Centre College Virtual Info Session

Hey there everyone. My name is Thomas Becker. I'm one of the admission counselors at center college. Well, we're going to do today is run through our pre tour normally what you guys would be doing if you were here on campus would be to go through this session and then go out on a tour. But seeing as many of us are inside an were not able to give you that full center experience, we want to give you a little bit of information so that you can learn more.

So without further ado, Oh, Virginia is calling.

That's never a good sign.

I can't hear you. What do you mean you can't hear me?

So.

Can you hear me now?

No.

Of goodness sake we were doing so well.

I don't know what the issue is.

On remote control and it's my fault.

Hey there everyone my name is Thomas Becker I'm one of the admission counselors here at center college.

Normally you would be watching something like this presentation right before you head out on tour to campus Unfortunately we don't have that opportunity to give you a live in person look at the college at this time but what we do have are some very enthusiastic counselors who would be more than happy to tell you more about centre college and I am proud to be one of them So what I'm going to walk you through today is a brief version of our pre tour welcome any questions comments concerns.

All might have. We're going to put up a contact box at the end of this recording, but this is a first time for all of us, so bear with me as I click through these slides and tell you a little bit more about center. So without further ado, almost everything you need to know about Centre College, first thing you should know about us is that we are a small school. We are very intentionally designed to be a community, just over 1400 students. Right now we have no aspirations to grow into A.

Multi thousands strong body. We like the sense of community that we get from this number of students that we have. It creates really close relationships. Really high quality of living and lots of access to each other both in those peer to peer relationships but also in the peer to staff period of faculty relationships as well.

Those 1400 or so students breakdown demographically in some ways here. So the first is that we try and keep 5050 in terms of our gender balance your on campus and currently 52% of students on campus identify as female nearly 1/4 of students are students of color, including an additional 6% of students who are coming to us from abroad. We like for our college campus to look like the world that our students are going to be entering.

And that's just one of the ways that we do that. Finally, 98% of center students live on campus. We are a highly highly residential experience, and unless you have a family or medical exception, we're going to expect that you stay on campus all four years with us.

Our students hail currently from 41 states in 14 different countries and territories. While we are very much rooted in the bluegrass, 50% of our students come from the state of Kentucky. The other 50% come from a reach that is national and international. So you are going to be hallmates roommates, classmates with folks from around the country and around the globe.

One of centers pride and Joy's is the student to faculty relationship. I usually tell students and families that they should be expecting for primary things when they're looking at high quality liberal arts colleges, especially when it comes to their faculty. The faculty should be experts in their field. They should probably have the terminal degree within that field.

They should be really good teachers and they should be highly accessible to students through their office hours and center. We have all of those things and then some are professors are the ones who are going to be showing up to sporting events and musical performances. They're the ones who are going to be putting their cell phone numbers on a syllabus because they want to be accessible to their students after hours. There are also the ones who are going to invite their entire class over for dinner at their house, not because they want to have a book discussion, but because they genuinely want to engage in that community.

One of the things that makes center really special. One of the things that has us rated among the best schools in the country for undergraduate teaching and the broader undergraduate learning experience.

Speaking of the learning experience, you are going to be spending some time in the classroom as a center student. The average class size at center is 18, but we're going to cap all of our classes at 30. Usually the only times we see those 30 person classes are in general education courses. Your intro level courses, but as you work your way through the center experience, especially as you're taking electives within your major during your junior and senior year, those classes are going to get a lot smaller still.

60% of your classes will have 20 or fewer students. Smallest class I took it center was four students, but I think the consistent theme while you experience that in a very real way in the classroom of four students, is that it's a really intimate learning environment, one that thrives on challenge but also on a really high degree of support, both from your peers and from your professor.

This next slide here has a lot of words on it. I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail on all of the bits and pieces, but just generally center has over 50 different majors, minors and pre professional programs. We also have a few degree partnerships and we have the option for you to design your own major. All of these are excellent high quality programs. If you have specific questions about any of them, please be in touch with your admission counselor. They would be more than happy to connect you with the right folks in that Department to learn more detailed nitty gritty information.

