Sewanee Online Information Session

Good afternoon everyone I hope you're all doing well my name is Nancy York and I'm a senior assistant director of admission at salani I'm also a 2011 celani graduate an I'm so grateful that you all took the time this afternoon to join me for a virtual online information session we're so sorry that were not able to welcome you to the mountain right now.

Be with us in swanee but um again so happy that you could join us in this way so we're going to be together this afternoon for maybe 30 minutes to an hour depending on how many questions you might have.

Notice now that we do have a chat feature on your screen that's available for your use so after the the session once I've gone through the slides if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them and certainly hope that you will have some I'm going to walk us through some information regarding the domain swanee the place that we call home and then also talk with you a little bit about academics student outcomes and then the admission process is well.

So a little bit about celani what you'll do at swanee and then life after saloni and how to get to us so we're going to go ahead and dive right in and I'm hoping that everyone can see and hear me clearly if at any point you have any trouble just shoot me a chat and will try and troubleshoot.

Alright here we go.

OK so some of you may have had an opportunity to visit celani before so if you have try and keep those images of celani right now in your mind's eye if you haven't I'm going to try and describe it as best I can for you from afar and we've got a great visual shot for you here of the domain which is another name for celani where situated on Top of the Cumberland plateau right between Nashville and Chattanooga so we are about and.

Hour and 15 to an hour and 30 minutes South of Nashville and then 45 minutes West of Chattanooga an were located on a 13,000 acre campus which makes us the second largest college campus in the country when I was going through my college search process the domain and the mountain was definitely the thing that stood out to me the most and thinking about all of the other schools that I visited I felt that that was the thing that made swanee the most unique we have over 60 miles of trails on campus and I'm a runner.

And ran cross country and track it's Lonnie and so that was something that I really enjoyed but also to we have a host of lakes in caves and beautiful rock outcroppings and overlooks so that students and parents and visitors can look out over the Valley and see some pretty incredible views so if you've been to campus you may have seen some of those if not maybe Google greensview or Morgan steep or Piney point or proctors Hall along with saloni and hopefully you'll be able to see some photographs there.

Sony is home to about 1700 students annual see that we have students coming to us from all over the country and all over the world and actually almost 80% of our students are coming from out of state so outside the state of Tennessee.

Right now in our incoming or this past year for incoming first year class we had around 450 students and swanee has a commitment to making sure that all of our classes are small and the students have a real opportunity to develop relationships not only with other students but also to with faculty so that small incoming first year class number and small student body really help students to have an opportunity to form those close relationships.

The average class size on campus is about 17 students and the student faculty ratio is 10 to one.

As far as academics go I'm hopeful that that's 1 of the reasons why you're looking at saloni you've heard of silanis academic reputation and we're certainly a traditional liberal arts institution and one that's really designed to educate students for an ever changing world an evolving job market we really try and teach our students to be the most eloquent speakers best critical thinkers and most articulate writers that they can be an and we start this off right off the bat.

One of my favorite things about swanee though is that during your first 2 years are going to be exploring a variety of different subject matters when I was looking at schools I had no idea what I wanted to study and was really actually kind of nervous when I was looking at schools and applications and realized that I might actually have to declare my major before I even enrolled at the institution so in my application anet swanee that's not the case we challenged students to explore a variety of different disciplines in uh.

And then interdisciplinary way during your first 2 years at the institution I like to think of our curriculum is being divided into thirds so during your first 2 years you're going to be exploring our general education curriculum and we'll talk about that in just a moment that second that second piece of that pie is going to be your major requirements and maybe your minor requirements if you choose to add a minor which just over 60% of our students will choose to do and then that final piece.

Are your uhm you're a extracurricular classes so uh more elective classes I should say so perhaps you want to explore classes related to theater or dance or music or art or simply explore a topic outside of your general areas of interest maybe you want to take a philosophy class just because something new and exciting so you have that flexibility there going back to your first 2 years on campus and?

