Or maybe you come back the next day. We're trying to simplify that by allowing you to turn in a picture of yourself over the summer.
And in the past we would ask you to upload a photo or a PDF or something. Some image or JPEG of yourself and we had some parameters on what those images should look like and it should be only you, not yourself, cropped out of a family photo. This year we're going with a different system whereby you'll be able to add an application to your computer or to your phone. In fact, the whole system is really designed for you to do this entire process on your phone, so it's going to be pretty simple. You can upload an image if you have a professionally done photo or one that that.
Meets the parameters or you can literally take a selfie on your phone and then upload that. They'll be some. Yeah, there we go. There will be some parameters you know you and you just need to read the instructions because your photo can be rejected. Just make sure you understand that and you read the instructions when you get to that point.
It's not nearly as rigid is getting a passport photo, but it's pretty pretty up there. You have to have like a solid background. My background would not work for this, so an know that it's going on your student ID. You know this is a photo I think students forget that it's going to go on their ID so they sometimes send in funny photos that get rejected so.
Yeah, don't send a picture of a hamburger or a piece of pizza or whatever, so.
So the course selection process. This will be a form that is going to populate on June the 9th June. The 9th is a good day to write down. That's also the point at which you'll be able to start to schedule meetings with our summer academic guides, and those meetings will take on a couple of different forms I heard today, actually that they're going to be recording some videos that help students can access a website and look at some videos that will help them navigate different sections of the.
Course selection form. It's it's the most complicated form of all the summer enrollment forms we have. I mean, you could argue filling out the health forms is.
Pretty long and arduous, but the course selection form revolves involves a lot of thought, and it's it's created in a way that you can come back to it and take some time.
Pointed out earlier today that it's really important for all these forms to not rush through them. You know, to look at a form, and if it does, include some pretty difficult decisions to evaluate that form. Step back away from it for a day or two and come back when you really feel like you have answers.
I mentioned this earlier about parents. Parents were not interested in what courses you would like for Billy or Sally to take here at Swanee. We're interested in the course is that your son or daughter Billy or Sally? 'cause they're all named Billy or Sally to take here at Swanee so advise them.
Push and prod them to make sure they meet the deadline, but please allow billing and Sally to fill out these forms for and they are due by July 2nd and that's a really rigid date. In fact, it's number one you want to make sure you have all other forms completed. So on June the 9th you have the access to the course selection form and #2 you want to make sure you get it done. Checked by July 2nd so then that gives the guide some time to match everybody up. Put people in classes and if you're turning a form in late that just means you're late to the entire process.
And potentially could miss out on some classes that fill up.
So Jeff rumor has it, if I fill out my form at June 9th at 8:01 AM, I will get better classes than my peers. Is that true?
And not true, but a good guess, no, you you, it will not advantage you to fill it out. June the 9th at 3:00 PM when it goes live. Actually, don't know that that's the time I just made that up. But yeah, so that you know, read the form, process it. There are links on that form to a website where you can see some of the other instructions on this page here.
Are going to be able to choose a number of courses fact 12 that the summer academic guides will then use to help place you into classes.
It's important to note that the reason they're asking for 12 is 'cause it's impossible to give everybody their top four choices. They do try to go through them one at a time, so everybody gets one class and then the entire group gets a second class in the entire group of third and a fourth.
And as I was sort of came apparent today in a meeting, there isn't any way to game the system. So you can't list the same four courses four different times and get those four courses. All it means is when you show up and you meet with your advisor, you're only going to have one or two classes because he only listed for options for different times. So they truly want twelve class options so that they can potentially pick four out of there that meet your schedule that are still available.
And gives everybody an opportunity at some of their top selections and probably some of their second or third selections.
This process is really fine tuned where I don't know many institutions that give you access to every single first year course and say OK, Now choose as it's listed here. Courses that should relate to your potential major or minor academic interests, and you're choosing four of them. I mean, how do you only limited to four, right? 'cause if you're interested in computer science or economics or environmental studies, those are a lot of courses to choose from in those areas.