But I'd also encourage you to check out the Web Page, 'cause That's where you're going to find the most up-to-date information on all of these programs.

So shifting a little bit away from academics, I should say a little bit about student life. You will be spending more time outside of the classroom as a center student. Then you will inside the classroom and we wanted to build as an institution are really robust experience for our students. We do have over 2000 events on campus each and every year. That's not an exaggeration. That's not a fake number. We do have more events each year then we have students on campus, so feel free to pick an event and call it yours. We have.

Over 80 campus clubs and organizations. They range the spectrum from political organizations to religious organization service to special interest or affinity groups. You name it, we've probably got it, and if we don't have it, we encourage students to start it. All you need are a few friends in a petition to student government and you have a brand spanking new club, so we encourage students to be involved and I would say that that's pretty typical for center students. Over 40% of center students are involved in the arts, whether that's performance.

For production so honest stage or in a studio, over 40% of our students are also varsity athletes. We have a very proud athletic tradition here at the college and a lot of our students are taking advantage of that.

Over 80% of center students are involved in regular community service. Whether that's here in Danville, whether that's when they go home during a break, or when it's their abroad. So while there isn't a typical center student involvement, something where everyone says, oh, they all do that. The typical center student is involved. So if your dream college experience is something that involves very large lecture halls and going back to your room at the end of every day, heating up some Rahman and calling it.

That's awesome, and that might be the right fit for you, but that's definitely not what the center experiences and we want to be straight forward with that. You're going to have a very engaged experience when you come to a school like center.

One of those pieces of engagement, probably the thing that we are best known for in College in University circles, is our study abroad program. We are considered one of the Premier programs in the country, both in terms of our rate of participation in our quality of programming, over 80% of center students will study abroad during their time with us, and nearly 1/3 will study abroad twice or more. We have semester long programs in 10 countries. We have center term program. Center term is our three week January interim.

In anywhere from 10 to 15 additional countries.

Yes, our most center students going to take advantage of studying abroad, absolutely, but you might be thinking to yourself. I'm not sold on it, or maybe it's not for Maine. Would I like to tell to folks who are thinking? That is, you might not feel like you want to do it. But first of all, it's nice to have the option. We're never going to make you study abroad, but also you're going to be in a classroom environment with a significantly elevated level of conversation. People who are bringing diverse global perspectives.

Into their classrooms because of the experiences they've had abroad and that can't be duplicated no matter how much you're going to be reading about something or being instructed in something without going to those places. So we're really proud of our study abroad program. We're always looking for opportunities to expand and grow, and it's definitely a hallmark of the center experience.

So much so is it part of the experience that it has rolled into part of our center commitment? We are one of the very first schools to pioneer a guarantee to our students beyond a college degree. It has three parts. Part one, we guarantee that every student that wants to will have the opportunity to study abroad. We guarantee that every student that wants one will have a faculty mentored research project or an internship for academic credit under their belt before they graduate.

And we also guarantee that we will graduate you with a degree in four years if we fail to meet anyone of those three things, and you meet all basic expectations of being a good student, AKA not getting suspended or expelled or failing any courses if we fail to do our part and you do, yours will pay for your.

5th year of tuition.

Uh, we have never had to pay for a fifth year of tuition and I would chalk that up to two really important things. Number one, I think our faculty advising here is incredible. They're going to make sure that students stay on track and are aware of the opportunities that they can take advantage of. But second of all, I would say that most of our students I might even venture to say all of our students are aware of the centre commitment and they are self starters. They know they want to take advantage of these really robust, incredible Welbilt experiences.

That they can have through research or studying abroad, or an internship, or making sure that they stay on track to graduate in four years and so our students play a really big part in making the center commitment a reality as well.

