Why OMBA? Program Webinar

Welcome everyone to our Why AMBA program overview webinar. We are going to get started. My name is Nelson Reyes. I'm one of the admissions specialists who will be kicking off this webinar today. Joining us is Erin Butt, who's the Associate Director of Online MBA Admissions. And so before we go ahead and get started, we want to just talk about a few things so that way you kind of know what to do during the event. If you have any questions that come up during this event, we ask that you can go ahead and use the chat function. And so as your questions are being asked, what will happen is the first part of the webinar, Erin is going to be answering some of those questions within the chat. And if your question doesn't get answered immediately, it just means that we're going to hold off until the end to answer those questions live. So please, if you do have any questions during this event, we ask that you go ahead and ask your questions. Erin and I will be splitting answering as the webinar goes on. But with that being said, let's go ahead and get started into Why AMBA program overview.

So first, let's go over the agenda of what you can expect over the next hour. First, we're going to go, we're going to talk about why Questrom, why AMBA, what really sets this university and, or I guess this college within BU apart from other colleges, and why specifically the online MBA program. We'll talk about some things like the class profile and program benefits at a glance. Next, we'll move into what you're going to learn while actually doing the online MBA program. You know, you're going to be learning about business and how it's conducted in everyday life. You'll learn about the curriculum breakdown, specifically in why and how it has been designed. You'll learn about this curriculum and how it's been designed in this innovative and integrated format. And also you'll learn about the program delivery. In the second part of this webinar, you'll learn about what resources will be available to you as a student in the online MBA program. Although it is a fully virtual program, it is incredibly flexible and there's high quality. We don't sacrifice on what we're providing you. You'll learn about the student support system, which is a four-part system. You'll learn about building a strong network, and also the community that takes place here in the online MBA program. And then to wrap up everything, we'll talk about the application process, how to apply, tips and instructions to, you know, to a streamlined application with application deadlines and all those good facts.

First things first, let's talk about why AMBA. Why the Questrom MBA? Or why the Questrom School of Business specifically? You know, here, we truly believe in the transformative power of business to impact society. The mission that we have here, the have, is a very focused on those building up professionals to be business leaders who are going to create value for the world. You know, we have designed this program, or at least the focus around what Questrom has and the online MBA is, you know, to develop you into leaders, to the leaders of tomorrow. The community that we have developed over the years is incredibly diverse. The curriculum is innovative, and it's focused on real-world applications. We have a very dedicated faculty and staff who are here to support you in, you know, helping you grow into future leaders. And so I want to quickly read the Questrom mission here as you see it. We prepare innovative and ethical leaders who understand the impact of business on society and create value for the world. Our students comprehend organizational systems, the vital role of leadership, and the forces transforming the global economy. So here in the online MBA program, you're going to be learning about how to be innovative and ethical leaders. What you're learning here is not only going to transform you as a person, but also as a professional, and will help you in your continued growth in your professional career.

I'd like to then go into a little bit deeper about kind of like part of our mission in here is ethical leadership is really at the core of our conduct. At Questrom, we not only teach ethical leadership, but we integrate it in every part of what we do in our conduct. You'll learn, you know, not only in the classroom, like the hard skills of being a leader, but the soft skills and, you know, the commitment to value-based leadership. We truly believe that both technical skills and soft skills are important for you in becoming that leader that you are aspiring to be. We believe here at Questrom that transformative leadership requires the highest form of responsibility, and Questrom MBAs are trained to aspire to this. Like I said a little bit earlier, the support system that you have in the classroom, your faculty, your staff, but also your peers, all of us are here with the similar goal in helping you to become a stronger leader, a stronger professional, at the end of the day, a stronger person.

I'd like to shift gears a little bit now to talk about the program benefits. And so, this online MBA program, that stands out from, you know, many of the options that we have in the market. It's not like our cut and paste program. We'll talk about the curriculum further down in the webinar. But first, I'd like to address that our online MBA program is housed within a globally recognized university, which is Boston University. This online MBA program is an AACSB accredited program. Right now, we are priced at $25,000 USD. The asterisk, which is that this program, this tuition is subject to change, but right now it is valued priced at $25,000 USD.

This program is part-time. It is 100% fully online and can be completed in as little as two years, but you have up to six years to complete. And we'll talk a little bit more further down about the curriculum and like the modules that you'll be taking. This innovative curriculum is platform in-house, meaning what we offer isn't by a third-party platform or program or company that is delivering this program. Actually, we have our own dedicated team right across the street, across Kenmore, who dedicated individuals who bring this program to you live and also, you know, asynchronously. We have a dedicated tech team, you know, who are in behind the scenes doing everything from the Zoom, you know, delivering, recording, posting everything. We have a dedicated team who is here delivering this program to you. Additionally, something that I think is incredibly powerful and also addressing the fact that we don't sacrifice on the quality of what we're providing is the same faculty that teach on our residential programs are the same faculty that teach in the online MBA programs. So you're getting that same quality education. You're getting that same quality teaching from the same expert faculty who teach on campus.

