Daniel Fogarty @ Fulton-Montgomery
03:47:24 PM
Hello and Welcome to the Fulton-Montgomery Community College Information session!
Daniel Fogarty @ Fulton-Montgomery
03:48:57 PM
Please ask your questions here and we will be happy to answer
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
03:55:52 PM
Is the chat working
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
03:56:14 PM
is it working
Alright well hello everyone and welcome to our information session for Fulton Montgomery Community College. For those of you that are listening, either currently live right now with us or for those of you that are looking to jump on in at a later date. All this information will help you choose the better situation for you. As far as College is concerned because.
At FM, we believe we are a great option for all students and we'll go over that in much more detail here, today and Speaking of.
The type of information that we are going to be going over today will be.
A bunch of different services at FM offers. Here we will be going over the admissions process which will encompass everything as far as how to.
Get enrolled and get through the admissions process from application all the way through getting your schedule, and then we'll talk with our financial aid coordinator who will go over everything in the financial aid office back if you'd like to introduce yourself.
Becky cars are free up from our financial aid office is right here by Becky.
We will jump right in and next will our academic advising coordinator be our chat Mary Jo for like introduce yourself.
I am Mary Jo Ferrelo Davis Anne I'm the director of Advisement and counseling and testing at FM.
At our brand new academic success initiatives, going on Arlene, how are you?
There we go, so these are the types of people that will be coming on in shortly to go over their presentation with each and every one of you. So let's get started, shall we? We want to jump right into the admissions program session that we're having here. The portion that we're having here. Again, my name is Dan Fogarty, one of the admissions counselors at Fulton Montgomery Community College, and it's a pleasure to tell you a little bit about our beautiful campus.
Up here located about halfway between Albany and Utica, NY so.
A little bit about our campus right now. FM is a Community College in the State University of New York. So being apart of Suni and being a Community College really gives us the best of both worlds because we have the ability to have a multitude of different programs, some that gear you twords transferring on to one of our sister colleges at the four year institutions. Others will help you go right on into the workforce.
And get a job and we'll talk more about that and the options and how that can be with Mary Jo in just a little bit. But we do offer 36 different programs here to choose from. And like I said, they range from all different types of certificates and degrees. We have a great student body of nearly 2500 students with an 18 to one student to faculty ratio. So being one of the smaller Soony campuses already makes us have that one on one attention that we really thrive for.
And as you'll hear from Arlene later, our actual one, on one attention that we give our students is like no other. So we will talk more about that in the future too. But let's start with the admissions process, 'cause some of you may already be accepted. Some of you may be going through the process of being accepted, but one thing is for sure, we are here to help you every step of the way. And that's one thing that we like to really focus with. Each perspective student that comes in so.
What do you mean with myself or one of the other counselors? We're going to go through this process with you, and Luckily most of our programs minus three that you see at the bottom. There are.
Rolling admission automatic entry. As long as you fill out our free online application and have your official high school transcripts and or GD diploma in scores set to us along with the immunization records so the exception would be our nursing an R radiologic technology programs. Both of those health areas do have specific prereq course requirements.
And we can go from there and then after that we will have the individual studies program which really want to meet with you and make sure we make that program as best possible for you and everything that is going on. So let's jump right into the enrollment process, shall we? We are going to review the admissions checklist with you so your counselor, your admissions counselor will review your admissions checklist and make sure that we have everything complete. We are going to make sure that you get your.
Writing sample complete and with everything that's happening right now, we're trying to make it as easy as possible for you to do that. So you're going to be able to do that virtual advisements appointment.
And the virtual writing sample so you can send us that writing sample and then our student development center will set up that advisement appointment and Mary Jo will go over. How really streamline that process has become even during a more virtual age that we're dealing with now and then. Of course, our financial aid office will do a financial aid review and then the admissions office will do a good follow up as well to make sure that you don't have any other questions. And then we can get you through the next steps as far as.
