OT/PT accepted/waitlist/decline 2020 cycle

[UBCOTfingerscrossed 0]

3 hours ago, OTplease2020 said:

Does anyone know if there is a difference between the OOP waitlist and in province waitlist for UBC? I have been told I am on the OOP waitlist but am unsure if I have any chance of being accepted in the next few months... 

If you don’t mind me asking, what spot on the waitlist are you? I’m #19 on the in province waitlist, and I’m not feeling very hopeful 

[P-T2020 9]

How do you know your spot on the ubc waitlist? Is that just for OT?

[OTHOPEFUL101 7]

1 hour ago, initrams said:

Yay thanks, I will let him know !!! Congrats on your acceptance  

Thank you so much  

[PTOTHOPEFUL 26]

Anyone here apply to UofO?

[PT - U of O 1]

2 hours ago, PTOTHOPEFUL said:

Anyone here apply to UofO?

I did! I don't really know if i want to go to Ottawa though. I did French immersion from grades 5 to 12, but I'm not fluent, so I don't know if I'd remember everything long-term and it just seems like a lot of extra, unnecessary effort. My GPA is awful though, so I thought Ottawa is probably the only shot I have in Canada this year. My prerequisite grades are all pretty good, I think I did reasonably well on the French test (the cost of which was ridiculous), I have no idea about CASPer, and my résumé is really strong though. I've been working at a bakery-café for 5.5 years, I did a few language exchange programs throughout university, I have over 390 hours volunteering in PT/OT, and I've also been working as a PTA at a LTC home for 6 months now and as a nutrition assistant at our main hospital for 5 months so far. I also have quite a bit of other less relevant volunteer/work experience, so I'm just hoping that they weigh the résumé highly! 

[PTOTHOPEFUL 26]

1 hour ago, PT - U of O said:

I did! I don't really know if i want to go to Ottawa though. I did French immersion from grades 5 to 12, but I'm not fluent, so I don't know if I'd remember everything long-term and it just seems like a lot of extra, unnecessary effort. My GPA is awful though, so I thought Ottawa is probably the only shot I have in Canada this year. My prerequisite grades are all pretty good, I think I did reasonably well on the French test (the cost of which was ridiculous), I have no idea about CASPer, and my résumé is really strong though. I've been working at a bakery-café for 5.5 years, I did a few language exchange programs throughout university, I have over 390 hours volunteering in PT/OT, and I've also been working as a PTA at a LTC home for 6 months now and as a nutrition assistant at our main hospital for 5 months so far. I also have quite a bit of other less relevant volunteer/work experience, so I'm just hoping that they weigh the résumé highly! 

Awesome! I’m bilingual so I thought it would be a great option! I’ve been trying to find information on how they weigh each component but haven’t found anything. Only school I applied to that asked for my resume though, so that’s a good sign that they atleast take that into consideration! From what I’ve heard from past students is that all classes are french and all textbooks are English so that may be a little bit easier for understanding

[natOT 37]

U of A put this on their website yesterday, might be applicable to some of you! Basically talking about how they will utilize credit/non-credit designations on courses for this semester for Fall 2020 admissions, as well as English Language Proficiency test options, tuition deposit deadline extension, and official transcript submission flexibility (just in case your University is closed and you can't get it to them).

 

https://www.ualberta.ca/covid-19/updates/04/2020-04-06-changes-to-admissions-for-fall-2020.html

[PT - U of O 1]

51 minutes ago, PTOTHOPEFUL said:

Awesome! I’m bilingual so I thought it would be a great option! I’ve been trying to find information on how they weigh each component but haven’t found anything. Only school I applied to that asked for my resume though, so that’s a good sign that they atleast take that into consideration! From what I’ve heard from past students is that all classes are french and all textbooks are English so that may be a little bit easier for understanding

It definitely sounds like a great option if you're bilingual! Yeah, I wish the website was more descriptive about the weighting. Compared to most physio schools, there's not very much information out there about the program. If the textbooks are in English though, it shouldn't be too bad, especially with the option to do the assignments in English!