Additionally, the last thing I'd like to address here is that you'll be using a number of different tech platforms that will be, you'll basically be assessed through capstone projects, essays, quizzes, discussion boards, participation, and whatnot. All of these platforms, these tools are going to be accessible to you while you're in the program. Additionally, I'd like to say something about some questions that students typically have about these assessments is like the weight of, you know, what is going to be counted more as the capstone? Is it the exams? Are they proctored? It's really usually up to the discretion of the professors who are bringing this, the course to you, I guess, like the modules, but there sometimes they could be a little weighted differently. Capstone might have a little heavier weight than, you know, discussion boards or participation, but all of it at the end of the day, right, is the weight of what you're, I guess, like trying to provide in your delivery, right? Like you're submitting your assignments or whatnot. All of it at the end of the day is going to be assessed right through our platform, professors, the weighted averages at the end of the day. I would, as you're basically doing and submitting your assignments, right, keep in mind that you're working with other people, but you're trying to learn something at the end of the day. If you do have questions specific to how assignments are weighted, you can reach out to the OMBA at BU.edu and we'd be happy to provide kind of like a mock syllabus almost of what you could potentially expect.

So now I'd like to shift gears a little bit to talk about the Online Class profile and who this program is typically designed for. Something I'd like to note off the bat are the percentages. And at the bottom, you'll see like the average, you know, age, average work experience, average undergraduate GPA. These are averages. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you don't meet this, like this minimum or whatever the average is that you're not eligible to apply. You are certainly eligible to apply. These are just simply statistics that we have gathered over the past cycles. So right now you can see as of June 2026, our fall 2025 statistics and our spring 2026 statistics, the number of students who are enrolled in our programs fall between 650 and 620 students. More recently, 617 for spring 2026. Excuse me. The percentage of male students that we have in the program around 61, 63%, where the percentage of female students is about 36 to 39%. The percentage of domestic students is around 80%, where the percentage of international students is somewhere between 17 and 19%. And then the percentage of US underrepresented students of color is 18% at fall 2025 and then 19% at spring 2026. The average age right now is at 38 years. The average years of work experience has been steady around 12 years with the average undergraduate GPA at around 3.3. Like I stated before, the averages that you see here are not minimums that you need to meet in order to be eligible to apply. We actually say on our website, we've posted this as well. We have seen students who have been successful in the program come in with somewhere around six or seven years of work experience on the lower end. There tends to be a correlation of years or number of years of work experience and the quality of work experience. Typically, the more years that you have, the higher quality that you have in this as you're coming into the program. The reason why the program has been designed this way is because this program is designed for mid-career professionals. And so as we move further into the webinar, we'll talk a little bit about what that is and why that has been designed this way. But essentially, right, this program is designed for the student who is looking to elevate themselves in their professional career. And so if you're coming in with maybe you're under that six-year mark, five-year mark, keep in mind, right, you're not ineligible to apply. You're most certainly eligible. Just keep in mind that you're competing against a certain demographic of students who are looking to elevate themselves in their next position in leadership, whatever industry that they're coming into. And this is actually a perfect segue to go into the next section, which is talking about this community and kind of what we, how we have developed the online MBA. And so here we are committed to fostering a sense of community and belonging for every student. You can see here, right, the wheel chart of the different industries that are represented in the AMBA community. You can see the number of countries, the number of states, industries that all basically make one online MBA program. We believe here at Questrom that, or the online MBA, that innovation thrives when people feel a strong sense of belonging and community. We encourage you to find a community here in AMBA and value the unique ideas and perspectives each student brings to that program. We believe, right, the more diversity, the better. You're learning from different professionals. You're learning from different cultures and industries. All of these different unique perspectives help not only you as a student learn in the program, but also the practices and the lessons that you'll learn, how you're going to be able to translate them in what you do as a professional. You'd be surprised at what you can learn from someone who comes from a different industry and the practices that they have in a professional sense and how that may open up your mind and how you do something as a professional within your industry or your sector. But we truly believe that community, the community that we have here, the diversity that we have, the diversity of thought, the diversity of perspectives all really enrich the classroom experience and allow you, the student, to examine critical issues through a number of different lenses.

So I'd like to move on now to talk a little bit about that holistic student support that I kind of mentioned earlier. So it's broken down into four pieces. You have the admissions team, student success team, learning facilitators, and the teaching team. This entire support system is from start to basically once you're done in the program and once you graduate. At the first part of it, you have the admissions team. That's someone like myself or Aaron. We have other admissions specialists, Addison. We are here dedicating our time to support you through from when you submit your application up until when basically either you're admitted or you move through the application process. But once you submit your application, you will be assigned a dedicated admissions specialist, whether it's myself or Aaron or Addison, who will be supporting you through any questions that you have, providing you guidance or any insight that you have.