You know parking passes and student ID's and things like that. So really a nice step for a lot of one on one throughout the way we have a lot of new programs and new initiatives. At FM we have academic coaches which again Arlene will talk about in a little bit more detail soon. Our computer, networking and cybersecurity program, our entertainment technology. Our FM Flex mode. So some students like taking courses on line, some like taking on campus.
This kind of helps you flex between both, so it's a good scenario for a lot of students who need that flexibility, whether they're working or juggling a multitude of different things at home. So and then our recently renovated science lab. So if you haven't been able to see those, we invite you to take a look at those either online virtually or in person during one of our campus tours.
We may be a small campus, but we do have a lot of superior student services here on our campus, so whether it be from our academic success initiatives to our grant programs that we have here on campus and all the different initiatives to help you with our Evans Library and learning Commons and then the Athletics student activities, they all do a great job as well too, at making sure that all of our students do well. So we might be one of the smaller suni schools, but we for surely have some of the most support.
And I did mention athletics a little bit. An in that is a very important part of our campus, and one that has done very well in recent memory. As you can see, some of the accolades that we do have here are basketball and baseball, bowling, golf, and soccer do very well. Just last year one of our cross country members finished second in the nation, so we do have a good history of a very good athletic program here to supplement your academics and on the women's side, basketball bowling cross country golf.
Soccer, softball, and volleyball. So again both men's and women's collegiate athletics at the Division Three level.
We did mention student activities a little bit and we do offer nearly 30 clubs on campus for you to get involved in. So whether you're looking to get involved in those clubs, student sponsored events, or maybe help out and volunteer in the community, we have a lot of different options for our students to stay busy outside of the classroom. And many of your academic programs may actually want you to assist with that. As far as, say, for example, nursing, you're going to be in the nursing club, right? So your actual specific program.
May have a club associated with it, which again helps enhance that professor student ratio and your professional development ratio. For once you leave here.
Our college store is up and running and relatively new renovation and it really does a great job at not only having all of the typical college store items that you're used to, but having obviously a place for our students to be a one stop shop for apparel, books, technology and everything else in between. So for surely take a look on campus and they have a good website as well too. So take a look at that.
Dining common area space that we have on campus for students to use. Great rec space union stations X kitchen. These are one of our common areas that students can get together and relax in between their classes as well as Raiders. Cove has been used for a multitude of special T events here on campus. Whether it be concerts or E sports tournaments, karaoke or just.
Hanging out for March madness or Super Bowl parties has been a good place for students together and for student activities to use. So whether you're just at the beginning of the process or working your way through the admissions process, feel free to utilize us whenever you would like to. And of course, reach out if you need to as well. But I think the next step that will jump on into will be our financial aid, which we will have our coordinator. Financial aid. Becky Khazaria jump on in.
And help us with that Becky.
Hi everyone, sorry, I'm just waiting for Dan to socially distance before I take away my mask. Sorry had some technical difficulties so here I am so financial aid financing your education beyond high school and we are in a student welcome center and I am the coordinator of financial aid here at the college and some statistics that we like to.
This OK? Oh first of what we like to talk about is our cost of attendance. As you can see our tuition or fees. We are very economical for you and we do everything that we can to try to make sure that you can cover the cost of your attendance. And 1st, the first thing that we like to look at is that we try to keep our tuition fees fairly low for you and the cost of your books as well.
Some facts and figures about FM. 64% of our students receive some kind of financial aid in the 2019-2020 academic year. We awarded over $9,000,000 in federal, state and institutional financial aid, so we're giving away a lot of money to help cover that. Tuition and fees cost.
Grants, scholarships and work study so those are all awards that you don't have to pay back. 64% of our students received made up 64% of our awards. Went to help pay that tuition and fees cost, and then 46% of our financial aid recipients received tap tap is the New York State Award. Tap is one of the most generous programs in the country and a lot of our students receive that to help cover tuition. So we'd like to just put out some of those facts and figures so that you know that.
Our tuition and fees. We try to keep as low as possible but also on top of that there's a lot of financial aid out there to help cover those costs. Would you have a very wonderful foundation that helps us award almost $180,000 in institutional scholarships? We awarded over 160 scholarships in 1920. I believe we have maxed that again so we've gone up. Scholarships are based on merit need.