And then the flip side of this is what you think is your top choice now will change. You won't declare a major until the second semester of your sophomore year, and these classes are just for your first semester, not for your first year. So come November, you'll meet with that same advisor again, and they'll you'll have much more autonomy. You'll be able to see. OK, I like this course. I did not like this course. I like this course time. I like this professor.
And then you can start to pick and choose. The other reason that the academic guides.
Are so valuable is you might say to yourself, I don't want to take any 8:00 AM classes.
Well, you might perform really well at 8:00 AM and you just haven't given yourself that opportunity, so academic guides are giving you that balance of Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes, or Tuesday Thursday classes. How many labs can you truly take on? Oh, you're playing a sport. Oh, and you're coming in with AP Credit or IB credit, so they understand the full picture and so it's not really. They're not just going through and saying, Yep, Jeff gets this class, and in that class is full. They really are looking at the entire pool of students that are coming in.
Joe M.
03:39:02 PM
Regarding course selection, are the 'academic guides' available documents or people?
International students first year domestic students transfer students so it's it's a really good opportunity for the transfer. Form is slightly different but but and then.
There is a question that can't came in Jeff. I don't know if you want to grab that one.
Yeah, I just can't read it.
Is regarding course selection. Are the academic guides available documents or people? Their people?
Oh yeah, yeah yeah, these are actual humans and I'll even give you some names. How about that? The human names are doctor wrong, doctor Pressler, Doctor Tucker and Doctor Faison and Doctor Bruce. And all of them teach classes here. Their professors in different departments. They specialize in knowing the core curriculum in addition to other.
Academic areas and when you get into the form, one of the things you're going to notice is that there's a website that's connected to this form, and so they're going to, say, choose a course between these options and all of those. The actual course selection form is going to list Biology 305 or whatever, then maybe probably would take biology of 305 first, but but you can, you're at the same time you have the course selection website opened, and there's a description of that class and you can.
You can very get it deep deep dive into this into the academic offerings that are typical of typically available to 1st year students, so you don't have to guess. You don't know what to say. I want to math and a biology and environmental studies and in English you can pick very specific classes.
Yeah, and Jeff said at the beginning of this slide.
The guides are going to have available appointments very similar to the counselor appointments that we offered so highly recommend that you sign up for those if you are. If you're questioning or wondering or you're trying, you just need some guidance. That's why they're there academic guides to to help you through that.
Taylor Baird
03:41:15 PM
Great question, Joe! When the course selection process goes live on June 9, students will have access to the website with contact information of the guides, etc.
OK, this is the one that nobody wants to deal with, but it is a really important piece of the puzzle. Lots of people have already asked this. When is the bill do when? When can I start paying my bill? And the short answer? Is the student access to the.
To the bill payment process is available in the month of June and there will be an email associated with that and there be a form associated with that and it will allow you to get some instructions. Go to a different website and we got all these websites that you're going to and databases and this one is a database or a website where it allows you to pay the bill now. So I did mention this earlier, but our older son graduated.
Taylor Baird
03:41:57 PM
https://sewanee.afford.com/
Money last year and they are currently using the same bill payment website that they used back then so I can say that it's really easy to navigate. The bills are due on July 31st. You don't have to pay the entire bill on July 31st. There is an option to do that, but whatever your balances and everybody's balances and a little bit different depending on scholarships and financial aid. Whatever your balance is, you can choose to spread it out over the year.
University partners with the payment.
Processing firm that allows you to spread the payments over 10 months and you might be thinking yourself well, why not 12 months? Well, I can tell you as a parent it was always really nice to have two months off and at.
Two months when we knew we didn't have to pay that, we could use that money for something else, but.
So there's there's some processes there that will happen in the summer. We get past this year cycle of Bill payment. The Treasures Office can hit the reset button and then things start in June and you have till July 31st and then again clearly there are some things that are not accessible if you do not pay your bill by July 31. So you'll get some reminders about that date is coming up and if your past due and those sorts of things will happen.
