Alright.
Good morning, everybody.
My name and welcome to the Bryan Mercer University's master's in psychology online overview.
My name is Tom Brooks.
I'm the vice president of enrollment.
And joining me today is Ebony Schonberger, our communications manager.
Right now, I see we have about five or six, attendees today.
So, again, thank you for joining.
At DMU, we believe in a collaborative and sharing culture.
So in that vein, I'm gonna ask you guys to do a little exercise for me real quick.
If you all could do, I'm sorry.
If you could all put your name or next to your name, where you're calling in from.
We'd like to see where folks are from, and we'd like to see who's, who's online, of course.
We appreciate that.
You can do that in the chat area.
We do encourage you to ask questions, and you can do that also in a chat area.
Many of your questions, hopefully, will be answered during the course of the overview.
And then, if not, we'll certainly get to them at the end.
And we do have a q and a session at the end.
So if you have other questions that come up and you wanna ask those, please, by all means, add them to the to the chat session, and we'll go from there.
So, that being said, we're gonna go ahead and get started now, and I will, ask Ebony to turn over the controls to Ebony, and, we'll go from there.
Alright.
Good morning, everyone.
We're excited to have you join us today.
And we're also excited to present on the master's in psychology, our completely online program here at Divine Mercy University that is integrated with Catholic Christian understanding of the human person.
We have loads of information about our, fast track, and we also have scholarship information.
So make sure you stick tight so that you can learn more.
Alright.
Good morning.
What we're gonna do today is we're gonna talk about, DMU.
We'll tell you a little bit about the program, the masters in psychology online, our acceptance requirements, a little bit of information about our faculty, next steps, and then we'll, kinda end with scholarships and then q and a.
Next slide, please.
DeBylmercy University is a Catholic graduate, university comprised of two schools, the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and the School of Counseling.
It's dedicated to the scientific study of psychology and counseling with the Catholic Christian understanding of the person, marriage, and family.
We call this our meta model.
Founded in 1999 as the Institute for the Psychological Science, in 2004, we launched the MSP program, which is what we call the master's in psychology online, and it was really meant for to focus on educating working professionals.
Then in 2015, we changed the name of the to Divine Mercy University by adding, the school of counseling and, went to university status based on that.
And today, we still go by Divine Mercy University.
And, again, we have the Institute of Psychological Sciences, which has our PsyD program, which is a, clinical psychology program leading to licensure as psychologists.
And then we have the MSP program, which is what we're talk gonna talk about today.
Next slide, please.
Divine Mercy University is credited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to Award Masters and Doctor degrees.
As a university, that's how we're accredited.
And then depending on the program, there's also what we call programmatic accreditation as well.
Divine Mercy University was formed, charted, and established in the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1998.
And, originally, we were offering continuing education credits for folks who already have their PsyD in in psychology, and that was a little bit prior to us, becoming, a regular college or university.
We are accredited by the Department of Education, and they're, therefore, exempt from the requirements of certification or approval by the State Council, of higher education for Virginia, which is CHEVE, so that allows us to operate in the state.
The exemption entitles the university conduct academic affairs or business without seeking or obtaining CHEVE approval.
The resulting scope of the institutional autonomy includes offering courses or programs for degree credit, enrolling students in courses or programs, conferring or awarding degrees, and initiating other programs for degree credit at a new or additional level and offering instruction at additional or new locations.
Next slide, please.
In the, online master's in psychology program, it's made up of 36 semester credit hours of coursework.
There's 30 credit hours in psychology courses, and then there's six credit hours in philosophy and theology.
And then there's one course currently, there's one course for every eight week term, although we do have, some new tracks, if you will.
And then there's fifteen hours per week of study time.
That's about an average.
Folks that write well, folks that that, tend to be able to move through material pretty quickly, you know, you can spend less time studying.
Folks that may struggle in certain areas, you may spend a little bit more time, but these are areas that we work, through the, academic folks, professors, and and they try to work with folks to make sure that they are, taken care of and and can really get through the coursework, you know, in the best possible manner based on the individual themselves.
If you took the program as is one course at a time, it'd be two years and four months to graduate.
That's with no breaks other than, you know, between terms, things like that.
It's a 100% online graduate program.
Unlike some courses, we currently don't have any residencies.
You don't you're not required to come to the university other than for graduation if you wanna walk through graduation.
