course load policies

[Guest Chowchilla]

hi,

 

i know that uoft and western have very clearly stated policies when it comes to calculating gpas with varying course loads. uoft doesn't drop any courses if you have anything less than 5, and western doesn't count the year that you had less than 5 courses.

 

fair enough.

 

what i don't know is about the others, but i'm hoping there are people here who know what the policies are regarding these universities:

 

- queen's

- mcmaster

- dalhousie

- memorial

- calgary

 

i appreciate your responses very much.

 

thanks.

[Guest pasoo]

McMaster takes into account ALL courses taken, regardless of whether they were done in the fall, winter, spring, or summer session, or if they were correspondence courses......if you take extra courses which are above the "normal" course load eg. take 6 full credits per year, instead of the usual 5, Mac will NOT take your 5 best as Western does...

 

cheers

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Calgary calculates your GPA for each year and summer term that you are in school and reports each separately. Therefore, if you have been working on your BSc. for 3 years and took a course during one summer, then Calgary will separately calculate and note your GPA for each of the three years, as well as the summer course.

 

You need to have two years of full-time courses (4.0 courses, for undergrad, I believe) at or above the Calgary GPA cut-off to proceed in their selection process.

 

I hope that addresses what you're looking for.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Chowchilla]

thanks guys.

 

that just leaves what, memorial, dalhousie, and queen's?

[Guest seonagh]

From the requirement info for Dalhousie...

 

Maritime applicants must also have achieved a minimum GPA of 3.3 in each of the last two consecutive years of full time study. If you apply and have previously completed your degree then we will also consider your best 3 out of the 4 years of full time study.

 

Non maritime applicants must also achieve a minimum of 3.7 in each of the last two consecutive years of full time study. If you apply and have previously completed your degree then we will also consider your best 3 out of the 4 years of full time study

 

In regards to their take on what constitutes "full time"

 

While we would ordinarily expect a candidate to have 2 consecutive years in which 5 full classes were carried while achieving a GPA of 3.3 (or 3.7 for OOP), the Admissions Committee would accept applications from candidates who have demonstrated compelling reasons for not having met the requirements or who have unusual qualifications. These decisions would be made at the discretion of the Committee.

 

I don't believe that they do any sort of dropping of courses for more than full time but for Dal in general they tend to be more vague about exceptions in the calendar. For most policies they present along the lines of... this is what we consider, but we will take into account special situations. My understanding is that they rarely, in practice, do make exceptions of any kind but just from reading the calendars they come across as less calculated and scientific about grade calculation etc. than some of the Ontario schools do in their calendars. The impression they give is that if you had a compelling special circumstance that they would consider you but I get the sense that the situation would have to be pretty compelling. Again practice may vary but this is the impression I get from comparing calendars.

 

Seonagh