OT/PT accepted/waitlist/decline forum - 2021 cycle

[rlerin]

Got my rejection letter from Mac.

I might be looking into applying to England next year.. since it looks like I will have more luck that way. I have 2+ years of experience but my GPA is not that great. 

 

Does anyone have any experience/knows anything about the application process? 

[elaiina21]

46 minutes ago, OT_9821 said:

Toronto OT is more holistic, as they also look at your resume, personal statement, and references. I think they place the most emphasis on your GPA, though. It definitely is intimidating looking at the GPA increase for McMaster, and the increased applications for what seems like multiple schools! But I have seen people on this forum get into schools like UofT with slightly lower GPAs but made up for it with their experiences.

Toronto did say that they weight GPA more heavily than other things for the admission process. Not sure if this is normal, or new due to COVID

[mulia]

1 hour ago, stttta said:

@OTwannabe2021 

I just got my rejection from Mac. I was really hoping Western would be more holistic considering the personal submission essay. But people in the forum have been saying they only look at subgpa and casper for admission. Such a disappointment  

Hey, 

Try not to get discourage! Also the information on this forum is not 100% accurate. I know people personally who did not have the most competitive s-gpa but had a lot of work/volunteer experience that got into Western. Each school is different and they know that most people apply to multiple Ontario schools, they all emphasize different things, if they didn't then the same people would get into each program. 

 

[zerochance]

I think this year was brutal due to the winter term classes of last year suddenly transitioning to online.....I bet many people cheated on exams and other assignments, thus the inflated grades.

Personally several of my major exams for that term were 1) online, 2) Same time allowed, 3) No proctoring software was used.

As you can imagine I know many people that got together on discord and other platforms to discuss answers....Some people just quick searched for the answers without studying for the exam at all.  And they got away with it AND they did extremely well on those exams...the profs didn't want to implement anything drastic like proctoring software or a change in the format of the exams so they kept it multiple choice and allocated the same time and kept everything else the same.  

I think after this year s-GPA may go back down a bit now that proctoring software and other measures have been taken by most schools.

[happycat]

10 minutes ago, zerochance said:

I think this year was brutal due to the winter term classes of last year suddenly transitioning to online.....I bet many people cheated on exams and other assignments, thus the inflated grades.

Personally several of my major exams for that term were 1) online, 2) Same time allowed, 3) No proctoring software was used.

As you can imagine I know many people that got together on discord and other platforms to discuss answers....Some people just quick searched for the answers without studying for the exam at all.  And they got away with it AND they did extremely well on those exams...the profs didn't want to implement anything drastic like proctoring software or a change in the format of the exams so they kept it multiple choice and allocated the same time and kept everything else the same.  

I think after this year s-GPA may go back down a bit now that proctoring software and other measures have been taken by most schools.

Ohhh that's interesting, thanks for sharing. I completed my undergrad in 2018 haha so I've been pretty far removed from the exam life. It's disappointing to hear the grades could be inflated for those reasons.... but alas, out of our control! Perhaps admissions departments should have adjusted accordingly.

[kinestudent23]

15 hours ago, SaraPT123 said:

What school are you referring to? Ontario schools?

Dal PT

[EkamhopefulOT]

16 hours ago, OTwannabe2021 said:

Also got rejected from Mac OT. Good luck to everyone else:)

But starting to worry about how competitive this year is for GPAs.. does anyone know if toronto or western have a more holistic admissions process or do they mainly rely on sub gpa too? (do they actually consider your achievements or experiences)

thanks!

Hey I ended up emailing Westerns admissions for OT and they replied saying they do use the personal submissions in the admissions process! Im not sure why people heard they don't but I think that might have been miscommunication or some sort of confusion. 

[dhwang]

I just got accepted into UBC OT!!!

[NeedPTinmylife]

17 hours ago, happycat said:

Ohhh that's interesting, thanks for sharing. I completed my undergrad in 2018 haha so I've been pretty far removed from the exam life. It's disappointing to hear the grades could be inflated for those reasons.... but alas, out of our control! Perhaps admissions departments should have adjusted accordingly.