This does not lead to licensure.
It's what we call a helping degree.
MSP focus on educating working professionals from all backgrounds by giving them a solid practical human tools needed in psychology.
Next slide, please.
So I mentioned earlier, we do have some new degree options in terms of how quickly you can move through the program.
The master's in psychology fast track option allows you to complete the program in a shorter period of time, and there's two options.
One is in sixteen months, and the other one is in twenty months.
For both of these options, all courses taken in the second term are at 50% discount, which can actually help save you up to $3,000 on the tuition.
Next slide, please.
The study options, if you take the sixteenth month program, the tuition with the discount would be approximately $25,530 and up to two courses per term.
There is a three point o GPA required, in order to do these, and you can start as soon as your first term based on evaluation of your transcript by the faculty.
And this is all all of these costs are prior to any other, scholarships, grants, or anything else.
These are on top of anything else that you would earn in those areas.
Fast track b, which is the twenty month option, would end up being somewhere around $26,109.
And, again, that's up to two courses per term.
And, basically, the difference in the options is you take more terms, which is one course in in the fast track b than you do in fast track a.
So it takes just a little bit longer.
If you take the regular path, it's twenty eight months.
It the cost would be about $28,428, and it would be one course per term.
Again, this is all prior to any other scholarships, grants, or funding options you may already have available to you.
Next time, please.
Alright.
Slide.
Talk a little bit about the courses in the program, and, this is a relevant thing for everybody.
Depending on what you're doing, in life as a vocation, whether you're a priest, a, a sister, you work in a ministry, the parish, the diocese, or you're out in these, you know, regular world, maybe you're in HR or you're in some kind of leadership position.
This degree, as I said earlier, it's really a helping degree, and our goal is to make sure that people that, you know, graduate and and earn their masters in this program is to allow them to take tools out into the world that they'll be readily available to use and help them and those around them.
The idea of this program is not only to help the person that obtains the knowledge, but help them to use that knowledge out in in their workspace or or in everyday life to make sure they're able to help others.
First course is helping people flourish, a Catholic Christian approach to psychology.
If you when when you go down through all the courses, I won't quite go through all of them, but, you know, you'll notice that your relationship and intervention skills during an application.
If you're in a job where you manage people, this is an excellent course because it really helps with, change management and helping folks work through issues.
You know, as a human growth and development across the lifespan at site five 60.
Five sixty five is common psychology problems in their treatment.
You can see the Catholic Christian vision and flourishing, vocations and virtues.
Five seventy five social psychology groups and diversity.
And, the as you can see, again, we cover quite the, gamut as as it relates to psychology.
But, you know, the the best thing I could say about our courses, our course content, and the way we we teach at Divine Mercy University is there's five learning modalities.
And our programs are built so that we teach to all five learning modalities.
So if you're not a strong reader, but you're you're good at you know, when you hear something, you retain it forever, You have that option pretty much through the whole program.
If you're somebody that needs a couple different ways to look at at the content, you need to hear it, you need to read it, you need to discuss it with others.
All of these things are out there.
And, you know, one of the the successes of Divine Mercy University is teaching relatively intense coursework in a way that allows people to learn it pretty quickly and not only learn it, but absorb it.
And and probably the best part I can tell you about taking each one of these courses is as you're going through the the course itself and finish a course, you have tools you can readily apply to your life and your your work situations right then.
So it's not something you're gonna wait till you graduate and you're gonna put it all together.
This is something that you can use as you go through the program.
Next slide, please.
Benefits of a master's in psychology program, you analyze the major concepts, theories, and methodology in psychology.
You synthesize findings of research to develop relevant interventions, direct services in a variety of workplace settings.
You appraise the impact of diversity factors on the administration of teams and delivery of services to various populations.
Evaluate critical critically one's own biases, assumptions, attitudes, etcetera, and their effect on decision making, planning, interpersonal communication, and working in teams.
You've ever if you've ever experienced a situation where you've been in in a discussion with a person or a group, you find yourself at odds a little bit with that group and you're not quite sure why, some of the answers may be what you learned through our coursework.
It'll help you understand your own self as well as those around you and give you better, you know, skill sets to to to work through those, especially when it comes to challenging situations much like we're in today.
There's a lot of views out there, a lot of things going on from politics to religion to COVID nineteen or stresses.