Those general education requirements I think Sony really stands out in this particular way because instead of requiring that all of our students take a set number of classes or's set list of classes during those first 2 years we have 8 learning objectives that students will explore to help kind of gain that foundation that really is at the heart of a liberal arts education again remembering that were not necessarily educating students to simply do one thing but.

Rather developing knowledge base that will allow you to do a number of different things well well certainly allowing you an opportunity to specialize in a particular subject area through your major and prepare you to go on for a variety of different professional opportunities or Graduate School or or things like that those 8 learning objectives are going to extend across the curriculum but each of those objectives are going to have a variety of different classes that you could take to fulfill those requirements so.

Or your objective that relates to the arts you might take a music class related to music theory if that's something that you're interested in you might take a studio art class you might take theater you might take dance so giving you a wide variety of different topics to explore it maybe for your English requirement you may take an introductory English class that focuses on Shakespeare but you might also take an American literature course through the American studies program.

So again I'm giving students an opportunity to design their curriculum an ways that interest them meaning that and we really feel that this is the case that when students are excited about particular classes the classes there taking their going to do better in those classes and we want our students to succeed an Excel while still challenging students to explore a classes outside of their generalized interests but without being said at the end of your first 2 years you will have an opportunity to declare your major and you'll see here we've now had a chance to look through.

I'm sure those majors and minors and we do have 37 different majors and 43 minors some of our most populated majors right now our psychology English economics international and global studies biology and then also to we have 2 relatively new now major so one in neuroscience and then one in finance as well so those are new opportunities for you that have been quite popular to this point.

You'll also see to that we have 5 different pre professional programs so related to business education engineering law and pre health those opportunities are really a great opportunity for students to again prepare for a variety of different professional pursuits for example for students who are interested in pursuing that pre health track students can major in anything that they'd like you might pursue chemistry or biology but you could also major in.

English or history while still being on that pre health track you'll be assigned a separate pre health advisor who will work with you for 4 years to make sure that you're taking all the necessary prerequisites to be a competitive applicant to Med school but also to connect you with different internship and research opportunities as well so making sure that we're preparing students to be competitive candidates to these professional graduate programs you'll also.

To see 2 a variety of special swanee programs whether it's European studies the swanee semester in Spain study way in Germany the island ecology program which is one of my favourites where students have an opportunity to travel to Saint catherines island which is a privately owned island off the coast of Georgia and you're studying ecology and biodiversity looking at coastal environments but also to students who are interested in psychology also have an opportunity to study.

Lemur population that lives there as well so definitely a unique experience for our students and we have a video online if you go to our website and want to learn more you can Google the saloni island ecology program and watch a short video that will tell you more.

All right moving forward here.

So one of the things too that's really I think in thinking about things that are unique about saloni and set the swanee experience apart it's important to think not just about what students are doing in the classroom but also to help students are applying what they're learning on campus 2 opportunities they may have off the mountain and off the domain as well swanee now offers something called the swanee pledge and we commit to 3 things for our students so.

One is that we are providing funding for a summer internship or a research opportunity of for our students so we pledged to provide support for any approved unpaid internship or a research opportunity for our students so if you have a war fought worthwhile opportunity and need funding will help you make it happen and last year celani distributed over $600,000 and funding for students to go out and do.

Internship and research internships and research over the summer so we also pledged to provide access to a semester long study abroad program at no additional tuition cost and we have 200 different study abroad opportunities and in the past few years students have gone to 64 different countries so lots of opportunities there I understand that right now in this climate with everything that's going on in the world there may be some changes to study abroad opportunities moving forward but.

At this point those are the opportunities that swanee has offered and we hope to continue to offer we also pledged to that you as a spawning student will graduate with one major in 4 consecutive years and I think today you're seeing more and more students being required to spend more than 4 years on college campuses to earn their degrees because they haven't necessarily been able to get the classes that you need to graduate so I think this is a really extraordinary commitment that's Lonnie is.

