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Extra Year Or Masters???


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Hello,

 

I am graduating from my undergrad this year but am going back for a semester so that I can take the second organic chem and english (I could not pack it all into my 4 years as these courses were not part of my major). Anyways, I was wondering would it be worth my while to come back for a whole year to up my GPA (3.3 before completing my last semester) or should I do a semester, finish my courses and then if I apply and don't get into dental school apply for a Masters? Will completing a Masters do anything for my GPA? Does doing a fifth year of undergrad look bad??

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Hello,

 

I am graduating from my undergrad this year but am going back for a semester so that I can take the second organic chem and english (I could not pack it all into my 4 years as these courses were not part of my major). Anyways, I was wondering would it be worth my while to come back for a whole year to up my GPA (3.3 before completing my last semester) or should I do a semester, finish my courses and then if I apply and don't get into dental school apply for a Masters? Will completing a Masters do anything for my GPA? Does doing a fifth year of undergrad look bad??

 

Hi,

I think doing a 5th year would be to your advantage, to boost your GPA. From my understanding, UofT and UWO do not look down upon an extra year. Remember if you apply in your 5th year, the two schools will only be able to determine whether or not you're a potential candidate based on your four years (UofT drops your worst year, and UWO takes your top two years) because you have not yet completed your 5th year. I believe that UofT looks highly on people with a masters degree, but remember in order to be classified as a masters applicant you must complete your 2 years. That is, if you're in your 1st year of masters and you apply you cannot apply as a masters student since you have not completed your masters yet and instead your marks will be based on your undergrad marks. But if you do a 5th year and just say you apply in your fifth year and don't get in and then get into a masters program, if you apply in your first year of masters than your 5th year marks will count for uoft and you can use it as one of your top two years if you choose to for UWO.

Since you're coming back for a semester anyways, might as well come in for another semester, it'll only be an extra 3 or so months, and you can take courses that interest you as opposed to just taking pre-reqs for dental school (unless you enjoy the hard sciences). But nobody knows what the future will hold, are you good at organic chem and english, if not it could bring down your GPA, as a result it would be best not to take the second half of the semester and because you'll have less than full course load, then it won't count, but then again, you'll still have to rely on your 3.3 GPA. But if you take courses in the 2nd semester of 5th year and do well, they can mask hypothetically speakihng, your bad organic chem and english mark.

Sorry for the info overload, i hope everything made sense

 

-WT

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