I agree. I think this is why they incorporated Casper originally. I think the cutoff GPA will be slightly lowered compared to past year's and schools will give more priority to experience and/or references. 

[mulia]

I just got waitlisted for UBC OT, I'm #2 so fingers crossed! I heard it doesn't move much so I have no idea what my chances are. 

[mulia]

22 minutes ago, dhwang said:

I just got accepted into UBC OT!!!

That's amazing! Im second on the waitlist. Do you mind sharing your average and experience?:)

[OTuofm]

Does anyone know when University of Manitoba usually sends out their invites for interviews? 

[OT2021OT]

4 hours ago, EkamhopefulOT said:

Hey I ended up emailing Westerns admissions for OT and they replied saying they do use the personal submissions in the admissions process! Im not sure why people heard they don't but I think that might have been miscommunication or some sort of confusion. 

i emailed them yesterday too and can also confirm that personal submissions are used in the admissions process and not after!! Very happy to hear that lol

[HOPEFUL7]

4 minutes ago, OT2021OT said:

i emailed them yesterday too and can also confirm that personal submissions are used in the admissions process and not after!! Very happy to hear that lol

This makes me feel so much better! Was starting to feel very discouraged that everything was based off of GPA. 

[OTHopeful2021]

I got into UBC OT! Very surprised and shocked because I thought we'd have to wait a couple more weeks hahaha. Congrats to others who have also been accepted  

[UBC888]

1 hour ago, mulia said:

I just got waitlisted for UBC OT, I'm #2 so fingers crossed! I heard it doesn't move much so I have no idea what my chances are. 

Hi, 

I got waitlisted as well. Do you know if there is a separate waitlist for the Northern and Rural Cohort (NRC) and the Vancouver program? Because it says my position is #NRC __

[dhwang]

1 hour ago, mulia said:

That's amazing! Im second on the waitlist. Do you mind sharing your average and experience?:)

I'll reply on your other forum

 

[dhwang]

I will be cancelling my Mac OT interview! Hope this means that they invite one of you guys!!

[OTgotthis]

37 minutes ago, dhwang said:

I will be cancelling my Mac OT interview! Hope this means that they invite one of you guys!!

They don’t unfortunately.They only accept 130 in the end but sends out invites around 230-250ish. 

[OT_9821]

5 hours ago, EkamhopefulOT said:

Hey I ended up emailing Westerns admissions for OT and they replied saying they do use the personal submissions in the admissions process! Im not sure why people heard they don't but I think that might have been miscommunication or some sort of confusion. 

Oh I see, that's definitely different than what I heard in Western OT's info session back in November! I'm not sure why we got different information from admissions, maybe I heard incorrectly haha. But good to know they replied saying they do use personal submissions. Thank you for emailing!

[JChen48]

30 minutes ago, Lylameow said:

They don’t unfortunately.They only accept 130 in the end but sends out invites around 230-250ish. 

Where did you see they end up accepting 130 people?? I read 65-66 students in total will get admission. 

[OTgotthis]

15 minutes ago, JChen48 said:

Where did you see they end up accepting 130 people?? I read 65-66 students in total will get admission. 

oh yeah haha 130 is for UofT. Mc is 67. But yeah, last year they said they won’t send more invites because they’ll select from the interviewed people anyways. 

[EkamhopefulOT]

50 minutes ago, OT_9821 said:

Oh I see, that's definitely different than what I heard in Western OT's info session back in November! I'm not sure why we got different information from admissions, maybe I heard incorrectly haha. But good to know they replied saying they do use personal submissions. Thank you for emailing!

Im guessing it could be both, my best guess is that they use the personal submissions for admissions as well as placing you in groups later on. But im not too sure! 

[mulia]

2 hours ago, UBC888 said:

 

Hi, 

I got waitlisted as well. Do you know if there is a separate waitlist for the Northern and Rural Cohort (NRC) and the Vancouver program? Because it says my position is #NRC __

I'm not sure, but I would assume so since they save a certain amount of seat for NRC. But that being said I don't know if that is the case for international students as well/

[OTGIRLL]

I received an email this morning stating I've been accepted to UBC OT!! :') I was not expecting to hear so soon