Upgrading GPA course recommendations

[sdominik]

Hi all,

I am planning out my fall semester and was thinking about taking 3 or 4 online courses to increase my GPA for applications in December. Do you have any recommendations for online courses that are worth considering particularly in the 3rd year or higher? I heard good things about Athabasca courses but cannot find any specific threads. 

All the best

[NewAtThis]

21 minutes ago, sdominik said:

was thinking about taking 3 or 4 online courses to increase my GPA for applications in December.

Careful with this. If you are hoping this will remove your oldest semester, I believe you would need to take 5 courses. Otherwise, the courses you take get added to your most recent semester and you get a weighted average. They may say that they take your most recent 20 marks but they take a weighted average of 5 courses per semester.

Now for your actual question, take courses that you will enjoy because you will be more likely to dedicate your time to them and, therefore, get a better mark. 

Also,  I found this thread a short while ago:

You might find what you are looking for there.

[sdominik]

This definitely takes me to a question that ORPAS was incapable to answer for me. I am hoping to shift out of my second year completely which should be possible by taking these courses easily as I will have 20 courses in the past but because I went to University of Guelph, my GPA calculation is highly subjective even to ORPAS. When I discussed this with ORPAS they were not very helpful in terms of how this could be calculated. Do you mind if I shoot you a PM? 

 

Certainly looking for courses I will enjoy doing! Thanks for the link, I will take a look! Much appreciated :) 

[NewAtThis]

Yes, you can message me privately and I will try my best to be helpful. 

[sdominik]

On 7/25/2018 at 1:56 PM, NewAtThis said:

Yes, you can message me privately and I will try my best to be helpful. 

Thanks for the willingness to help. After spending some hours on the phone with ORPAS I managed to get the info I needed from them. They were incredibly unwilling to help, not really sure why their GPA calculations are such a mystery. 

I have been trying to confirm course requirements for upgrading GPA with UofT but I am getting inconsistent answers. One person told me via email that the following are merely a recommendation and taking a 1st year or 2nd year course will not have a negative impact : "

Any upgrades completed should be at the senior (3rd or 4th year) level, unless they are prerequisite courses.

Prerequisite courses are permitted to be at the 1st and 2nd year level. We also recommend that applicants take courses in the life sciences/social sciences/humanities, as these subjects are most relevant to the PT program."

However when I called them, another person on the line told me that you are expected to take 3rd or 4th level courses and will be evaluated as a less attractive applicant if 1st or 2nd year courses are taken. Does anyone have any experience with this? 

[NewAtThis]

14 hours ago, sdominik said:

Thanks for the willingness to help. After spending some hours on the phone with ORPAS I managed to get the info I needed from them. They were incredibly unwilling to help, not really sure why their GPA calculations are such a mystery. 

I have been trying to confirm course requirements for upgrading GPA with UofT but I am getting inconsistent answers. One person told me via email that the following are merely a recommendation and taking a 1st year or 2nd year course will not have a negative impact : "

Any upgrades completed should be at the senior (3rd or 4th year) level, unless they are prerequisite courses.

Prerequisite courses are permitted to be at the 1st and 2nd year level. We also recommend that applicants take courses in the life sciences/social sciences/humanities, as these subjects are most relevant to the PT program."

However when I called them, another person on the line told me that you are expected to take 3rd or 4th level courses and will be evaluated as a less attractive applicant if 1st or 2nd year courses are taken. Does anyone have any experience with this? 

Well, I think what UofT means by you being a "less attractive applicant" is because only prereqs should be taken at 100-200 level and since prereqs should be taken before you are even eligible to apply for the first time, there is really no reason to take 100-200 level courses unless you just care about upgrading your GPA and for that reason, they might take your application less seriously.  I will tell you that I did take some 100 and 200 courses in my last 20 courses and I got an invite to the write the CAP test so this really only applies if you are taking courses beyond your 4 years of undergrad.

AFAIK, UofT is the only program that has this stipulation when it comes to upgrading your GPA. Kind of weird but I guess I understand their logic.