Secondly, I'd like to talk about the student success team. So this is the second support system that you get moved through after, say you are admitted and you choose to enroll and you matriculate through the program to start the program, you then get moved to a new team, which is called the student success team. So this is basically a team of students, or a team, sorry, who support you through the actual program. So they're helping you with any conflict resolution. Similarly, like when you get assigned your admission specialist, you'll be getting assigned your student success specialist. And so they'll be supporting you throughout the duration of the program. In the actual courses that you'll be doing, you'll have a dedicated team of learning facilitators and a dedicated teaching team. The learning facilitators are the subject matter experts. They are hired to provide additional academic support throughout the module. So essentially, right, if you have, if you have at any point in time questions about specific, you know, topics or something that you're learning that you're not necessarily grasping, having a hard time grasping the theme or the topic, they're going to be there to support you. They're going to have their dedicated office hours and which, you know, they can help answer any questions, providing me guidance within the actual module. And then lastly, to wrap up that holistic student support is you have your dedicated teaching team. So like I mentioned earlier, where you have the same faculty that are teaching on campus are teaching online, this is your teaching team. So each teaching team will consist of three plus faculty members. And they are basically going to be

you know, delivering the curriculum, whatever it is that you're learning during the live sessions, they'll be actively teaching you during those interactive live sessions.

And this is basically your holistic student support, from admissions team at the start to when you get moved to the student success team, your learning facilitators in the classroom, and then the dedicated faculty who teach on campus will be teaching the same online.

And so I shared a lot of information about the program at glance. Now I'd like to get a little deeper into the actual curriculum. And so we're going to dwell into the models, first going into part one and then into part two. And so something that I didn't know before, which was the actual modular breakdown of this program, how our curriculum basically stands out from other MBA or online MBA programs, is this online MBA program is designed on purpose. This is the way that it's designed is intentional from mod one, two, three, four, five, and six. It's not a cut and paste MBA program that you would find in a residential program that we just wanted to do online. No, this is actually intentionally designed to be this way. We wanted to create modules around themes that we felt drive business. You're going to be studying concepts in the way that you're experiencing it in the real world, rather than studying it in individual courses, like if you were doing, you know, financial accounting or strategic management. This program is designed where you take one module at a time. Essentially, you can only take one module per semester. You have as little as two years, or you can take up to six years to complete. So essentially, if you wanted to do one mod per year, you could do so and complete the program within the required timeline. And so we've laid out this curriculum in two parts. The first part, which is laying the foundation, and then the second part, which is integrated decision making. And so I'd like to kick off first by part one in mod one, which is creating value for business and society. And so this module is a super big picture. You're going to basically be examining how corporations are capturing value, the role of being a manager and understanding the role of your business and within society. You'll be applying economic principles. You'll be examining how you frame or those frame your decisions at a managerial level. You'll do some microeconomics, pricing, supply and demand. That's essentially mod one. Moving into mod two, this is a more quant heavy. It's managing performance with data. And so this module focuses on topics like accounting, finance, statistics, operations and financial statements in accounting. Basically, you'll learn how to use data to really drive your decision making. Excuse me. You'll learn how to, you know, collect that data and aggregate it, disaggregate it and basically work with it. You'll apply quantitative aspects of what you do, again, in a level of being a manager. And then wrapping up part one, mod three, which is leading with integrity. And so as you remember right at the beginning, we talked about Questrom's mission and basically our core, which is, you know, ethical leadership is at the cornerstone of what we teach.

This module really centers around organizational behavior, leadership, developing effective management strategies for yourself. You're thinking about the frameworks ethically, from an ethical standpoint, and how to frame your business decisions in that way. You'll do really a lot of self-reflection, and you'll think a lot about your personal leadership and management styles.

When you finish part one, then you basically graduate into part two. Part two of the program, which is integrated decision-making. And so you start part two with mod four, which is assessing and managing risk. So many schools take this, I guess, like this section, risk as elective, but we saw it more as something that, you know, is very important for you to learn. We wanted to look at risk from a variety of different lenses. So you'll be learning about risk from an environmental standpoint, political, regulatory, operational, and financial. You'll think about how you measure, monitor, and mitigate risk within your organization. Mod five is leveraging global opportunities. Basically in this mod, you'll be bringing in elements of business strategy, marketing, operations, and supply chain management. It's really about knowing your markets. It's knowing about your consumers. It's knowing about how to navigate the competition that you have within your specific market. And then lastly, finishing up the mods is mod six, which is fostering an innovative mindset. And so this focuses on innovation. It focuses on organizational behavior, operations, strategy, and entrepreneurship. You will use design thinking to reframe challenges that you face in your job.