Making to our students UM in ensuring that students will be able to graduate with one degree in 4 years and if not we will we will allow them to come back for a fifth year to complete that degree at no additional cost.

Alright so continuing with the theme of suwannee beyond the classroom So what students are doing maybe during their summers or off campus we've mentioned study away and internships but I also think it's important to to think about research that students are doing on campus with saloni professors and faculty as a student I didn't realize the host of opportunities that would be available available to me at a small liberal arts institution like swanee.

Uhm I often assumed that research was really reserved for students you might be attending large research one institutions and certainly something in a misconception that I hear from a lot of students that I work with but in fact you'll find it's Lonnie that all of our classes are taught by professors will never be taught by a graduate assistant because we don't have a Graduate School within the College of Arts and Sciences and that means in a practical sense that professors focus is completely on you as a student as an undergraduate student.

And that means that you're not having to compete with graduate students for those different research opportunities on campus they're there for you and our faculty are interested in collaborating with students on research so if you are a stand out in your area of study an in your particular Department it may be likely that you'll have an opportunity to do research with a professor we even offer independent studies that students might participate in.

During their time on campus or perhaps you'll choose to write an honors thesis depending on your major annual conduct research for that as well.

When thinking about celani too I think at the very heart and core of life at swanee often relates to civic engagement at something that we incorporate not only into our daily lives but also enter our curriculum as well and many majors and disciplines across the institution will actually offer courses that have a civic engagement and community engagement component to them but also students are engaging within the local community in a variety of different ways?

Outside of the classroom as well one example is that saloni is a Bonner leader school and if you're as high school student interested in civic engagement this is an opportunity that you almost certainly want to explore the Bonner foundation is a national organization that was designed to help connect college students with civic engagement and service opportunities in their communities and swanee has partnered with that organization to extend civic engagement internship Stew.

Around 10 students every year so as a admitted student to saloni you can apply to be a Bonner leader azeban or leader you're committing to do to doing 8 to 10 hours of service per week you're partnering with local organizations related to sustainability education public health a variety of different areas that perhaps relate to your interests and I mentioned partnerships because I think that saloni's approach to.

Civic engagement is one that I really appreciate and that is that rather than students simply conducting community service and their surrounding communities there actually civically engaged with those communities in partnering with community members partnering with public officials to help identify what the needs of the community might be and then coming up with solutions but often times in the process of coming up with the solutions and putting them into action.

Students are learning just as much if not more than anyone else throughout that process so again another opportunity to enhance the students academic and also social.

And civic experience as well but In addition to the Bonner leader program there are plenty of other opportunities for students to remain civically engaged and one practical example of that actually and if you visited celani you may know this there's not a lot of separation between the University and the town of saloni and in fact this is a fun fact for you our president or we refer to that person as our vice chancellor is also the mayor.

I'm funny as well so I'm thinking about things that make our campus and University unique that's certainly one of them and actually reserved seats on Sony's town council for swanee students every year so you're not just a student you're an active member of the community remember thinking about the fact that swanee the town and swanee University are really one in the same and when I was again looking at schools and I hate to keep bringing this back to my experience but since you're not on campus right now and.

Aren't able to after this session God on tour with the current student I'm hoping that it's helpful to add some personal anecdotes but when I was looking at swanee I really appreciated the fact that I wasn't simply just going to be a college student who was taken classes but rather a young person adult who was fully immersed an involved in the local community as well and I felt that that really enhanced my development as a young person as an adult but also to my student experience as well and having that.

University and student experience be integrated into my life in general so I didn't feel like I was just simply in a college or University bubble and that made a real difference for me as a student.

All right so we've talked now a little bit about the place and what you'll do as a swanee student from an academic perspective but now I'd like to share some outcome information with you as well.