There's a lot of things going on that, you know, these skill sets helps, you know, the user in a in a big way, but it also helps them, again, as I said earlier, in helping others.
Next slide, please.
You also learn to apply diversity principles of leadership activities informed by the Catholic Christian vision of the human person.
You evaluate the attitudes, skill sets, and strategies for being a transformational leader in a service delivery setting.
You understand the effects of crisis, disasters, and other trauma causing events.
You develop care and or education plans.
Next slide, please.
One of the benefits of of Divine Mercy University and this program in particular is, again, it's a 100% online, so it allows you to work anytime, anywhere as long as you have the Internet and computer to work for.
You have flexible times to work on assignments, classroom group interaction, and one on one time with your professors.
Next slide, please.
In the online classroom, you have the same atmosphere as full student participation in teachers.
You have fast turn fast turnaround with any of your professors and peers.
Five century learning points, which I I mentioned earlier, videos, books, classroom, tutorials, and audiobooks.
Easy to use online platform called Canvas and twenty four seven open access, meaning you can study anytime, anywhere.
We also have, a lot of support, behind this.
We have our IT.
We have, what we call student services, and then, we have advisors.
And they're all here to make sure that, one, you can access your courses.
Two, you can get into your courses, work through your courses, post, do a number of other things that you would do, to work through the program.
Next slide, please.
Areas the MSP program impacts.
Management at all levels in all venues, marketing and market research, human resources and HR analysis, self evaluations, employee training, project research and management, program effectiveness projects.
Next slide.
I'm not gonna go through all the job possibilities, but these are just some of the job possibilities if you're actually intending to go out and look for a job or wanna move over from whatever your current location is.
There's jobs low in local, state, and federal government.
Everything from vocational rehab provider, parole officers, social service managers, market community colleges and universities, family service organizations, family services worker, child protection worker, nonprofit agencies, research assistant, organizational consultant.
Next slide, please.
Awesome.
Of course, work in parishes and diocese, office of marriage and family, youth minister youth ministry, religious, you know, focused missionaries, priests, consecrated, and jobs in business sales and marketing, you know, HR trainers, coordinators.
I mean, there's a ton of different areas that that we know that folks turn around and use these skill sets in.
Next, slide, please.
If you're in ministry or you're looking to go into ministry, leaders for churches and other houses of worship, individuals directing or leading retreats or personal spiritual renewal ministries, youth pastors and RCIA directors, directors of workers at crisis pregnancy centers or pro life ministries.
This program, the MSP program, we have a lot of religious and consecrated that have gone through the program.
On average, it's probably, more than 50% of our our student body at any given time.
Next slide, please.
These are, some of our professors in the program.
Doctor Julia Clousey, who's down in the bottom left, is the MSP program director.
And, you know, the other folks that are in here, they, most of them have been instructing for years and years and years.
As you can see by the, PhDs or PsyDs, they they're all credentialed and, can teach at the master's level and have been doing so for a a very long time in many cases, at DMU and some in other areas.
Doctor Suzanne Holman was a dean recently and, is still teaching now.
She's no longer the dean, but she's also working between Divine Mercy University and Georgetown.
Next slide, please.
Distinction between licensed and not licensed helping professionals.
I won't go through every one of these, but at the end of the day, again, this does not lead to licensure, which means you can't go out and and hang the shingle.
And these days, you really need your PhD or PsyD in order to really work at a, therapeutic level as a, licensed professional.
And then there's differentiations based on the PhD you're signing.
The MSP degree is not a licensed eligible degree in most jurisdictions.
However, MSP graduates are capable of helping people in many ways and roles.
There are other countries where you can take the same degree, maybe pick up a few more courses and turn around and be a licensed professional in that country.
In The United States, non licensed helping professionals listens a support but do not diagnose mental illness.
It does allow you that especially if you're in a church setting, parish, those kind of things, it does help you understand, hey.
Look.
This is beyond a spiritual need.
They may need mental health services.
So you get you get better at diagnosing needs, if you will, and maybe able to refer somebody out to the right area to get the mental health that they need.
Listening to and assisting struggling persons, non licensed helper must refer if the person shows any signs of being in a danger to to sell for others, facilitate psychoeducational programs, e.
G.
Marriage seminars, parenting seminars, those kind of things.
We work alongside licensed mental health professionals.