And the tuition insurance is important.
Because it is an opt out feature, you have to opt out of tuition insurance if you don't, there will be a fee on your bill for the tuition, insurance, tuition, insurance. We're not going to get into, but essentially allows you to put it in insurance. If there were to be some sort of incident.
And so really, it's important for you, especially for those students that might be getting a lot of of their aid covered. It might not make sense for you and your family to take out tuition insurance, but it is an opt out, so make sure that you complete that form when it goes live. I think that one will be due in early August.
Grant H.
03:44:32 PM
Do parents need to use student logins? Or will we have our own login to pay bills?
So I want to make sure we leave some time here for questions, so I'm going to see just move through some of these other slides pretty quickly. There will be effective, I think was activated today. Students can go in and and submit their final high school transcripts and this is something we require of all students. We admit it, we admit and who enroll. And we we want to get that information uploaded into our system. And that helps the academic guides 'cause they can access the access that information.
There will be potentially a summer reading and reflection assignment. That was something that we've done for years and through the covid transition last year went away, but we're anticipating that coming back.
Tim Neil
03:45:12 PM
Students will need to set up their parents/guardians for their own access. You could use the student login if you wanted to.
Handshake is a website that our Career Center uses and they want students to begin to navigate that process immediately. So you'll be invited to sign up there to actually where you also access work, study jobs if you have one of those over the summer, there's a form for those of you who qualify for federal loans where you can accept or decline those federal loans and asks for other information if you qualify for work study, there's a form you can complete to basically.
Initiate the work study selection process. If you bring a car or a bicycle to campus, there's a form over the summer where you can register either of those and get the stickers. I don't know if they sent him in the Mail or you just get them once you arrive, but you go through the enrollment process.
You get them to your post office, your student office? Yep.
Taylor Baird
03:45:53 PM
More information about the Sewanee Career Center: https://new.sewanee.edu/careers/
Alright good good. If your student athlete on a varsity team or a club sport and you have identified yourself as a club sport person then you'll get a athletic health supplement or a supplement form added to your enrolled status page and these are questions that any institution you enroll in has to ask. Ask additional questions or student athletes and that make sure they understand the process and there is definitely going to be some sort of vaccine identification.
Form or process where students will be asked if you have gotten your vaccine to upload an image of your.
Well, you know, lots of people are asking us questions right now. What the protocol is going to look like next fall and the only answers available really are.
Jordan L.
03:47:02 PM
Just to be clear, most of the forms we've talked about are available *after* confirming your enrollment, correct?
There are lots of students who are going to be vaccinated and their requirements for them could be less than other people. It's likely masks will still exist. It's likely that some form of distancing could exist, although we might have more access to a wider variety of classroom spaces, and it's likely that some form of testing will still exist. I mean, there are lots of people in this world who choose not to vaccinate, and that's their choice, and because of that, and potentially the potential for some faculty staff.
Tim Neil
03:47:16 PM
Correct, shortly after you pay your enrollment deposit.
Or students who choose not to get their vaccine could exist, then there's probably a testing protocol as well. All that information is going to be communicated. You can trust that that will arrive to you over the summer in some format, if not five different formats.
Yeah, and I would say that look at, look at the history of this year. We promised our students once they could get vaccinated. 80% of our students.
On campus, got vaccinated and we just were able to start releasing. You know, students can now leave campus. There's still a mask mandate, so I think history really tells us a lot about what the future might look like. I would imagine that if you are vaccinated or if you're able to get vaccinated, things will look a little differently for students. But we also need to make sure that there's not a virus rampant on campus and we need to protect our community members or faculty or staff.
Students, everyone that comes to campus.
So what does August look like? Well, for the students who are enrolling for the first time, they're coming to our campus in waves.
Taylor Baird
03:48:56 PM
FYP: https://new.sewanee.edu/programs-of-study/finding-your-place/
Two of the forms that are available, and unless you've already filled one of them out is or the FYP registration form and the pre registration form and those are two really exciting cool programs that allow students to come to campus early annex. Either explore the campus throughout and program activities, or explore the campus in this area through an academic classes starting one of your classes early so and then lots of students will be coming in early for their fall sport. You can see on their field, hockey, football, soccer and volleyball teams and those coaches will recruit.