Major, there's a whole bunch of things out there so we like the students to apply for our scholarships. It is about the easiest application that you can do with your name and your address, and there might be a couple of questions in there about community service and some other things, but it is pretty simple and it's on our website under the financial aid tab where you will see scholarships, so we encourage all students to apply.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:14:18 PM
When can I apply for aid?
Uh, once you've done the financial aid process or while you're going through the admissions process in doing financial aid, your next step is the academic advising and transfer, and for that we'll talk to Mary Jo Farello Davis, who is our director of advising, counseling, and testing.
Thank you hello everyone.
So, So what? I wanted to just tell you about is a little bit after the admissions process. Then we take over here and advising and we're going to take care of you for the rest of the time that you're at FM. So let me.
I don't know how to get to my next slide actually.
oh, control slides. OK, so there we are.
So we are located in the student Development Center, which if you were on campus, I would show you where that is, but all the advisors are in one location here, so you don't have to go across campus to find your advisor. We're all here. We have a combination of full-time advisors and faculty advisors in here, and we also have a lot of other services in here, so I'm going to start with obviously the Advisement. That's what we're going to do in here. Registration for your classes.
Once you've been accepted an we make that appointment for you, you're going to do your writing sample. We have done that all electronically. So basically you're just going to have to type into an email. Send us a Word document, we get that reviewed by one of our English professors, and we use that, and we use your high school transcripts, so we try to get a good picture of where to put you into your English classes. So you'd be successful. One of the things that FM that's a little different than some of your other colleges that you may have come across.
Is that we don't have you do an actual placement test. We don't really believe that that kind of test dictates where we would put you in English and math, so we do the writing sample and the math. We will use your high school transcript. What your career goal is and your program, and then you and your advisor will have that conversation together to find out where exactly that we should be placing you in math. So that's one of the nice things that you won't have to worry about.
Once you have your advisement appointment, or you're going to have your advisor to point where we are going to spend about 45 minutes to an hour with you for that first appointment, we have a lot to go through. We want to make sure that you know you understand everything that you need to do to be successful. Here you'll be assigned an advisor an that's kind of going to be your go to person throughout the whole two years that you're here. However we have. We have a lot of Advisors in here, so if your advisor is not available, we.
Always will have somebody to help you. We always have somebody on call to take phone calls and Walkins in the center. I know we're doing this all virtually right now. If you do want to have an appointment virtually with your advisor as opposed to over the phone, we can absolutely make that happen. We can you zoom or some Ms teams so we can definitely figure that out. Just make sure you let us know when we're setting up that appointment so we could. We could do that face to face, which hopefully will be face to face very soon.
Other things that we have in here we have mental health counseling available to our students right now that is done virtually, but when we're back on campus that is all done in person. That is no cost to the student. This is crazy time right now, so we want to make sure that we support your mental health as well as your academics. Retention services are also in here. This is something that you're not doing well in class. Or maybe you skipped a class or you you didn't turn in a midterm.
We have a way here where the professors let your advisors know and then we're going to reach out to you were going to make sure everything is OK. We're going to make sure that you're doing well. We may put you in touch with tutoring and academic coach, which will be discussed at the end so you know this is a smaller school. We want to make sure that we're here for you. This is not the school you're going to hideout. We, you know, we want to make sure that you're doing well in your successful. We also have transfer services. I did kind of skip over that.
So our transfer services is some students goals here at FM could be to transfer on to a Bachelors Street. It could be to go out and find a job. If you're going to transfer to get your bachelors degree, we want to be able to help you with that process. So we have a transfer counselor. All of your advisors are actually trained as well to help you with that transfer process, so we want to make sure that you know you're taking the right courses to transfer to the right school that you want to be in.
Disability services if you have any or needed any accommodations in high school, you are entitled to all that at the college level. So mention that at your first appointment with an advisor and we can definitely set you up with our Accessibility services. Normally we have job fairs on campus. We will be trying to do that a little. Virtually now these days as opposed to actually on campus. But when we are back to our quote Unquote Normal, we will have job fairs. We have transfer fairs. We bring colleges to campus.