And let's go to the next slide real quick.
Some of the areas we overlap in, again, is, you know, whether you're a licensed professional or you have a master's with us, you're always looking to listen empathetically as support.
Know the limits of your scope of helping ability.
Build trust of personal follow through on suggestions and or more support if it's needed.
Excuse me.
Gather data about history and what is going on for the person.
Offer new perspectives on challenging situations and dilemmas, seek input from other professionals when cases seem complex or go outside when you see day to day.
We know that in today's climate, there's a lot of, anxiety, stress, you know, for many folks.
So, you know, there's an old saying, under duress, you know, you bring out all your craziness or weirdness or, you know, anxieties or, you know, whatever it is that that maybe you keep under check normally or can manage through.
Folks that go through this program, you know, a lot of times when you're you're especially when you're done and you've been out in in your field for a while, you tend to see people that are starting to unravel or or experience higher levels of anxiety and stress, and, you know, maybe you're able to step in and offer them some help or guidance.
And then, you know, whether they work with you or they're part of your family or any of those areas, you know, one of the things that we've for recently amongst our our alumni is that many of them are getting asked to help just in general mentoring, support, guidance, and a number of other areas, from a lot of folks that they they never realized before maybe struggling.
So we know the program gives a lot of tools.
And and in today's time, it's a it's a good time to have those tools.
Next slide, please.
A licensed mental health professional also a licensed mental health professional also gathers data to diagnose mental illness as needed.
They do what's called a complete psychological history.
It's called intake.
They formulate a thorough and collaborative intervention plan, and then they refer a seeking consultation in a higher level of care.
And in many cases, whether you're an MSP graduate or a PsyD graduate, determining somebody's need for further assistance is a big thing.
In many cases, you know, the most folks don't go through just a single therapist.
Sometimes they end up with another therapist or a different therapist because once, you know, more, trained and experienced in one area and you may have something that you need to be, talking with somebody else in another area.
And then there's group settings and things like that.
So there's, a lot of these things that that a licensed professional will do that's well above the MSP graduate, but, the initial information's pretty close on how you you take a look at a person.
It's what you do after you talk to them that that really makes a difference.
Next thing.
Next slide.
So if you're interested in joining the program, hopefully, many of you had a chance to go online and look on our website and take a look at some of this information yourself, learn a little bit more about the program.
If you go into the online section, you'll also see we have a catalog in there, and it literally goes course by course.
There's a course description of what you'll learn and and and those kind of things.
Also, these acceptance requirements are online.
But if you're interested after this call, I'll have, Ebony put it in a chat.
We do have a, application website, enroll.divinemercy.edu.
And when you get over there, what you'll find is you must have received a baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited or internationally recognized school.
Must have attained a minimum GPA of 2.5.
A GPA of 2.75 and higher is considered more competitive, especially if you're going for grants and scholarships.
Must full fully complete and submit all admissions documents, must complete financial aid package.
If you're not gonna use financial aid, meaning you're not gonna take loans, you still should and and and can compete for our scholarships.
And we also have what we call a memorandum of understanding.
The Divine Mercy, works with other organizations, the church, parishes, a number of other places.
Right now, we have about 40 in place, some with diocese, some with, ministries, religious organizations.
And what it does is it provides anywhere from 20 to 25%, upwards of 50%, tuition reduction.
So if you're on this call and you're part of a known MOU or you wanna find out information on how to become an MOU participant, please, enter your information in the chat, and we'll get back with you.
But, MOUs are in conjunction also with, any other scholarships and grants that you can compete for.
You must be accepted by the acceptance committee and admissions.
You all need original transcripts.
International students responsible for transcript evaluation.
We do help you with the agencies.
Applicants whose native language is not English must take the test of English as a foreign language or TOEFL or the international English language testing systems within the past two years.
Scores must be at least 100 Internet based version, two fifty based on computer, or 600 paper, based version.
The, IELTS scores, at least seven point o with no individual band scores below six point o.
Test must be sent directly from the testing agencies.
So when you test, you do have that option to ask it to be sent somewhere else, which would be to us and your admissions advisers will be able to help you with that information.
Next slide, please.
Grad school affordable.
You know, depends on your version of affordable.
Some folks think free is affordable.
Some people don't mind paying, you know, full price.
What I'll tell you is, we do have federal aid for those that qualify.