[rrxxccooll 33]

Does the admission affected by covid 19? Like I am an applicant from China , but am a permanent resident of Canada. I mean if there will be discrimination upon us.

[ptapps 15]

51 minutes ago, rrxxccooll said:

Does the admission affected by covid 19? Like I am an applicant from China , but am a permanent resident of Canada. I mean if there will be discrimination upon us.

Oh don't think that way!   Admission results will not be affected by COVID-19 in that sense (only the delay in results...May 29th). They are not allowed to discriminate in any way.

[jhall_88xc 31]

13 hours ago, rrxxccooll said:

Does the admission affected by covid 19? Like I am an applicant from China , but am a permanent resident of Canada. I mean if there will be discrimination upon us.

Definitely not! Keep doing everything you can to make sure your application is as strong as you can make it. Everything that you can control will make your application better, but things that are out of your control shouldn't negatively impact your chances in any way, for any schools you apply to Same goes for everyone here!

[jhall_88xc 31]

19 hours ago, natOT said:

U of A put this on their website yesterday, might be applicable to some of you! Basically talking about how they will utilize credit/non-credit designations on courses for this semester for Fall 2020 admissions, as well as English Language Proficiency test options, tuition deposit deadline extension, and official transcript submission flexibility (just in case your University is closed and you can't get it to them).

 

https://www.ualberta.ca/covid-19/updates/04/2020-04-06-changes-to-admissions-for-fall-2020.html

I have a question about this, specifically "For external post-secondary students applying to an undergraduate or graduate program at the University of Alberta, grades for courses taken in Winter 2020 will not be included in the calculation of admission GPAs." 

I'm currently completing my undergrad at Dal, and they've given all students the option to change any letter grade on our transcript at the end of this semester to a GPA-neutral pass/fail mark. So whatever you get (A, B-, D), you could choose to change it over to a Pass if you want, no questions asked. I can see how this would benefit students who are put in difficult circumstances (no study space, no access to wifi/computers to complete and submit assignments, etc.), but doesn't something like this penalize those students who were still able to maintain a high level of academic performance? It seems like a lot of people on this forum pull off better marks in their upper years and boost their sGPA, and more than half of the semester was completed before everything went south. To omit the high winter 2020 marks from GPA calculations as a blanket rule seems to nullify a lot of this hard work done by a lot of people in these difficult times. Shouldn't students who achieve grades they're happy with be allow to have their winter 2020 marks included in GPA calculations? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the UoA quote and GPA calculations will be more nuanced?

[natOT 37]

1 hour ago, jhall_88xc said:

I have a question about this, specifically "For external post-secondary students applying to an undergraduate or graduate program at the University of Alberta, grades for courses taken in Winter 2020 will not be included in the calculation of admission GPAs." 

I'm currently completing my undergrad at Dal, and they've given all students the option to change any letter grade on our transcript at the end of this semester to a GPA-neutral pass/fail mark. So whatever you get (A, B-, D), you could choose to change it over to a Pass if you want, no questions asked. I can see how this would benefit students who are put in difficult circumstances (no study space, no access to wifi/computers to complete and submit assignments, etc.), but doesn't something like this penalize those students who were still able to maintain a high level of academic performance? It seems like a lot of people on this forum pull off better marks in their upper years and boost their sGPA, and more than half of the semester was completed before everything went south. To omit the high winter 2020 marks from GPA calculations as a blanket rule seems to nullify a lot of this hard work done by a lot of people in these difficult times. Shouldn't students who achieve grades they're happy with be allow to have their winter 2020 marks included in GPA calculations? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the UoA quote and GPA calculations will be more nuanced?

I would email them and ask. 

[PTplox 5]

2 hours ago, jhall_88xc said:

I have a question about this, specifically "For external post-secondary students applying to an undergraduate or graduate program at the University of Alberta, grades for courses taken in Winter 2020 will not be included in the calculation of admission GPAs." 