You'll learn about generating new ideas, about creating value, and you'll develop a toolkit for seeing an idea through from start to finish. And that is essentially the curriculum, the innovative curriculum that we have designed. Oftentimes, students will have questions of, okay, do we have to take the modules in any order? And the short, long answer of it is yes and no. In order to do, basically the way that it works is you have to do mod one first. Once you've completed mod one, you can do mods two and three in whichever order you see fit, so long as it's offered in this semester that you're enrolling into. Once you've completed mods one, two, and three, you can then do mods four, five, and six in whichever order that you see fit, again, so long as it is offered in the semester that you are enrolling into.

And so I'd like to now talk a little bit more about the, you know, the module details. We'll learn about the weekly learning journey. You'll learn about kind of like the cohort size, pod size, and the specific teaming. And so although this program is online, and you might say, well, one course, one mod, that seems kind of light, it is incredibly rigorous. And we want it to be so. We've designed the modules in a way that keep it not really flexible and manageable, but also, you know, intense. And we want you to be learning. We want you to stay on top of your toes. This program is really fit for the professional. It is flexible that you can continue to work full-time or, you know, take care of your personal responsibilities. If you have children that you're raising, if you have family that you're taking care of, or other personal endeavors that you're pursuing, this program is flexible for you. And so first I'd like to talk about kind of like the cohort size and then the pod. So like before, when we looked over the stats, an entering class can be somewhere of about 600, 600 students. Then it gets broken down into pods, which is about 50 students. And then you will be assigned a team of four to six people. And so this team that you're assigned to is per mod. You're not going to be in the same team for the entire program. You'll actually have different teams throughout each module. And so now the weekly learning journey is, this is what it basically looks like. So phase one is when your content is released, usually at Friday, on Friday at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Basically, you'll have a few days to master what you're being provided and you're going to be taking that time to understand what you're learning. Then in phase two of each week is you'll have your live sessions. And so live sessions are about two hours in the middle of the week, either at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard or 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. you'll basically be going over the content that you learned from the week. You'll be engaging in interactive learning exercises and you'll participate in your smaller breakouts. And then phase three of the learning journey is after your live session, you'll basically be reflecting on what you learned. Maybe if you need to meet with your learning facilitator, you'll meet with them who will be able to help you cement what you've been learning and understand your concepts. And then you'll turn in your deliverables for the week and you'll start the journey over again the following Friday. The program is set up in this way so that way you don't get overwhelmed with everything that you're learning and can reasonably manage the load, right, because it's going to be building up on each other. So that way, by the end of your module, and we'll talk about the capstone projects, you'll be basically delivering your capstone project. And so this program is heavily team-based. Although it is online, you'll be spending a lot of time collaborating with your peers, more specifically within the capstone projects that you'll be completing, the actual learning capstone projects. And so the teaming that is designed, you're going to be paired with different industry professionals. You're going to be paired with people who may come from different time zones. This is intentional. The reason for this is because we've tried to mimic as best the challenges of, you know, having to work with teams in a global sense. And how does a team navigate those challenges and also be able to complete their deliverables? This is the business program. So be ready and expect to be challenged in this way.

There are something I'd like to note too is the weekly commitment. Something that I kind of skipped over, but it's 15 to 20 hours a week of dedicated time. Now this includes everything from what you're doing asynchronously, the live sessions, you connecting with your teams to do, you know, whether it's studying or meeting to talk about a project that you're delivering. 15 to 20 hours seems like a fair amount. Now some students are on the lighter end, some students on the heavier end, but this is essentially the commitment that many students average. Two to four hours a week of teaming, and that's meeting with your team. All live sessions are recorded. So if you ever miss a session or if you ever want to go back and review a session, you have the access to do so. All of your recorded sessions are going to be posted on your student platform in which you can access. And then learning facilitators have office hours that they will post, and that way you can schedule time to meet with them if you need to meet with them.