Taylor Baird
03:49:14 PM
PRE: https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/sewanee-outing-program/pre/
Excuse me well, communicate with their enroll enrolling teams first year and returning students, and they'll be able to tell you when those programs start when you arrive. You also can't sign up for Fyp or career if you're in one of those four varsity sports because their preseason happens at the same time, or at least part of the same time.
All of our students will participate in new student orientation, which I didn't look up beforehand, but I leave this August.
21 somebody looked that up and I did.
OK, perfect thank you. New student orientation starts on a Saturday and all the students who participate in Fyp pre or fall sports participate in all parts of the new store in orientation.
And families are encouraged to attend that as well international. What does this say, Tim?
Yeah, so international students are going to arrive early for international orientation. There's been a lot of communication about that already, so if you're an international student, or if like some of our students that are in the United States that have had extensive.
International experience is you can participate in international orientation and so you should have gotten an email about that. We check that in the reading process as we're reading your application. If you have a dual citizenship, you might have received the email. Or if you're wanting to participate in international orientation which is run by the Office of Global Citizenship, you'll see an email at the end of this presentation where you'll be able to express your interest in that. But these are the dates right here, so you can have them.
Taylor Baird
03:50:58 PM
Office of Global Citizenship: https://new.sewanee.edu/offices/university-offices/office-of-global-citizenship/
Port and good dates there. I'm glad. Well, I did. Guess I'm sorry. I guess I did it. Guess accurately August 21st. I would encourage you if you're interested in pre that sounds interesting and there's a lot of information on our website you can gather about that to sign up for that soon because that one is nearly full. Tim, what do you want to tell us about the OR donate or your domain?
Taylor Baird
03:51:27 PM
Bookmark this page! https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/your-domain/
Your domain website operates in a linear fashion really, so it is at the very top. That's where you would make your enrollment deposit on your applicant status page, and then you move as you move through it. All of this information we've talked about for the most part lives on that between the your domain page and your applicant status page. You can get a lot of your questions answered, and most importantly, and I'm going to ask Taylor or Shiro to jot it in when there is a FAQ.
Or admitted students on that website, which is super helpful, like what is my mailing address at Swanee while Swanee only has one mailing address? And how do I get receive packages from Amazon and so forth? So there are a lot of FA cues that you should definitely look at.
Taylor Baird
03:52:00 PM
FAQ page: https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/your-domain/your-questions/
OK, Oh yeah, this slide really quickly before we dive into questions is what OK what is the fall gonna look like? And we talked a little bit about this earlier but we are the plan is to offer classes in person every single class in person professors. The expectation is that they're going to be teaching their classes in person. There may be some classes that are available virtually as well if there happened to be situations where students needed to.
Still remain as virtual students.
We today popped the bubble, which is really exciting our students. You may not know what that means, but our students have been stuck here for obvious reasons. I mean we had 7.
With testing every single student every week, the entire semester, and they did such a good job and then also got their covid vaccines and a really good rate that we were going to be able to have travel and visitor restraint really remove travel on visitor restrictions.
Shiro Burnette
03:53:21 PM
This session is also recorded so you can reference this material later!
An campus life is going to be, you know. The expectation is that we get back to pre covid potential with some masking. Some surveillance testing. Obviously decisions could.
Taylor Baird
03:53:34 PM
Only 7 positive results out of the more than 18,000 tests administered this semester!
You know, change between now and the fall semester, but all of the energy is being put into skating as close as we can to pre covid student experience. Faculty, staff experience with some potential protocols still built in there just in case.
Alright, I rushed through that, sorry people.
Now that's good. Yeah, so there's our contact information. You'll see all of the enrollment emails that go out have YSR 21. It's funny.edu Jeff has access to that and can forward it off. That's a nice but there are some questions Jeff that came in so I'm going to read them out loud.