I'm currently completing my undergrad at Dal, and they've given all students the option to change any letter grade on our transcript at the end of this semester to a GPA-neutral pass/fail mark. So whatever you get (A, B-, D), you could choose to change it over to a Pass if you want, no questions asked. I can see how this would benefit students who are put in difficult circumstances (no study space, no access to wifi/computers to complete and submit assignments, etc.), but doesn't something like this penalize those students who were still able to maintain a high level of academic performance? It seems like a lot of people on this forum pull off better marks in their upper years and boost their sGPA, and more than half of the semester was completed before everything went south. To omit the high winter 2020 marks from GPA calculations as a blanket rule seems to nullify a lot of this hard work done by a lot of people in these difficult times. Shouldn't students who achieve grades they're happy with be allow to have their winter 2020 marks included in GPA calculations? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the UoA quote and GPA calculations will be more nuanced?

I agree that this is unfair. I hope other universities won't decide to do the same... Please let us know what they say if you had emailed them! 

[mcila 16]

3 hours ago, jhall_88xc said:

I have a question about this, specifically "For external post-secondary students applying to an undergraduate or graduate program at the University of Alberta, grades for courses taken in Winter 2020 will not be included in the calculation of admission GPAs." 

I'm currently completing my undergrad at Dal, and they've given all students the option to change any letter grade on our transcript at the end of this semester to a GPA-neutral pass/fail mark. So whatever you get (A, B-, D), you could choose to change it over to a Pass if you want, no questions asked. I can see how this would benefit students who are put in difficult circumstances (no study space, no access to wifi/computers to complete and submit assignments, etc.), but doesn't something like this penalize those students who were still able to maintain a high level of academic performance? It seems like a lot of people on this forum pull off better marks in their upper years and boost their sGPA, and more than half of the semester was completed before everything went south. To omit the high winter 2020 marks from GPA calculations as a blanket rule seems to nullify a lot of this hard work done by a lot of people in these difficult times. Shouldn't students who achieve grades they're happy with be allow to have their winter 2020 marks included in GPA calculations? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the UoA quote and GPA calculations will be more nuanced?

Interesting - I had thought that our Winter 2020 grades didn't *really* influence much for 2020 intake as conditional offers go out in May and transcripts aren't due until June. I had thought that our offers were going to be largely based on our GPA at the time of application as those are the marks used to determine invites for interviews/MMI/CASPer.  It seems like doing another calculation of Winter 2020 grades might require a lot of admin resources for GPAs which are only likely to change by 0.01 or 0.02. Just a thought, but perhaps this policy applies more for different programs that still are accepting applications?  

[OT Please Accept Me 8]

I'm a current undergrad at U of A and I'll say that there is almost 0% chance they'll include the winter semester grades for applying to grad school here. All undergrad programs here have gone to mandatory credit/no credit and as of April 1 this system has been finalized. Initially I was upset with this decision too but I've grown to accept it for a couple reasons. Firstly, there is no way to really ensure grades are legit, since it's so easy to cheat on online courses and the proctoring programs they've tried to use so far haven't been able to keep up. If students know that this semester's grades count then suddenly there is a huge incentive to cheat since you'd have to be pretty dumb to get caught at this point. Secondly, an optional grade or pass/fail system is easy to abuse, since you'll just take the grade in classes that you're doing well in and take a pass in the other classes. Also, if half the people in a class class decides they only care about passing the curve will be lowered, which will make it considerably easier to get a high letter grade. Thirdly, pretty much every university is doing things differently this semester for grading so there's no way to standardize grades. I think most importantly though, there's a lot of outside factors that are affecting students right now. People are getting sick, worried about loved ones, having money issues, being forced to move home with little notice, and having to deal with online delivery probably for the first time. Some of us are lucky enough to be in a situation where we can still do well academically, but a lot of people aren't, which is why I think it's fair to ignore the grades from this semester and avoid putting extra stress on people already in a difficult situation.

Also yeah this won't affecting anyone applying to U of A for this cycle of PT/OT anyways.