And so I'd like to move now into the kind of the capstone projects of part of the program. So all, all of the modules have a basically a finish action learning project that you'll deliver. Basically, you're incorporating the concepts that you learn within the modules to real life scenarios. And then at the end of the program, you're going to be walking away with six different deliverables, all of which will help you, right, continue to move up uh in your professional line of work, regardless of the industry that you're coming to. And then lastly, I kind of touched upon this earlier in the webinar, but the technology that you'll have access to. And so the tech platforms that you'll have, Blackboard, Salesforce, Zoom, Feedback Groups, Yellowdig, Pronto, Blackboard is like the student portal, which you'll have access to all of your course materials. You'll have access to your syllabus. You'll have access to see, um, you know, submit your uh your deliverables. You'll have access to see any grades that you receive on like a discussion board or something. And then Feedback Groups, Yellowdig, Pronto, those are more like the discussion boards. Zoom, of course, which will be used to um for you to access your live sessions. All of these platforms will be accessible to use for to you in order for you to be successful in the program. With that being said, I'm going to pass it off to Aaron, who will then take off the second part of this webinar.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Nelson. So now we're just going to chat a little bit about the resources that you have in AMBA. I know we had a question earlier on in the webinar about what career resources look like, what networking looks like, what alumni resources look like in AMBA. And it is definitely a bit different from our residential programs. So we just sort of want to walk you through that. Typically, we'd like to start with what you don't have access to, just so we're very clear and upfront. Online MBA students do not have access to the full suite of career resources offered by Questrom's Feld Center for Career and Alumni Engagement. So this would include things like one on one career coaching, resume editing, mock interviewing, and then, of course, the large scale networking and recruitment events that they put on. The reason for this is, of course, logistically speaking, the vast majority of these services and events take place here on campus. And another reason for that is that our program tends to be geared towards mid-career professionals, many of whom are just sort of using the MBA to move up on the career ladder they're already on. So they don't necessarily need the concierge level of career resources that some of our earlier career programs sort of need and demand. It's part of why the tuition is heavily discounted as well. That being said, we don't leave you completely in the dust. You will have access to things like Handshake, which is an online job board, VMock, which I think is like an online resume editing service, any other resources that are available to BU online students. And then our student success team does put on a number of professional development events and things like that throughout each semester to give students the opportunity to connect with each other and things like that. We're going to talk about networking in the program in just a few minutes, which is a resource, but I'm talking a little bit more specifically about university provided resources here. I did mention this in the chat, but students have access to both online and on-campus library resources. Every single student will be issued a BU student ID. So a physical card, it will be mailed to you in the middle of your first semester. So if you happen to live locally to the Boston campus, if you are ever visiting and you want to check out the libraries, all you need is that student ID to help you get into the building, into those libraries. And then of course, online students, even if you never come to campus while you're in the program, you will still have access to all of the online library resources like academic journals, research publications, things that you may need to complete assignments in the program. You will have access to download BU student software, things like Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe, things like that, which is typically available to students once they matriculate. You'll also have access to the BU gym if you buy a part-time student membership. Most students don't do this, but you are technically welcome to if you live in the area and want to work out at the BU gym. There are select on-campus events that our students can participate in as well. Typically the rule is online MBA students cannot attend population restricted events. So for example, a population restricted event might be something that is just for full-time MBA students or just for residential students. But if it's something that's open to all Questrom students or all BU students, for example, an online MBA student is welcome to attend that event on campus. And then there are a number of online student communities in AMBA, which we'll talk about opportunities for peer-to-peer networking and some global meetups as well.

All right, so now I want to talk a little bit about community in AMBA. You might think being in a large online program that it's a little bit isolating, not much going on, but that could not be further from the truth with AMBA. This is probably the most engaged student community I've ever worked with. In this program, your network really does mean everything, and there are so many ways to connect with your fellow students. All of these pictures you see here are from actual AMBA events. Some of them are graduation pictures. Some of them are global meetups. Some of them are here on campus at an open house. So lots of opportunities to do online networking, of course, through things like virtual speed networking, through Insights at Questrum, virtual coffee chats and happy hours, all these sorts of things. And then structurally, we also have what are called affinity groups in AMBA. They're just sort of like any typical club or organization you would find at a university, but they are online and specific only to AMBA students. They tend to be split out by industry, by identity, and by geography. So you can see here on the bottom right, this is by no means an exhaustive list of our affinity groups. I think we have over $50 and counting, and these are all student-run and student-led. So you can see, of course, our New England regional group is quite active. We have life sciences. We have nonprofit and government workers. We have women in AMBA, parents in AMBA. So there's lots of different communities that you can connect with based on your background and your experiences, especially those geographic groups. We have them for pretty much any major metro area here in the states and even a couple groups internationally that do get together. So if you're interested in in-person meetups, whether for professional development or networking events or just for like a fun dinner, there are opportunities to sort of get involved with that as well. And with these groups, right, like you get out of it what you and other students are putting into it, right? They're all student driven. So we definitely encourage people to join. Don't feel like you have to join any if you don't want. Don't feel like you have to join a ton. You know, I think just joining a few here and there is a great way to meet your fellow classmates outside of those that are in your mods and to expand your network globally.