So that we can get through them pretty quickly. So I misspoke earlier and said that the self reporting of SCT and a CT form is optional. It says that it's required. Jeff and I are going to probably look at that because I think it should be optional.
Yeah will change that. Yep, it's definitely optional.
Yeah, there is also a question. If I took the AC T, wouldn't you have my test scores?
We would in theory, but if you applied test, optional or change your application to test optional, that form is going to show up, so it's showing up for any test optional student that we don't have or that yeah obviously any test optional student, so feel free to email us if you see some sort of issue in that. Or you could just re self report your test scores for free on that form.
There was a question about how recent does the physical have to be. This student had one in January. I just looked at the help form Jeff. Do you know that answer?
I think as long as it's completed within this calendar year.
Yeah, that's what I think, but it should be actually spelled out on the health form and that you know that the best way to get an answer to that question is to email health form at swanee.edu. They've set up a special website that goes straight to the Wellness Center and that way you can get that answer and that'll be on the form for the health form that.
I was with mother say don't even yet, 'cause the forms not live.
That's right, I just blew it.
Taylor Baird
03:55:59 PM
healthform@sewanee.edu
Grant H.
03:56:14 PM
please tell us about parent involvement in New Student Orientation? Arrive Friday and leave Sunday?
You're getting inside information about this, but it really does it. I think it probably also depends on your physician and your immunization records, so you might need more immunization records and due to your privacy, I don't want to approve some of these questions 'cause I know that some of you might not want this out for everyone. Jeff, could you talk about new student orientation around parent involvement, and when did they live and so forth?
Yeah, yeah, so lots of emails in the last few days about do parent. Our parents involved with new Storm and orientation an when is family weekend and that information, both of which can be found on Tim's great. Your domain website parent oriented student orientation begins on that Saturday, August 21st and that's when unless you're here previously for another event, that's when students will move into their dorms and then that event really begins that afternoon. Parent involvement begins also on Saturday.
And it's likely, although we can't say that definitively at this point, but I'd be shocked if parents are not allowed to help students move into the dorms, so I can imagine it. That's something we did this year, but I think next year be easy, but the expectation is on Sunday that parents dip art, so that'll be spelled out very clearly in the orientation scheduled to be here so that students do. Here's what parents do, and then Wham here's the end of the parent involvement, and it's time to go home.
Clearly there are circumstances where some students need a little bit more assistance over a couple extra days. I want to. I don't want to say that you have to leave, but I would say the vast majority of parents at that point need to plan to go and let Billy and Sally launch off into their college experience.
And I am going to ask Taylor or Shiro to drop in the link to new student orientation so you can see what last year's schedule look like. Obviously knowing that some of that will change on doors.
Yeah, the other sorry. The other thing I should say is if you look at that website, it certainly is still in progress and so you're going to see last year schedule and as soon as that have they info information available to update their website.
Taylor Baird
03:58:11 PM
Sample Orientation Schedule: https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/living/residential-life/new-student-orientation/
There is another more personal question, so I'll answer this more broadly about working with the Student Accessibility Office on campus. So if you have already talked with Matt Brown an SAS, then that's great. It's wonderful that you initiate those conversations about accommodations, but you'll also still fill out the housing form.
Or AKA the living form, just like you normally would, and so there will be some contact information in there. If you've not had those conversations and some requirements that you might need to submit on requesting those accommodations. So how to request accommodations?
And then there's some questions about Fyp.
Jordan L.
03:58:59 PM
Does Finding Your Place have you fully move in earlier than other students?
Does finding your place have you fully moved in earlier than other students? Jeffrey wanna?
Morgyn H.
03:59:13 PM
how far before FYP or NSO do students arrive on campus?
Yeah, when you show up for both pre and fyp you move into your dorm room and so there will be instructions. Typically they come in either the fyp or pre arrival email or in emails leading up to those events and I'll talk very specifically about what they suggest that you bring. I know the pre information for instance talks about maybe scaling down some of your stuff and just bringing what you absolutely need for the program and just sleep in your dorm room although they really want you to camp out.