[mcila 16]

2 minutes ago, OT Please Accept Me said:

I'm a current undergrad at U of A and I'll say that there is almost 0% chance they'll include the winter semester grades for applying to grad school here. All undergrad programs here have gone to mandatory credit/no credit and as of April 1 this system has been finalized. Initially I was upset with this decision too but I've grown to accept it for a couple reasons. Firstly, there is no way to really ensure grades are legit, since it's so easy to cheat on online courses and the proctoring programs they've tried to use so far haven't been able to keep up. If students know that this semester's grades count then suddenly there is a huge incentive to cheat since you'd have to be pretty dumb to get caught at this point. Secondly, an optional grade or pass/fail system is easy to abuse, since you'll just take the grade in classes that you're doing well in and take a pass in the other classes. Also, if half the people in a class class decides they only care about passing the curve will be lowered, which will make it considerably easier to get a high letter grade. Thirdly, pretty much every university is doing things differently this semester for grading so there's no way to standardize grades. I think most importantly though, there's a lot of outside factors that are affecting students right now. People are getting sick, worried about loved ones, having money issues, being forced to move home with little notice, and having to deal with online delivery probably for the first time. Some of us are lucky enough to be in a situation where we can still do well academically, but a lot of people aren't, which is why I think it's fair to ignore the grades from this semester and avoid putting extra stress on people already in a difficult situation.

Also yeah this won't affecting anyone applying to U of A for this cycle of PT/OT anyways.

Insightful response - thanks for clarifying from a current U of A student perspective - much appreciated

[natOT 37]

1 hour ago, OT Please Accept Me said:

I'm a current undergrad at U of A and I'll say that there is almost 0% chance they'll include the winter semester grades for applying to grad school here. All undergrad programs here have gone to mandatory credit/no credit and as of April 1 this system has been finalized. Initially I was upset with this decision too but I've grown to accept it for a couple reasons. Firstly, there is no way to really ensure grades are legit, since it's so easy to cheat on online courses and the proctoring programs they've tried to use so far haven't been able to keep up. If students know that this semester's grades count then suddenly there is a huge incentive to cheat since you'd have to be pretty dumb to get caught at this point. Secondly, an optional grade or pass/fail system is easy to abuse, since you'll just take the grade in classes that you're doing well in and take a pass in the other classes. Also, if half the people in a class class decides they only care about passing the curve will be lowered, which will make it considerably easier to get a high letter grade. Thirdly, pretty much every university is doing things differently this semester for grading so there's no way to standardize grades. I think most importantly though, there's a lot of outside factors that are affecting students right now. People are getting sick, worried about loved ones, having money issues, being forced to move home with little notice, and having to deal with online delivery probably for the first time. Some of us are lucky enough to be in a situation where we can still do well academically, but a lot of people aren't, which is why I think it's fair to ignore the grades from this semester and avoid putting extra stress on people already in a difficult situation.

Also yeah this won't affecting anyone applying to U of A for this cycle of PT/OT anyways.

Excellently put. 

[dmd12 4]

On 4/7/2020 at 9:43 AM, PTOTHOPEFUL said:

Anyone here apply to UofO?

Do you know when you hear back from Ottawa? 

[OT1996 35]

Anyone know how many applications Dal receives for OT and how many out of province they accept? Also, I was looking at the forum from last year and it seems around this time people started hearing back from Dal and McGill... I know someone said we will hear back end of April for Dal, but does anyone know about McGill?

Also, I'm interested in knowing what people's backups are if they don't get in this time around. I have already taken a year off this year and I am 24 (feeling kind of old!). I don't want to take next year off and I want to start a career so I applied to backup programs but tbh I have no idea what I would want to do besides OT. We won't hear back until May 29 for Ontario schools and a lot of the other programs I applied to want me to accept the offer or put down a deposit way before then. Is anyone else in the same dilemma?  

[natOT 37]

43 minutes ago, OT1996 said:

Anyone know how many applications Dal receives for OT and how many out of province they accept? Also, I was looking at the forum from last year and it seems around this time people started hearing back from Dal and McGill... I know someone said we will hear back end of April for Dal, but does anyone know about McGill?