You'll see some statistics here from the graduating class of 2018 so where students ended up after they left the mountain after they left the domain you'll see that our Top career fields for graduating swanee students or education law medison and finance and I always think it's particularly interesting to highlight that because we are a traditional liberal arts college and a lot of people don't associate necessarily careers like medison and finance with a liberal arts.

Experience and we find that our students are very successful in pursuing those professional degrees are except acceptance rate into law school and Business School has been as high as 95% into medical school, often times around 90%. So really preparing students well for graduate experiences after Swanee. Additionally, beyond simply going on to Graduate School or into.

The job market or workforce right after graduation. We have students that will do a variety of different Post Baccalaureate Fellowship San scholarship opportunities as well. So whether it's the road scholarship, whether it's the Watson Fellowship or perhaps you may even be a NCAA postgraduate scholar and over the years Swannies had 26 road scholars, 47 Watson Fellows and then 34 NCAA postgraduate scholars. Certainly something that.

I think it's a clear indication of the success of Arslani students and graduates, and so much of that I believe has to do with the investment that the institution that our faculty and staff are making in our students, and the experience is that so many students are having on and off campus and how that sets them up for success post graduation.

Alright, so finally how to get to Swanee?

Alright, so if you are a high school senior an you've been admitted to Swanee just sit back, relax, congratulations. You can take all of this in right now or two out for a second and then check back in for questions at the end. But for any of those students who are maybe sophomores or juniors, I'm going to share some information now that will hopefully give you some insight into how we review applications and what that process looks like.

So Sony is a common application exclusive school it's the only way that you can apply to saloni it's free to apply to swanee and we don't have a writing supplement meaning the one common app essay that's required is the only essay that you need to complete to submit your application so we try and make it as easy as possible for you as a student to apply we understand that there are already plenty of pressures on you as a high school student and certainly don't want to add to those beyond what we think is necessary to determine whether or not you might be.

A good fit for Swanee. You'll see that the average high school GPA is around a 374, the middle 50% for the AC T is a 27 to a 32 and for the essay tea is a 1250 to a 1390, but it's important to note that salon is also a test optional institution, so you're not required to submit standardized test scores in order to apply. The best way to think about that is if you feel as though your test score is not an accurate representation of your academic ability.

Don't feel like you need to submit your test scores, and generally around 25% of our applicant pool has applied as a test optional student. If you do decide to apply test optional, we're going to look even more closely at the rigor of your curriculum, so that's something to consider.

As far as other pieces of the application, we do take a holistic approach to the review process, so we are looking at everything that you submit. So within that common application we're going to review your extracurriculars. Also, look closely at your essay. Swanee has a strong emphasis on writing and creative writing, so that's certainly something that's important when we're evaluating students. Potential academic fit will also review recommendation letters, so we require two recommendation letters, one from.

Counselor your college counselor and then one also from a teacher. You can certainly submit more recommendation letters if you like, but it's not required and unless you feel that an additional recommender might be able to add something that someone hasn't already, that will tell about your character or academic performance or something of the like, you shouldn't feel like you need to submit an additional recommendation letter.

The two I mentioned, the transcript for those test optional students, but in general of course we're looking at the rigor of curriculum for all of our students, but then also to for a positive trending great. So we understand that sometimes the transition to high school can be a challenging one, whether you are changing schools or simply just making the jump in your school from middle school to high school, we know that sometimes that can be a tough transition, but we like to see that our students are doing a little bit better every year, culminating.

Anna truly excellent junior and even senior year.

As far as kind of deadlines and other things like that, we do offer four different deadlines for students, so 2 early decision deadlines. One early action deadline, and then a regular decision deadline as well, and you can see those dates there if you're not familiar with the difference between early decision and early action. The main difference is that early decision students are committing to enroll at the institution if they are.

Admit it, so that's that. Binding piece. Early action students are applying early, but have an opportunity to keep their options open an not make a final enrollment decision until that National May. One decision deadline and then regular decision functions exactly like early action, but is designed for students who may be made a little bit more time to consider Swanee. Or perhaps are applying to another student or another institution. Early decision.

