Virtual Information Session

Hello everyone, my name is Cody plummets and I'm a first year admissions counselor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, UT and I want to thank you for joining my information session. So today I'm here to talk to you about Westminster College. Westminster College is a private, independent liberal arts college that is located in sugarhouse and if you're not familiar with sugarhouse, sugarhouse is about a 10 minute drive from downtown Salt Lake City and so some of you may not be familiar with what is a liberal arts college.

Or what is a liberal arts education so liberal arts education is where you study one subject from multiple perspectives, and so if you're going to be biology major at Westminster College, you're most certainly going to take plenty of Science and mathematics courses. But you're also going to take Fine Arts and Humanities, an array of other subjects as well. And the reason we do that is that we want to create well rounded individuals and well rounded professionals. So when you leave Westminster College, you're most certainly going to be able to write.

A lab report. You're going to be able to do all kinds of different mathematical equations and these things that we depend on within the science community. But you're also going to be able to talk about diversity. You're going to be able to present your research to crowds. You're going to say the reason that we need to have this environmental sustainability test is because it's affecting these populations. So again, when you leave Westminster College, you leave a more well rounded individual for walking around Westminster College. You're going to notice that we have about 2000 undergraduate students.

So we are smaller community and within that community you're going to find that our average class size has 15 students and we actually Max it at 25. So if you're the type of person that loves being noticed in the classroom, likes building connections with faculty and professors, I think Westminster could be a really good fit for you.

As you're exploring your academic options is important to know that within Westminster's community there's actually 5 distinct academic colleges we have. The school of Arts and science. We have an honors College. We have the School of Business, the School of Education, and the School of Nursing and Health Sciences. And so depending on what you're looking at, there's 59 different academic undergraduate programs for you to explore, and so a lot of students going to college not knowing what to expect. That's OK. Try something out.

If it doesn't work for you, then go ahead and give something else to try.

What is campus life like at Westminster college?

So Westminster College has a two year on campus housing requirement and the reason that we have that is we're committed to building a residential community at Westminster students that live on campus. The research shows that they're more likely to be successful at college. So what is being successful means? It means you're more likely to build your social network. You're more likely to make friends at campus. You're more likely to show up to class when it's only a 5 minute walk. It's a whole lot more motivating than waking up at 6:00 AM to scrape your windshields and do a half hour commute.

And so, anyway, Westminster, we do have the expectation that students live on campus. There first two years in the housing options, you have to choose from then is both traditional and apartment style housing. So traditional is that classic example that you've probably seen in the movies where you have two people in a room. You have two wardrobes, two dressers, and kind of all the furniture that you would need or that you would expect. This may be a better way to put it, and so you get to build that relationship with that other person that maybe you met before. Maybe you haven't met before. It's really up to the individual.

We also have apartment style as well, and so that's where you have about five to six people that each share kind of a common living space, so you have the common living room. You have the common kitchen, but you each have your own individual rooms at the end of the day, and it's just you and your room, and you're able to close the door, but you can live with these other four or five close friends.

Student support services at Westminster College. So there really is a wide array of student support services at Westminster, and So what I want to do here is 'cause we don't have the time to talk about them as free just to take a look at it. If you have a question about one of these support services, you're going to find the admissions email contact information on the last slide, so don't hesitate to reach out and ask us the thing I'd like to tell students is that we're not mind readers, and so if you.

Are looking for some kind of support, just ask and I'll be more than happy to tell you everything I know about those support services.

Health, Wellness, and athletics at Westminster College. So Westminster College does have 15 NCAA Division two teams, and so if you are looking at the NCAA Division 2 caliber of sports, no, that's most certainly an option at Westminster College. Now, I'm not much of an athlete, so more my style is clubs and organizations. Westminster also has 50 academic, social and intermural clubs.

So if you want to do intermural soccer, if you want to be part of the associated students of Westminster, the student governing body at Westminster. If you want to be in the college Democrat College Republican, kind of any of these clubs, you can think of you most certainly can do that at Westminster and then also if there's something that you're interested in, but Westminster doesn't have it, you can actually start your own club. And so if you want to start a Dungeons and Dragons Club, you're more than welcome to do that. So no kind of whatever path you want to build at Westminster, you're able to do it.

Financial aid at Westminster College. So Westminster does offer three different types of aid. We have merit based needs based in talent based Somera base is based on a holistic review of academic performance. So last year the range was between 9 to $24,000. What's awesome about that? 9 to $24,000 is that's renewable up to four years at Westminster College. So when you receive your merit based aid, let's say you got the high end, you got that $24,000.

You can essentially multiply that by 4 and that's nearly $100,000 towards your education. We also have needs based aid, so that's based on the free application for student aid, otherwise known as the fasfa. What's awesome about needs based aid at Westminster is that if you don't qualify for fasfa based on whatever reason that is, you can still be eligible for needs based aid. You just need to let one of our admissions counselors know that you're not eligible for Fasfa and we can help work with alternatives with you. Or you can contact our financial aid office.

Lastly is talent based aid, so this is performing arts scholarships such as music, dance and theater and it's those athletic scholarships as well. So there's a lot of different types of aid at Westminster College. Again, if you have questions, reach out to an admissions counselor or one of our financial aid representatives. Next, I want to talk about how to apply to Westminster College, Westminster colleges test optional, So what this means is that we no longer require that a student submit their S80 or their AC T scores as a part of their application in Westminster.

If a student elects not to submit their S80 or there at ECT score, though, we are going to ask that you submit an essay. We know that students shouldn't be defined by their test scores necessarily, and so we want to give you an opportunity to tell us more about yourself and why you want to be at Westminster. Westminster also doesn't have an application fee, so if you are worried about finances, you don't have to invest anything to find out if you're going to invest anything in terms of money, you don't have to put in any cost to see. Am I going to be able to get accepted to Westminster or not?

We want students to feel welcome and applying. We also have a priority deadline of December 1st and what this means is that for students that get their application by December 1st right around the December Holidays were trying to get out the admissions decisions and then if you've been admitted, what financial aid you're going to receive as well, we are rolling admissions campus though, so if you don't have all your materials ready by December 1st, that's OK. You can apply later on as well.

If you're looking to do a tour at Westminster College, you can go to this URL, know that you're able to do both virtual visits, and you can do in person visits as well, so it's really up to you and what you're looking for.

Lastly, if you want to learn more about Westminster College, I encourage you to follow our Instagram at Westminster admissions and you can email us at admission@westminstercollege.edu. Lastly, you can call us at 801-832-2200 so I know that was a lot of information in a very little amount of time, and so I want to thank you for joining me today again. My name is Cody Clements. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. I want to wish you all the best.