All right, and speaking of expanding your network globally, by graduating from the online MBA program, you also become an alumni in more than one way. You, of course, become an online MBA alum. You can find our alums in over 75 different countries across the world, which is pretty impressive given that our program is only about six years old. Um, all the alums can be found in almost all 50 states. And then going more macro level, you do also become part of the Questrom alumni community, which has over 54,000 alums and counting. Part of my job actually is to work with our director of alumni engagement here to ensure that all MBa students are involved in all of the Questrom alumni initiatives, that they have opportunities to um sort of lead programming to receive all of our Questrom updates and newsletters and things like that because although the online MBA community does not engage with the Career Center here during their time in the program, you are all eventually, you know, um, MBA students become Questrom alums, and we want to make sure that they recognize that status, benefit from that status, and can engage with the Questrom community to the fullest extent. And then, of course, most macro level, you become a Boston University alum. You have access to the entire Boston University alumni network, um, access to, I believe, pretty much every BU alumni benefit that there is unless again there was something that was population restricted, but I don't believe there is anything. So you become a part of all of these communities, you grow your network, um, and really, you know, I think surprisingly, AMBA has the tightest knit network out of all of these communities. Again, I have never seen such an engaged population of students who want to meet each other, who want to take opportunities to meet up in person, to give back to the program. It's a really, really special community of learners, and so I encourage you to get engaged if you apply and are admitted and join the program to meet your fellow classmates, um, you know, get to know them just outside of the academic part of the program.

To take our word for all of this about how great AMBA is, we have some very early adopters here of the AMBA program who provided some feedback and testimonials. So you can see Carter Satterfield, who was in our second cohort. He never thought that he would grow as much as he did in his two years in AMBA. Cheryl Hercules, AMBA 1, once she started being in the AMBA program, she was working with higher level individuals on larger projects, was managing a larger team, is really, really immediate with our program, being able to apply what you learn the very next day really cannot be understated in terms of importance and impact. And then Maggie Kramer, another one of our very first AMBA students. She said she knew she'd be able to use the material at work immediately, get the same level of instructional quality from our BU and Western faculty members, and remain connected to BU even as an online student. And again, you don't have to just take these verbal testimonials. We have also surveyed our graduates, and 79% of them said that the AMBA degree helped them secure either a new job, promotion, or pay increase, whether it was while in the program or after graduating. So that impact is real. That impact is felt not just in terms of your personal growth and growing your network, but also in terms of the actual outcomes of the program.

All right, and then what I always encourage prospective students to do at this stage, if you've not yet had the chance to, is to connect with our ambassadors. These are current students and alumni of the online MBA program. They are not paid. This is entirely volunteer-based. These are people who are proud members of the online MBA community who want to connect with prospective students like you to share their experience and answer your questions. So there's a lot of questions we get as staff, right, like Nelson and myself, about, you know, what are the assignments like and really how rigorous is the curriculum from week to week? And we can always do our best to answer those questions, but we think it's most beneficial to hear it straight from the horse's mouth from these students. So Nelson, if you have a moment and can drop the link in the chat for the ambassador directory, that's great. If not, no worries. I can try to grab it later in the presentation. He's got it there. So do your research. What's nice is that on this directory, you can filter down by geography, by industry, and by student status. So if you want to look for an alumni who lives in your state that works in your industry, chances are you will hopefully be able to find someone. It's a very broad directory. And all you have to do is fill out a contact request form to be matched with these ambassadors and then set up a time to chat with them. I think it's great just to ease any questions you may have about the student experience, to again, sort of quote unquote, do your market research on the program and hear it from those who know it best.

