'Special Student' status in fifth year?

[buttercream 15]

3 minutes ago, BipolarBearr said:

Spoke to my faculty counsellor about that. Special students get the same enrolment date as fourth years

If you're at Western, I would be careful about that. You might get the same enrolment date, but you can't get into courses unless they say "open to all students". Example: say you're in Kinesiology and the course says "open to Kin students"... you have to wait until it's open registration date (August). But you could enrol in something like psych 1000 because anyone can enrol in it.

[purplemermaid 5]

On 1/28/2018 at 4:27 PM, rmorelan said:

This is where it gets a bit mess as there are is not official talk that some schools won't accept a year that does not contribute towards a degree (to prevent people from doing years basically to boost their GPA outside of a structured program). Some people have claimed that for Ottawa - not sure if it is actually true. 

 

@rmorelan Is it okay if I'm doing a 5th year, but technically already did the required courses for my degree? As long as I follow the 3/5 rule and still continue taking courses related to my program, would the school be able to verify if the courses I took were "non-degree courses"?? 

[rmorelan 2,561]

24 minutes ago, purplemermaid said:

@rmorelan Is it okay if I'm doing a 5th year, but technically already did the required courses for my degree? As long as I follow the 3/5 rule and still continue taking courses related to my program, would the school be able to verify if the courses I took were "non-degree courses"?? 

That sounds safe to me - as long as you don't actually graduate

[purplemermaid 5]

10 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

That sounds safe to me - as long as you don't actually graduate

Yeah I didn't graduate. Do you think I should contact schools to verify if they check if my 5th year courses are degree or non-degree? 

[rmorelan 2,561]

22 minutes ago, purplemermaid said:

Yeah I didn't graduate. Do you think I should contact schools to verify if they check if my 5th year courses are degree or non-degree? 

Since there is no specific rule against what you are doing, and you aren't even bending the spirit of any of their rules, I am not sure what the point of contacting them would be. I mean the concept of a non-degree course doesn't really exist for Western. I mean I took more science courses than I needed to complete my degree, simply because I wanted to know specific things that I couldn't all do in the standard time. 

If you do contract them I wouldn't use that term non-degree as it is confusing. Just say you could technically graduate but you are still taking some additional courses to further your education. 

Edited May 28, 2018 by rmorelan

[BipolarBearr 0]

18 hours ago, purplemermaid said:

Yeah I didn't graduate. Do you think I should contact schools to verify if they check if my 5th year courses are degree or non-degree? 

I did follow up with NOSM, McMaster and Queens about the special year and none of them said it would change the way they influenced GPA calculations (although IIRC one of them said theyd only look at one extra year). So I dont see why there would be a problem if you wanted to just continue to a fifth without graduating

[UndecidedMD 2]

1 hour ago, BipolarBearr said:

I did follow up with NOSM, McMaster and Queens about the special year and none of them said it would change the way they influenced GPA calculations (although IIRC one of them said theyd only look at one extra year). So I dont see why there would be a problem if you wanted to just continue to a fifth without graduating

Do you remember what school exactly said they would only look at an extra year?

[BipolarBearr 0]

Just checked and the only thing I found was UofT saying that the special/5th year would be recognized but if I needed more than one year I should consider a second undergrad. So maybe  was not remembering that policy correctly or it's still a thing which is why a second undergrad might be better. Not sure.

[rmorelan 2,561]

2 hours ago, BipolarBearr said:

Just checked and the only thing I found was UofT saying that the special/5th year would be recognized but if I needed more than one year I should consider a second undergrad. So maybe  was not remembering that policy correctly or it's still a thing which is why a second undergrad might be better. Not sure.

don't think they have anything officially posted - they just say they expect normal progression in a degree. Maybe at 6 years they consider that to be abnormal for a standard degree - kind of makes sense, lots of reasons for not quite finishing in 4 years, but going out to six does invite questions.