To recruit you and we also have an evening advisor. Normally the offices or the office is staffed open until 6:00 Monday through Thursday, so there's someone that you can talk to. We do have any meeting advisor on duty as well.
Several degrees that we offer and you can see them on the bottom. Certificate programs are generally going to be about 30 to 34 credits. They usually will take one year.
Then we have what's called the associates of Arts degree, an associates of Science, and really the difference between those two are really you take a little bit more math and Science in the associates of science than you would in the associates of Arts, but those two are really designated as transfer programs. It's getting you all of the Gen eds that you need for Suni and all of the liberal arts education that you need for any bachelors degree that you're going to do. We haven't.
Incorporated that into these two types of degrees to help you transfer, but then we have applied associate degree in science and applied degree. Basically is for those students who want to have a two year degree go out and start to work. It's going to be more of a hands-on degree. It probably will include an internship so we can get you real life experience so you're ready to work after the two years and then the individual studies degree, which I think Dan did allude to a little bit and that is really if you don't see what something that you want on our list of academic majors, don't give up on us.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:21:18 PM
What if I don’t know what I want to study?
Give us the opportunity to try to fold it into an individual studies program, and that's where we can combine coursework with on the job training and you know really focus on getting you out to the workplace in either a year or two years. We have certificate and the two year degree.
OK so I transferred a four year institutions. I did mention about the transfer fair. We do have what's called dual admissions programs where you could actually apply to FM and you could apply to say Souni Cobol skill for a certain program at the same time it secures your your transfer in your acceptance. As long as you maintain a certain GPA, you're already accepted it to the four year level. So we have some of those dual admissions programs. We also have what we call transfer agreements.
We have well over 100 transfer agreements with other four year colleges. We've already gone out and done the hard work. If you take these classes here at FM, which we have written out, they will be accepted at, say, Suni, Albany for a psychology degree. So so the agreements are very helpful. You don't need an agreement to transfer, but it does kind of pave the way to make sure you're taking the right classes.
OK, so transferred to four years so these are just some of our top schools that students transferred to. That's not an inclusive list. I've had students transferred to California, Florida, so really anywhere that you want to go we can help get you there, but again, these are just some of the top ones that we have an I'm done and I will turn it over. Oh OK alright hey.
We actually had a question Mary Jo for you, so the one quart bit before we send Arlene on in here it was. What if I don't know what I want to study? That was a question.
Oh, then, like everybody else, I mean absolutely some. You know eighteen 2530 years old it, we still don't sometimes know we have career services as well and thank you 'cause I did not mention that. So we have a career counselor. If you really need some in depth counseling about you know what you like, what you don't like. Your advisor will also do a certain amount of that with you in your first appointment. We were trying to get at maybe.
Some of your favorite coursework, some of the Witcher dreams. What did you think you wanna do? This is actually the perfect place for that, because you can start with your general education requirements that everybody has to take. English, math, science. It does not matter what degree you do. You are going to take all those classes and then we have an opportunity to maybe give you some classes to try. Maybe business is something that you want to try. Try a business class you know if you come under our general studies program, that's exactly what that program is set up to. Do it. Set up to explore.
Different types of coursework to see what you may want to do, but like I said, we have a lot of career types of things that we can give you. We have on line careers.
Just means that we can give you. You can have an appointment with a career counselor, so we will definitely help you find your path.
Great Alright, Thanks Darlene. I'll send it over to you.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:28:56 PM
How can I be assigned an Academic Coach?
No, thank you very much Arlene. I know we're getting a few questions here.
How can I be assigned an academic coach? Is one of them?
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:29:33 PM
Is there a cost of tutoring?
And does being referred have any extra cost to it to the student to join this?