And again, when I take some time to figure out whether or not they want to add celani to their list, all four are great options. Certainly there to provide flexibility for you, and if you have any questions about what might be the best fit for you, you're certainly always able to ask your admission counselor, which, with That being said, one of the things that I find is really helpful during the admission process just in general, but also specifically when it comes to Swanee is demonstrating some interest and this is not simply for silanis benefit in being able to say that.

Oh wow, because we've interacted with this student this many times and then this. Many ways we feel that they're really interested in may be a good fit for Swanee. But it's also an opportunity for you to kind of try Swanee on kick the tires, so to speak. As our Dean of admission often says, an interview us figure out whether or not we are a good fit, and even though you can't be on campus right now and we're not able to visit you at college fairs or at your high school, there are plenty of ways that you can engage. So whether it's through one of these online sessions

Sending an email to your admission counselor. Getting on the phone with us. Sitting in on a zoom panel with current Swanee students or maybe engaging virtually with Anna Lum, we have lots of different opportunities available for you at this point virtually, and we hope that you'll choose to engage with us in that way as you try saloni on and as we get to know you a little bit better as well regarding financial information as a relates to Saloni.

We do require the CSS S profile and the FAFSA for any student who's interested in applying for need based aid. But Saloni also is committed to making Swanee affordable for as many students as possible and we do meet 100% of demonstrated need, so certainly something that sets Swanee apart perhaps from other institutions, and demonstrates very clearly Sony's commitment to affordability.

85% of incoming freshmen this password received some sort of aid to attend and their average gift aids, so scholarships and the like were $25,000. So again, thinking about that commitment to affordability and making sure that this one is experiencing this Sony experience is available for as many students as we can, and he would like to be at Swanee.

We also offer scholarship opportunities for students as well. Every student that applies to Swanee is automatically considered for all of our academic scholarships and those range from $5000 to full. Tuition room and board. So there's no additional application require, just simply apply to Saloni and will review your application for admission and then scholarship potential as well. We also offer an opportunity as well called the fellowship in the arts, and these are scholarships for students who are interested and dance.

Theater art and art history. And then also music. So if your area of interest lies in one of those areas, you may want to consider next year or the year after applying to be a fellow in the arts, and that application opportunity is extended to all admitted students, generally sometime in March. So once you've been admitted to Swanee, you'll have an opportunity to apply to be a fellow in the arts and those decisions.

Are released sometime in mid to late April every year, so something to keep in mind.

And then finally, I'll just reiterate again to always feel as though you can connect with us, either virtually or sometime, hopefully soon in the future by coming for a campus visit. We very much look forward to having an opera.

You need to have you with us but in the meantime look forward to continuing to engage with you in this way. And I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with you today about Swanee. It's been fun for me and I'm going to open it up now to questions so if you have any. Feel free to just enter them into the chat feature and will start a conversation.

And if you don't have any, that's OK too. Hopefully that means that I covered all the information that you may have had questions about.

Oh here we go.

Alright, so can students have cars on campus? Absolutely so you can have a car on campus starting your first year at Swanee. Although I will tell you that most of our students, their preferred mode of Transportation, is going to be by bike. So Swanee is really exclusively during the day. I'll walking and biking campus. You're not going to be able to drive to class or anything of the like, but most of our students will choose to bring a card to campus, at least at some point during their experience.

And the average parking fee for a year is just over $100, so we make it really affordable for students. But I always encourage the students that I work with if they can to bring a bike to campus 'cause it's really the easiest way. I think the most fun way to get around Swanee.

Alright, So what are the requirements for the Fellowship of the arts scholarship? Good question. So it really depends based on your area of interest and the discipline, but generally speaking there is going to be a written application and then also to you may be asked to submit for example with the dance scholarship. It might be that you submit a video of your performance.