All right, switching gears a bit to talk about application requirements. We've got about 15 or so minutes left. I want to leave a little time at the end for some questions. Just want to chat through these requirements here. So first, you do need to fill out the application form. That just involves going to our website, clicking the apply button at the top of the online MBA page, and starting an application in our system. From there, there are four required documents that everyone needs to submit in order to be considered for the program. The first being your resume or CV, which is fine. Typically, we're just looking for one to two pages for most people, with the exception of maybe someone who has a doctoral level degree and has a number of publications they would like to note. Unless you're someone in that situation, usually one to two pages will suffice. I know many of you are also mid-career and do have extensive work experience, so if it goes on to like a third page or whatever, that's totally fine. We don't have a maximum number of allowed pages or anything like that. It just does make our job a little easier as we are sort of reviewing the resume and fishing through your experience. So the resume CV is the first required component. Next is one professional letter of recommendation, though you can submit up to two. We do not give preference to applicants who submit two versus one letter. In fact, it's really only helpful if your recommenders can provide different perspectives on your candidacy. Otherwise, it's sort of just like reading the same thing twice. So one professional letter of recommendation will suffice. It can be from a current supervisor. It can be from a former supervisor, a current or former colleague, a client if you're in a client-based line of work. Just anyone who can speak to your professional growth, success, and ability to succeed in a program like this. Third thing is university-level transcripts. So transcripts, ideally from anywhere where you earned 12 or more credits, but mainly especially your bachelor's degree transcript. One thing I want to note is that if you do not have a bachelor's degree and or if you cannot prove that you earned that bachelor's degree by submitting an official transcript at the end of the admissions process, you unfortunately will not be able to start the program. This is a very strict requirement that we unfortunately do have to uphold. It's a university policy. So just to clarify, for the application submission at the beginning of the process, you can submit unofficial copies. That is perfectly fine if you have a scan, a download from a student portal, a picture. Anything like that is absolutely fine for when you submit the application. However, if you are admitted and choose to enroll with us, you will need to be able to procure official copies of those documents, whether through your university directly, through a partner like Parchment or National Student Clearinghouse, or WES, World Education Services. Whether it's a certified translation if it's not in English, there has to be an official copy of your bachelor's degree transcript available for us to verify your documents. Otherwise, you will not be able to start the program. We just like to be very clear about that up front. But again, for application submission, unofficial is fine. We'll only ask you for those official transcripts if you are admitted and choose to enroll with us. Hopefully that is clear enough. The last required component of the application is a written essay. It's just about 750 words or so, nothing too extensive. And that prompt is available both on our website and in the application portal itself. There is a fifth optional but recommended component of the application called the Cura Talent Assessment. This is sort of just like a video style. It's not an interview because we don't interview for the program, but you'll be prompted with three randomized questions about Questrum and the online MBA, other things like online learning, your personal and professional experiences. And it's essentially just meant to assess how you sort of think on your feet, give you a chance to sort of have your paper components of the application be supplemented with a video if you choose to do so. I'd say about 60 to 70% of our applicants submit the Cura Talent, but we have plenty of people who don't and are still admitted to the program. So don't worry too much if you decide not to complete it. Again, it's three one-minute-long video responses. You will have the ability to practice beforehand, and you will get 30 seconds beforehand to jot down some quick notes before giving your response. We do ask if you complete this component that you please don't use any sort of generative AI. You know, we want to hear your genuine and authentic responses. So if it means jotting down a quick note or two about things you want to remember to say, that's perfectly fine. But we definitely don't want applicants just reading straight off of something that a generative AI tool has spit out for you just from copying and pasting the question. That sort of defeats the purpose of the assessment. So please, please, please just use your own authentic voice and brain and notes when completing the assessment if you choose to do so. Please note too, if you decide to complete the Cura Talent Assessment, it will come to you in an email link after you submit your application. So don't freak out if you're looking for where to start it or submit it in the application. It's not going to come to you until after your full application is submitted. But if you indicate in the app that you want to complete the assessment, you will receive an email inviting you to do so after your app is submitted. GMAT or GRE is truly optional for our program. I'd say only between 1 to 2% of applicants submit it, and it's usually if they already have an existing score on hand. So don't feel like you need to go out and take those exams. We have other ways of assessing quantitative preparedness for our program. So don't feel like you have to take those exams at all. For the language exams, which we accept TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo, you may need to submit an exam if you do not meet our automatic waiver criteria. You can waive out of this requirement automatically two different ways and indicate that in your application. There will be a question that asks you about these waiver criteria, which are either if you did two plus years of full-time schooling in an English-speaking academic environment or where the medium of instruction was solely English. So for many or pretty much all U.S. universities, other countries like the U.K., Ireland, Australia, things like that, where English is definitely the medium of instruction, you know, you would automatically waive out of that language exam requirement. The other possibility is if you have worked at least two years full-time in a company or country where the language spoken is exclusively English or mainly English. So you would automatically waive out of the requirement that way as well. If you don't meet either of these requirements, that's okay. You can still request a case-by-case review of a waiver by emailing our team at omba.bu.edu. And then our team member can sort of review the materials you provide proving English proficiency and let you know if you would be approved for a waiver. I think that's everything with regards to application requirements.

All right, and now I want to give a bit of insight into how we make our application decisions. So first thing I want to note is that applications are looked at holistically. What this means, at least in my opinion, is that there's rarely one part of your application that's going to make or break your chances completely. You know, we are looking at everything from the quality and quantity of your work experience to your academic background to your letters of recommendation to your goals. All of these things kind of together make a picture of an applicant, and all of them matter, right? We weigh them, of course, a little bit differently in the admissions process, but we're looking at everything. You know, we read everything. We discuss everything in the admissions committee, so you are not just your work experience or your academic background or things like that. So the other thing to note is that decisions are partially made based on the competitiveness of the applicant pool. We do not post or publish admissions rates because we do not ever want to give anyone a false expectation of their chances. What I can share is that we have consistently admitted above 50% of students every term that we have been in existence, but from there the acceptance rate can fluctuate pretty drastically. So some cycles are more competitive and some cycles are less competitive. To be transparent, the past few cycles in particular have been extremely competitive. We've had a lot of applicants with really strong and extensive work experience. So you are being evaluated against a set of standards, of course, but you are also being evaluated against the people who are applying at the same time as you. And then we are also looking at sort of this reciprocal exchange of value, which some people might think of as a quote-unquote fit for a program. So we want to make sure that you are going to receive value from this MBA experience based on your prior work, your stated goals. And we also want to make sure that you are going to bring value based on your prior work experience, your academic background, that you're going to be able to contribute in the classroom and in the program. So we're making that assessment in the admissions review process as well.