We do have the William d Ford and federal student loan program, including subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans and graduate plus loans.
There is employer tuition reimbursement.
We have a number of students who who, get tuition assistance or grants from their employers.
We are approved for veterans funding.
We do have a number of veterans, and, actually, we have an active duty person who's taking our online course.
And, again, a number of veterans that are in.
And then, again, there's scholarships and grants, and we'll talk to those about those in a little bit.
As you can see in the slide below, again, in the catalog, if you go to the financial aid slash scholarship section, you'll be able to see all of the actual scholarships and grants, and I think we have some at the end.
There is alternative financing.
You can get private funds, of course.
You can fundraise.
You can do a number of other things to help yourself.
There's agencies and organizations that do matching funds, possible grant programs.
So I'll give an example of what that means.
If you, let's say the Knights of Columbus want to provide a thousand dollars towards your your specific education and they provide it as a matching grant, then Divine Mercy University will also match that thousand dollars.
Your thousand turns into 2,000.
And then, of course, there's cash plans where you can set up internally interest free, payment options, that you do over the each term.
And then, you know, you may have other options like family assistance savings, those kind of things.
So there's a a number of ways to fund your education, and our financial aid department spends a great deal of time working with each individual and their specific, situation to find find out and figure or figure out what options make the most sense and, how to help you get started in school.
Next slide, please.
So if you were, again, taking this program for the full twenty eight months, you didn't do the fast track, and you actually did not receive any grants, scholarships, or anything else, and you're paying totally out of pocket.
Your total investment would be $773 per credit for thirty six months.
And as a note, we've closed credit increases this year, and for a variety of reasons, much of a deal with the pandemic.
But, we also wanted to make sure that people had an opportunity to, come into the school at a little bit lower rate, than it would have been based on an increase.
So based on that, you'd pay $27,828.
There is a $50 tech fee per course, which is $600.
There's a $55 application fee, and the total would be $28,483.
Now you can get an application fee waiver, and, we'll have, Ebony also post that in the chat.
This is only an estimate of actual cost due to the inclusion of indirect expenses, which vary from person to person.
Also note that there is, again, typically a two 3% tuition increase per credit in every fall, which we didn't do this time, and we're debating next year as well.
So we're trying to make sure, again, folks, you know, can go to school, especially during the times we're in right now.
Next slide, please.
So how is our online master's in psychology different from other degrees?
We use what's called distributed learning, which is asynchronous asynchronous.
Not sleep.
Gonna get it out today.
Deliver courses, maximize flexibility, and minimize inconvenience, changing your head, heart, and life for the better.
Experienced professionals, our core faculty are experienced working professionals who understand what you need to learn so as to live out your vocation as transformational leader in your field.
I've been in education.
I'm a little older than some folks, but I've been in education probably close to twenty eight, twenty nine years in, all of it at the collegiate level.
And I've seen many faculties and and deans and and campus presidents.
And, of course, I'm biased or could be accused of bias, but I would say that our faculty at Divine Mercy University across all three programs is probably some of the strongest faculty, not only as individuals, but as groups that I've seen.
Each school, each program has a lot of experienced and and, in some cases, world renowned faculty members.
And, you know, they many have been here since the beginning.
So, you know, we're very proud of our faculty.
And the biggest reason I think that they really are viewed as as well as they are is because, again, they take complex subject matter and boil it down in a way that helps each and every student learn, and then they spend the time with each and every student to make sure that they not only understand it, but can absorb it and then turn around and use it in the setting that's appropriate.
The other re the other thing is what you learn is directly related to what you will use in your chosen field.
I mentioned earlier, this is one of those times where as you learn it, you can readily apply it same day in some cases.
So this is not something you gotta wait and tie up at the end and then you can start applying it.
It's learn as you go and and use as you go.
It's informed and infused by DMUs unique Catholic Christian meta model of the human person.
We recently published a book, that's out now for sale, and, I believe we have information online about that's about the, Catholic Christian meta model.
And, you know, I recommend anybody, pick the book up and, you know, read through it.
It's a it's a great read.
It's great if you're in leadership, especially no matter where you're in leadership at.
And if you're helping other folks, it's really a a really good book to help you learn how to help others as well.
Next slide, please.
Alright.
Is the master's in psychology the right path for you?