And same goes for music and the likes. So I will vary based on this. The fellowship that you're applying for, but more detailed information is available on the website about each of those individual programs and what those faculty members from those departments are looking for, but generally or written application and then potentially some sort of supplement video or additional piece of engagement.

OK, so I went ahead and just added a couple questions at once. So is there Greek life on campus? Yes, there is. Greek life on campus and around 60% of our students are involved in Greek life and I really feel like Sony's Greek life stands out for a variety of different reasons. But to me, one of the hallmarks of the experiences that we have an open, great community meaning that all of our students, whether their Greek or not.

Are invited to the events that happened through those organizations during the year, so there no guest list for parties or anything of the like. We do have some formals on campus that are reserved for members of those organizations, but I wasn't great. Gets Lonnie and still was invited to many of those so I felt particularly included in all aspects of Greek life on campus and still had an excellent experience even though I wasn't involved and I think that open aspect very much play a large role in that.

We also have delayed rush as well, so the earliest you can rush at Swanee as the second semester of your freshman year. So giving you a chance to really engage within the community. Figure out where your places on campus and whether or not Greek life is something that you want to have as a part of your Swanee experience, and then also our great community is not residential as well, so all of our Greek students are not living in their individual houses. We may have one or two students living in each house at a time, but almost exclusively.

On presidential.

Another question was what years do students have to live on campus so students are required to live on campus all 4 years we have a commitment to wanting our students to live on campus so that we can live together in community with one another so not only are we going to class together but we're eating in mcclurg are one dining Hall together we're living on campus together so community is very much an important part of the Sony experience an is at the heart of the ethos of campus as well.

Um all of our first year students will live in a residence Hall but after that you'll have an opportunity to apply to live in a theme health that that's something that you'd like to do those are special interest houses that are available for sophomores juniors and seniors we have theme houses related to civic engagement to sustainability we've had houses related to business and the arts writing there's an interfaith house so lots of different opportunities there and those will change from year to year based on.

You know various student interests some of my favorite theme houses are the language houses I was like classics minor at swanee right now we offer.

Language houses that relate to French German Russian Spanish and Italian although at one point we did have a classic's house too so kind of a nice way for students to have a language immersion experience on campus if that's something that they'd like to do.

Alright So what are the most popular clubs on campus great question Hunter so right now I would say that our most popular club or organization is the swanee outing program so I mentioned at the beginning of the session that swannies 13,000 acres an wild that certainly used for a lot of kind of academic work and research in this integrated into the saloni classroom extended classroom experience our students are also using it for recreation as well.

So the swanee outing program or the SOP as we refer to it will run generally 528 trips on campus every week ranging from hiking to mountain biking road biking rock climbing and bouldering caving canoeing all different sorts of things so if it's related to outdoor recreation more than likely a lot of what you're interested in doing is going to be something that you can do on campus or nearby or maybe a part of one of our soapy LED break trips like.

Canoeing the Rio Grande as far as other clubs on campus we have a variety of different clubs sports an intermural sporting opportunities for students we also have various clubs related to kind of faith based organizations cultural organizations organizations related to civic engagement and social justice we have mock trial and debate so if you have an interest in something or you may be participated in a club or organization in high school.

It's likely that Sony has it on campus and if we don't you can always work with faculty and staff to see if that's if there's a possibility of adding that to the swanee experience as well.

Alright any other questions at this point had some great ones so far.

Alright well thank you so much again for tuning in this afternoon to chat with me and learn more about swanee again we have a lot of virtual opportunities available for our students right now and so for perspective an admitted students so definitely stay tuned to our tuned into our website for all of those opportunities and I'll be back again next week with another online information session so if you want to join again if there's something that you missed just let us know and I think we may be publishing this too on the website.

If you need to check back and reference that again but thanks so much and please be well and stay safe and we hope to have an opportunity to welcome you to campus soon?