The slide here is my absolute favorite. I think it tells the center story. If we could send this and with no other explanation I think that this would be an amazing testament to the quality of a center education and the pride that people take in it. So the first piece of it is that we have a 91% first year retention rate, which means over 9 and 10 center students that arrive as first years will come back for their second year. This is significantly above the national average.

And blows every other Kentucky College and University out of the water. The same is true for our four year graduation rate, which is clear over 80%. We are well above the national average for getting people out in four years and onto productive lives of learning and leadership and service. And we blow every other Kentucky College and University out of the water again.

So much so do we value this center experience? And I'm a very proud center alone. We have been rated by the alumni. Factor is having the happiest alums in the country. This is not some center Shell Corporation. The alumni factor is an independent group that looked at every school in the country virtually.

And said that center alums were the happiest. And of course it's very easy for me.

Has one of those people who came and stayed and graduated in four years and now works for the college. But the story that the slide essentially tells is that more so than any other place in Kentucky and the vast majority of other places in the states, people come here. Stay here, graduate from here and are really, really glad they went here.

You might be wondering what they do when they leave those center alums who are very proud we have a 97% success rate, 10 months postgrad roughly 2/3 of our students are going to go straight into the workforce. As you might expect, we do have a significant chunk that are going to be working abroad in a variety of fields that's that largest percentage you see there, but after that it's a real smattering. Were not the type of school where people will come and just do one thing we like to prepare our students as a liberal Arts and Sciences college too.

Think creatively and think critically and those are skills that can be applied in any context for the folks who are going to pursue graduate study right when they leave us roughly a third as you might expect most are going to be an allied health or medison related fields or in law we do have the highest Med school an law school acceptance rates in Kentucky but then after that again a very wide smattering that graph down there in the bottom corner I really like approximately 2 thirds of center grads will get an advanced degree at some point during their careers so while.

Only a third are going right away when they leave center another third will go back and get another degree we are a place filled with people who like learning and we continue that well into our vocational experiences as well.

Some of you watching this video are learning about Center for the first time. Others of you have already applied, but for those of you who haven't, we have three very straightforward deadlines. Early decision deadline is binding. November 15th. We expect that these are going to be the applications where students say center is my first choice, and if they let me in, I'm going to go. This is not a very common root at most schools. Early decision.

Is binding so the student parent or legal Guardian and the school counselor all sign a letter that says I'm applying to one school early decision and if I get in, I withdraw all my other applications. After that though are non binding options the only difference between our December 1st early action deadline and January 15th? Regular decision deadline is you get us your stuff sooner. We get you a decision sooner, but neither one of those options is binding. So for the folks who want to leave their college options open.

Or simply missed the deadline for early decision don't worry we give you plenty of time to complete your application on the tail end.

You might be wondering who is my admission counselor while we break it down by geography and don't rush I'll give everyone a second here find your state Kentucky Tennessee international home school and transfer students stay tuned you're on the next slide but remember the name that you're seeing there in the bottom right hand index there and then if you are a Kentucky enora Tennessee in or an international student.

In school or transfer student.

Find your person on this map here.

Give you a second for that.

And then Voila, those are the pictures of me and my colleagues and all of our contact info. So if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to email us or call us. We are here and ready to help as much as we possibly can now. I did say at the beginning of this that this is normally what you get before you go out on tour with us, and so as to not deny you at least some version of that.

We gave you an opportunity to see Centre College from the comfort of your own home. So we have designed using the guidebook app, a virtual walking tour of Centre College. So if you follow the instructions on the screen here, 3 straightforward steps. Please feel free to take a look at center from a distance. We know it's not the same as being there in person, but it will give you a decent start in terms of exploring the school from afar. We also have some social media things some way.

Ways for you to connect with us, Twitter Facebook, Instagram and Tick Tock.

And.

We'd like to thank you for tuning in, um. While we would love to meet you in person, we hope that will get the chance to interact with you a bit over email or by phone. Or look for a zoom call from us. But thank you for taking the time to learn a little bit more about Centre College, and if you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to shoot him our way. Thanks for tuning in.