Will the completion of this program help you to attain your goals?
That's something you're gonna have to answer yourself a little bit.
But when you're evaluating any program and you're looking at your your goals, try to make sure that you don't look at at the goals as being something either short term or limited.
Trying to figure out what's the expanse of what you can do in your in your role or future role and how any program would help you in those, roles.
It's, it's a big question, and, you know, it's a it's an individual answer, if you will.
So each one you have to think about that a little bit.
Is the program scheduling and requirements for success and completion workable with your schedule?
So as mentioned earlier, this is an asynchronous program.
And what that means is a portion of time, you are doing not just for homework, but, you know, studying and other things that that happen.
There's online learning modules that do not require an instructor or interaction with your peers.
Conversely, there is live classes.
There's peer to peer interaction, peer to instructor interaction.
There's posting.
There's a number of things that happen.
Some of this is scheduled, not much, and then the rest is based on your schedule.
And some of that you'll figure out as you look at the curriculum and and it especially out of the catalog, it'll tell you some of that.
Do the financial options discussed along with support from our financial aid department make the program seem affordable?
Rarely have I seen any instance, and I'm responsible for financial aid as well, have I seen any situation where folks just can't go at all because of cost?
There are some, but by and large, we try hard to work with everybody to make sure they have an opportunity to attend school, try to maximize any kind of scholarship or grant opportunities.
We encourage, MOUs, matching funding.
There's a number of things that that really can help you out whether you're religious or or, you know, somebody sitting on a, you know, million dollar fund from, you know, your savings or something.
Most of the time, we try, again, very hard to find some way to help out if needed.
Ultimately, can you commit to this successful completion of the program if accepted?
One of the things that we take seriously at Divine Mercy University is trying to put the right folks in the school.
We don't necessarily have a specific model, if you will.
If anything, it's we wanna make sure you understand what it takes to to attend school, that you have the commitment to attend school, that you work through any obstacles that would keep you from attending school, and that you understand that once you enter into this commitment, it's not just a commitment you're making yourself.
It's commitment we're making with you.
So we do try to gauge that during the interview process and application process.
And, we also make sure that while you're a student going through the program, if you have struggles, you have folks that will help you.
If we notice you're having struggles, we will actually approach you and talk to you a little about it to make sure that, you know, you can work through those and or get any help that you need.
Next slide, please.
Acceptance in starting your program.
There's a nine step application process that you can start as soon as you're done with the call.
Don't let the nine steps make you crazy.
It's pretty simple stuff.
You fill out the application form.
You have a couple of other documents such as transcripts and, financial aid and a few other areas that you have to work in.
We'll you will talk with our financial aid, right after you submit submit your application because they'll start immediately working with you from that angle to make sure that you understand how to fund your education.
Upon submission of all five five required documents, we formally present your file to the admissions acceptance committee for review.
So there's five documents that go to the committee, and there's other documents that go to other areas.
Upon approval, a DMU letter of acceptance will be sent to you.
For those of you that need that for your employer, we do make sure that it's all on letterhead and and everything's appropriate for it to be handed over to your employer.
Then once you're accepted, there's an online orientation.
It's it's launched at a certain point before the term begins.
Usually, it's been thirty days, but we're actually gonna open it up shortly, to allow people to start doing it now because the holiday this time this term always goes through the holidays.
So we wanna make sure folks have ample time to get orientation done and, you know, also give them an opportunity to look at areas that they may want to spend some outside time, visiting or researching to make sure that when they start the program, they're they're ready to go.
And then, January 6, I believe, is our next term, and that's term one and begin and that's when it begins.
Alright.
Next slide, please.
I mentioned earlier, we have different types of scholarships, and they range in all kinds of different numbers.
And they're relevant to, different parts of not only our demographic, but what we feel out in The US where people can use this degree quite well and, may need a little help.
There's a Newman scholarship, which is up to $5,000.
There's a faith and hope scholarship.
That's really, you know, consecrated priests, folks like that.
There's a patriot scholarship, which is really, you know, military, related.
There's international student grant for those that are international, and taking it.
And we have, I think, currently, students from at least, I think, 16 different countries right now in the school.
We've had as many as 32 countries in attendance at any given time.
We have a diversity scholarship, grant made scholarships.
You can go down a little bit more.
I can't see the bottom down there.
Sorry.
Okay.