Also, I'm interested in knowing what people's backups are if they don't get in this time around. I have already taken a year off this year and I am 24 (feeling kind of old!). I don't want to take next year off and I want to start a career so I applied to backup programs but tbh I have no idea what I would want to do besides OT. We won't hear back until May 29 for Ontario schools and a lot of the other programs I applied to want me to accept the offer or put down a deposit way before then. Is anyone else in the same dilemma?  

I think if OT is really what you want to do, and you don't get into school this time around, then you take the year to improve your application. I totally understand the feeling that you need to start a career ASAP. I know that like me, you're probably surrounded by friends/family who have it all figured out at 22 and so you feel pressured. But something I've realized is that in the grand scheme of life, does it really matter if you started your career at 25 vs. 29? Or 21 vs. 35? What will matter more later in life, the fact that you started your career super early or the fact that you have truly spent your working life doing something you're passionate about (and maybe had to start that career at a later age)? 

You're not old. I'm 26, and I'll be 27 in November, and I'm not old. Older perhaps than some of the other people that will be in our programs, but again, it doesn't matter. What matters is following your passion. Along those lines, if you get accepted to schools outside Ontario, you might be able to conditionally accept their offer. Or maybe you won't be able to. Either way, you accept. You put the deposit down. If Ontario works out then you tell them you're sorry and you're going elsewhere. You won't get a deposit back but so what? I know it might suck now but again, look at the big picture. 

I hope some part of this rambling helps. 

[jhall_88xc 31]

6 hours ago, lalalalaura said:

Interesting - I had thought that our Winter 2020 grades didn't *really* influence much for 2020 intake as conditional offers go out in May and transcripts aren't due until June. I had thought that our offers were going to be largely based on our GPA at the time of application as those are the marks used to determine invites for interviews/MMI/CASPer.  It seems like doing another calculation of Winter 2020 grades might require a lot of admin resources for GPAs which are only likely to change by 0.01 or 0.02. Just a thought, but perhaps this policy applies more for different programs that still are accepting applications?  

Yea, I was more thinking for next year if it happened that people had to reapply and/or use third year grades from this year to apply. I'm probably in a pretty niche situation but I had one course with an abnormally low mark in second year that took my sGPA down 0.07 points for this cycle, and if my winter 2020 courses were used I'd have enough credits to omit that grade from my calculation. But I suppose it's way to early to be thinking about that, and @OT Please Accept Me laid out a bunch of excellent points that trump my situation anyway so I'm content to take things as they are

[OT202024 4]

3 hours ago, OT1996 said:

Anyone know how many applications Dal receives for OT and how many out of province they accept? Also, I was looking at the forum from last year and it seems around this time people started hearing back from Dal and McGill... I know someone said we will hear back end of April for Dal, but does anyone know about McGill?

Also, I'm interested in knowing what people's backups are if they don't get in this time around. I have already taken a year off this year and I am 24 (feeling kind of old!). I don't want to take next year off and I want to start a career so I applied to backup programs but tbh I have no idea what I would want to do besides OT. We won't hear back until May 29 for Ontario schools and a lot of the other programs I applied to want me to accept the offer or put down a deposit way before then. Is anyone else in the same dilemma?  

I applied to both Dal and McGill too but I'm also curious as to when McGill is sending out their acceptances

[OT202024 4]

Does anyone have any idea based on last year when U of A sends out their letters? I'm sorry if someone else has already asked this!! I applied to Dal, McGill, and U of A so still waiting on responses, and then I was waitlisted for McMaster but didn't end up getting an interview sadly.

[AllyRL 10]

23 minutes ago, OT202024 said:

Does anyone have any idea based on last year when U of A sends out their letters? I'm sorry if someone else has already asked this!! I applied to Dal, McGill, and U of A so still waiting on responses, and then I was waitlisted for McMaster but didn't end up getting an interview sadly.

Last year they contacted me on April 12 to let me know I was on the waiting list! But this year the website says they send out acceptances in mid May so who knows!