All right, just really quickly to go over application deadlines. Our round two extended deadline is today, so if some of you are hopping in just to make sure you have everything squared away, that is great. Please just make sure to submit that by tonight at 11:59 p.m., and as long as your application is complete, meaning all documents have been verified as correct, we will be able to issue you a decision by October 1st. If you submit tonight and you are missing a document or it is not correct, we are not necessarily able to guarantee you a decision by October 1st. We will do our best, but it largely depends on the volume of applications that we receive. And then our final round deadline, if you are not ready to submit by tonight, that's perfectly okay. If you just found us today on the internet, totally fine. We do have one more round deadline for the spring or January 2027 entry term, which will be on October 1st. So that still gives you about three weeks or so to get an application together, and we will release those decisions by early November.

All right, just quickly talking about tuition and financial aid information as well. I know Nelson mentioned this earlier on in the presentation, but the online MBA tuition rate for students starting in the 26-27 academic year, which would include spring 27 students, is $25,000 for the entire program. Tuition is charged per semester or per module, so you pay as you go. If you take a semester off, for example, if you take a leave of absence, which is very normal and easy to do, you are not charged for that semester that you take off, right? As long as you are enrolled, you will be charged tuition. If you are not enrolled for a semester, you will not be charged tuition. We do not offer any institutional scholarships for the online MBA, unfortunately, just due to the competitive price point of our program. However, you can browse external scholarships and other loans and funding opportunities on our graduate financial aid website, which Nelson can hopefully link in the chat there for you. We also have a dedicated financial aid team that can help you navigate this information. Nelson, if you want to also drop their email address, that would be great. The best way to reach them is via email as it sort of creates a ticket in our system, and they can more easily track your inquiries and responses and things like that. So feel free, you can reach out to our financial aid team at any time with questions about funding your degree. And then someone did ask about this earlier in the presentation. Yes, eligible students can enroll in semester payment plans to sort of chunk out that semester payment.

All right, the moment you have probably, most of you have all been waiting for. As a thank you for your time and interest in the program, we are happy to provide you with an application access code, which is essentially just your fee waiver, to take the $125 application fee down to zero. In the next couple of days, you should be sent an email to obtain your application fee waiver access code. Also, it's just right here highlighted in yellow, so you don't need to wait for the email, especially for those of you who are looking to submit tonight. Essentially, in the signature tab of the application, where you are going to be asked this question here, have you received an application access code? Please go ahead and select yes, and then this text box will pop up here that says access code, and you are going to input this code highlighted in yellow exactly as you see it. If you want to take a screenshot so you don't forget it, if you want to jot it down, it is QST wave, and it is case sensitive, so just keep that in mind. Again, it is QST wave. I can guarantee you someone on this webinar is going to email me saying they didn't get the code. The code is right here. It's the same as what we're talking about in the webinar. It is QST wave, and that should waive the application fee and take it down to zero. Please do not input any credit card info as we are unable to offer application fee refunds. If you get to a point in the application where you reach a payment page and you can't go back, that is okay. We can still waive the fee for you on the back end of the system, so just reach out to us at omba at bu.edu, and we can help you. We can work with you to ensure that you still don't have to pay that application fee because you all were here today and you attended this event. But again, that application fee waiver code is QST wave case sensitive. The screen is not visible. Me too. It looks like Nelson just typed it there for you, so you can copy and paste that. But that is the application fee waiver code that you can use to waive the fee. And yes, you can still use this code if you're applying to fall 2027. That application is not yet open, but the fee waiver code will remain the same. Good question. Alrighty, lots of good questions here, and we are just about ready to wrap up. In terms of next steps, you don't necessarily need to keep an eye out for the follow-up email for fee waiver information because we just gave it to you. Again, it is QST wave to waive the application fee. Go ahead and follow us on Instagram at buquestromomba if you're on Instagram. We do a lot of student takeovers there. We do features. You can see the types of events that the Student Success Team is putting on each semester. Make sure that you chat with those ambassadors as well, the current students and alumni. If you haven't yet had a chance to, it's a great opportunity to get a different sort of perspective and insight into the program. And last, please make sure to apply. Our spring 27 application is open through October 1st. And then for those of you who are here for fall 27, you are early. We will likely be opening that application either in mid-October or early November. We will do a giant email blast so that you know exactly when it is opened. You all are already in our system because you attended this webinar, so we will email you with your email on file to let you know that. But fall 27 app will open in either mid-October or early November. And then I think we just have a concluding slide here.