So that gives you again in our on our website, you can go in the financial aid.
It'll list all the scholarships.
Next slide, please.
So before we get to any other questions, I mentioned earlier another way to fund your education is through, grant needs not grant needs.
I'm sorry.
Matching scholarships and or memorandum of understanding, which is an MOU.
And a MOU is an agreement between Divine Mercy University and, for instance, we have one with the Diocese of Austin.
So any any, actual parish member, diocesan employee, anybody associated with the that diocese, can get anywhere from 25 to 50% off based on that MOU and where they're at as a as a priest or religious.
You could get you get between 3550% off.
Lay people get as as much as 25 to 30% off as well.
So, an MOU is really a good way to get a good tuition reduction, and it's in conjunction with any other scholarships you can compete for.
Last year, we awarded over $1,600,000 in scholarships and grants.
And, you know, for a small university, that's a fairly large number.
But as I mentioned earlier, it's one of the things that we believe is part of our mission in helping, you know, anybody that wants to come to Divine Mercy University study, commit to the education that they're they're trying to obtain, and then going out in the world and using that education to help others.
So, again, that's part of our mission to help fund as much of the of your education as we can help with.
If you have any other questions, outside of this conversation, you can send an email to admissions.MSP@divinemercy.edu.
You can reach an an MSP representative at 540.
I I take that back.
That number is no longer good.
You'd have to read the reach the main admissions office at (703) 416-1441, and you can hit extension 120 or leave a message in the general mailbox.
And then we do have, of course, the, fax number.
And you can also go on divinemercy.edu.
I believe there's a chat function on there as well.
As I mentioned earlier, if you wanna apply, I believe Ebony's already put it in a chat, but you can go to enroll.divinemercy.edu, and you can see the rest of the the info there.
So before we go too much further, or end the session, I'd like to come back and check and see what kind of questions we have.
Does anybody have any questions at this point?
Alright.
And everyone, if you wanna put in the q and a section or the chat box, you can write them there, and we will respond.
Give you all about, thirty seconds to submit those.
There is a question from reverend Andrew, and, technically, Ebony's correct in that, are the credits from the PsyD program and the MS in PsyD transferable to the PsyD program?
I'm sorry.
Typically, the answer is no, but you can test out of some of the classes.
And more often than not, that means you either audit a course or you try to, test out of that course.
And there are some folks that have tested out, so you actually can test out of some of them.
What other questions do we have?
Alright.
Seems that we've answered a lot of the questions so far.
Just give a few more moments, and we thank you all for tuning in today.
And I always like to advise if you have a sheet of paper or even if you wanna screenshot this page so you can have the main admission phone number and the application link and the email address that you can use, whenever is most convenient for you.
So there's a question in here.
What is the requirement for international students?
We covered that earlier.
One of them is that you need to take the TOEFL, and then you need to have any international transcripts evaluated through an agency that we can supply to you.
There's a couple of them that we use.
And, the rest of it, we would probably go through talking with your admissions adviser.
I'm not sure if it's Trezor, but, the scores, everything's online.
Again, we went through it earlier, but you'd have to check online.
I apologize.
Or you can talk to your admissions adviser, and they can help you with the total scores.
There's a couple different tests you can take.
Depending on the country as well, some transcripts, will qualify you, some won't.
So it's it's one of the reasons we send it to an independent agency to do the, transcript evaluation.
And, basically, the transcript has to be, one that equals out to a bachelor's degree in The United States.
Alright.
Any other questions?
Let's take a double look.
Doesn't seem to be.
So, we'd like to thank you all.
Thank you, Tom, for this presentation, and thank you everyone for, attending today's webinar.
And, again, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us, usually during business hours, but there is some time that they may respond off hours.
And we will also send a follow-up email with the going into this presentation.
I saw that a few people jumped in just a little bit, late, so you'll be able to see the recording as well.
And I I would I would like to mention this one thing, if it's okay.
Again, this is about the middle of October, and we have the holidays coming up, and our start is at the beginning of January.
So if you're highly interested in making an application, I would ask you guys to, you know, make your decisions quickly, get in touch with the admissions office quickly, and then, move forward so that you can get your application in before the rush of the holidays and and all that happens with that.
And as Ebony said, thank you all for attending, and thank you for your patience and time during the con our conversation.
Have a wonderful day.