All no brainer to want to be a part of of this for sure, and take advantage of these initiatives. Well, thank you very much, Arlene. So I think we'll jump into our Q&A session of our information session here at Fulton Montgomery Community College Ann. Feel free as you are thinking about some questions that you may have to type them into the chat and then we can go through one or two more questions before we.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:30:48 PM
Can I still apply for spring?
And this at this point. But one thing I do want to bring up is that we are doing tours on campus and all you have to do is sign right up. So if you're watching this live, our next one is on November the 11th. If you're watching this tape that it's best November the 11th, feel free to go on our website or give our office a call and we'll get you into the next available VIP tent campus tour. Because these are.
Great events to be apart of. It's a time where we can safely welcome you onto our campus, follow the protocols needed and show you our campus in a nice setting and very small groups so that we can have you see the campus. Another way to join us virtually and to maybe talk to even more people on our campus, including the exact program professors that you're interested in talking to would be our fall virtual open house, so that's going to be Saturday November the 21st. It's going to be at 1:00 PM.
An you just have to sign up on our website to take advantage and we will send you a zoom link as it will be on the zoom platform. So again that's another option that you do have. So although many of you may be thinking fall is the next time to apply, I do want to reiterate that our spring semester is open. Students are starting to schedule for the spring semester and we are more than happy to help get you in here.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:32:36 PM
Are there scholarships for students who have great grades?
For the spring as well, so contact us and admissions again. As we said, always a free online application. We just need your transcript and or GE D scores and certificate to get you accepted and get you going and get you into the nice people that you saw here today. Whether it be Becky or Mary Jo Orlean or many of their fellow faculty and staff members that we have here to help you out.
As well and then go from there. So another question that we have is, are there scholarships for students who have great grades? And that's a question we get a lot too, and there's a lot of scholarships available for students for multiple different reasons. Good grades being one of them, and our financial aid office does a great job in assisting our students with that.
So it's it's one good option for you there, right, baggy?
Yeah, so the flip upside down.
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:34:27 PM
Mj can’t get back into the session
One more question too about how easy is it to get into work study and how does that process really go?
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:35:12 PM
How long does it take to be accepted at FM?
Laura LaPorte @ Fulton-Montgomery
04:35:45 PM
Is their an application fee to apply to FM?
Perfect so alright, let's see what other questions we do have and if anyone else.
But it looks like we do have one for Arlene. So Arlene, if you want to jump on here, we can go through that is.
Have you seen a difference in students who've had the academic coaching relatively quickly, or does it take a while for the results to really come about?
Is is this going to become popular? Would you say for athletes? Would this be something you would recommend for athletes to get involved in?
Thank you Arlene. Let's see what other questions we have so I know a lot of times we do get questions about application fee which we do not have. So obviously if you apply through sounis website they do have an application fee. So the easiest way to apply for us is throughfmcc.edu, which that application fee is always 0. So that's one one good option and then another option is another thing. Sometimes people ask us is how quickly can I get accepted?
Well, we work very hard to make that as fast as as possible. So typically when we receive everything you're accepted within that same couple day period. So it's a very quick turn around for us here at FM. So if we have everything we're going to accept you right away and then we're going to contact you right away as well too, so you don't have to wait in the Mail for a letter to come. You know, in a few weeks you're going to get a call or a text.
Or an email, whichever you prefer from your application so that we can start the process and go over it with you. So that's a a real nice thing to have, because as I've mentioned in Becky, has mentioned and Mary Jo is mentioned in Arlene has mentioned there's someone with you every step of the way. Kind of like how we gave the presentation. So you know, we'll help you out until we we hand you off, but even then we still check back up on it and make sure you're good as we get closer to your starting semester, so.
For surely it's a quick quick turn around and then will be reaching out and building that rapport with you throughout the process.
Other than that, I think that might end our Q&A period as I don't see any other questions coming through, but I would like to thank all of our presenters for helping out today, and I'd like to thank all of you for listening in an being a part of our information session, and if you want more individualized, which we always prefer to be able to talk to, students will not one, please feel free to reach out, as you all have our information for being a part of this year.
Today, so thanks again. Have a great evening and we hope to talk to you and of course see you soon have a great one everybody bye.