Tim Neil
03:59:40 PM
Morgyn, you can find the arrival dates at yourdomain.sewanee.edu
In there and you're going to camp out unless the weather is back and then bring the rest of your stuff would come maybe with a parent or Guardian later. Fyp is pretty much the same, but I do believe you have the opportunity to move really as much as you need to enter your dorm once you arrive and you do move into your dorm room that you'll have be in the rest of the semester.
Taylor Baird
03:59:54 PM
Info for Sewanee Parents & Families: https://new.sewanee.edu/parents-families/
That's true for every move in, so if you're coming in for your fall sport, if you're coming in for fyp or pre. The only exception I will say is pre. You don't really have, you don't have time to set up your room because you're dropping your things down. They have a very specific list of things that you should come with and that's it. And then pre leads right into or all of these.
Early arrivals lead right into new student orientation. New student orientation involves the entire incoming group of students, and so that's when we encourage parents to come for new student orientation. Thank you Jeff. On August 21st, which is a Saturday, there will be clear instructions on.
Jack C.
04:00:58 PM
How can you request accommodations?
Where to pick up your key if you've not already gotten it from fyp prior false port and then where to get your orientation packet for you and your family, or whoever is bringing you for orientation Jack. Great question. You can request accommodations. I'm going to ask her. We might have already dropped it in.
About student Accessibility services.
Oh yeah, I will re share the link.
Tim Neil
04:01:18 PM
Here is a link to Student Accessibility Services where you can view our accommodation options, including those related to housing: https://new.sewanee.edu/offices/the-college-of-arts-sciences-offices/student-life/dean-of-students-office/student-accessibility-services/
I'm Anne Jack. Also encourage you to look at the depending on the type of accommodations you might requesting, academic or living, you'll want to look at the course selection form or the living form.
Jeff, we did that in an hour.
Palmer W.
04:01:47 PM
This has been most helpful. Many thanks!
Tim Neil
04:01:59 PM
ysr21@sewanee.edu
Evan F.
04:02:08 PM
Thanks so much!
Those are great questions people and we would encourage you to reach out if you have more. I mean, there's Tim and my email address. We're happy to help your counselor. Regional counselor can also help you out. Your territory person and then we also have the YS r21@swanee.edu email and the farther you get into some of these forms in the summer there will be offices that over the summer that will be available. I mentioned the health form email, probably inappropriately earlier, but.
Some of those website or our email addresses will be great resources and we will definitely share those with you as you get through this summer, so.
Jackson S.
04:02:23 PM
Thank you!
But I think it's also helpful that you build a relationship with those departments across campus. We love working with incoming students. I don't think we would be in this job if we didn't, but.
Grant H.
04:02:35 PM
This was great thank you
But our job is every year that's the tough part, right? Right as we're welcoming, those new students were we're back at it for the next round of students, and so definitely start engaging with and.
Joey P.
04:02:45 PM
Thank you.
Reach out to us and we can connect you, but start building those relationships with.
Andrew M.
04:02:51 PM
Thanks for holding this session for us, have a great evening!
Faculty and staff and students across campus but.
Kostas A.
04:02:59 PM
Thank you!
Jordan L.
04:03:00 PM
Are there any forms that we should know are specifically outside of the yourdomain website?
If everybody for joining us, this isn't the end of this process. This is really the beginning and so please let us know how we can help. We thanks it. Thank everybody for being here and those of you who logged in later to view this video. Hope that hopefully you found this helpful and will help guide your journey towards Swanee.
Yeah alright thanks everyone. Have a good day.
Joshua R.
04:03:20 PM
Thanks!
Rachel W.
04:03:21 PM
Thank you!!!
Taylor Baird
04:04:32 PM
Jordan, the most up-to-date list of forms that you'll need to complete can be found on your Sewanee Applicant Status Page.
Taylor Baird
04:04:51 PM
Thanks for coming everyone!