I just wanted to make a post as we enter the new academic year, and more importantly the next admission cycle. Hopefully through this post we can all share our admission experiences, concerns, and achievements.
To begin with, I am currently a University of Toronto student completing my final year! I am hoping to apply to UBC, UofT, Nipissing, Western, and Trent. Just waiting on applications to open up! I am slightly worried I may not get in because admission is so competitive, and seeing those with 3.9+ not get in can be very scary.
How about you? Are you excited for the new school year? Any concerns for the admission process? Let's get through this together
I was wondering how many words you guys wrote for the second part of the uoft supplementary application (leadership/community involvement)? Since there's no word limit, I'm afraid I wrote too much/ too little.
TLDR: people seem to be successful with different approaches
I've seen previous students' applications and they took different approaches - one listed ECs with brief (2-3 sentences) descriptions while others had 2 large paragraphs (total, around the same length as the personal statement).
Personally, I wrote 4 paragraphs about the 4 strongest experiences I had in terms of community involvement and leadership and tried to minimized repeating things I mentioned in my personal statement. Altogether, my response was around 600 words. I tried to make each paragraph long enough to be impactful but concise enough so that they don't overwhelm the reader or bore them halfway through.
Hi I emailed them a while back this is what they emailed me back:
Thank you for contacting Undergraduate Admissions at Queen’s University. Verifiers can include any School Official, this includes: Teachers, Counselors, Principals, Office Staff, Teachers assistants. If the Executive of your clubs is a teacher then that would be okay as well.
Ugf, I graduated high school in 2009, and university in 2014. Both in Russia. None of them has a so-called "official" email, none of them speak English and I doubt people even remember me considering how many thousands of students they graduate per year.
Ugf, I graduated high school in 2009, and university in 2014. Both in Russia. None of them has a so-called "official" email, none of them speak English and I doubt people even remember me considering how many thousands of students they graduate per year.
Was hoping to use local work reference...
I would email Queen's admissions or the SON admissions/undergrad assistants or chair and let them know about your situation! I think the PSE was designed with the general assumption that most students are applying from high school or right after university but the AST program takes many older students.
Sometimes I want to scream in the void of how incredibly closed-minded the application system is in Canada...
Like, why do universities consider the transcript I have "unofficial"? Why do they not return "official" documents? In Russia the education document is literally like a passport: has a document number, and the one copy you have is the official. I can't have more than one at a time.
Why is it okay to pay to school to receive a document or a copy of document (ie. transcript request fees)? That's literally my data, WOW!?
Hell, why is there an "application" fee??? When I applied for schools in Europe, none of them had that. Only USA and Canada had that. Maybe some other countries have it as well, IDK... but why? I'm not even admitted why do I have to pay simply to express interest in education?
Why does OUAC collect fees if each school collects their own? I paid $615 just to submit an application to four schools. WOW!? Then Canada preaches for equal education access??? Equal to whom?
.....
I can go on an on. Rant not over. But I'll stop. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Sometimes I want to scream in the void of how incredibly closed-minded the application system is in Canada...
Like, why do universities consider the transcript I have "unofficial"? Why do they not return "official" documents? In Russia the education document is literally like a passport: has a document number, and the one copy you have is the official. I can't have more than one at a time.
Why is it okay to pay to school to receive a document or a copy of document (ie. transcript request fees)? That's literally my data, WOW!?
Hell, why is there an "application" fee??? When I applied for schools in Europe, none of them had that. Only USA and Canada had that. Maybe some other countries have it as well, IDK... but why? I'm not even admitted why do I have to pay simply to express interest in education?
Why does OUAC collect fees if each school collects their own? I paid $615 just to submit an application to four schools. WOW!? Then Canada preaches for equal education access??? Equal to whom?
.....
I can go on an on. Rant not over. But I'll stop. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
the Canadian and American secondary education system is super super inaccessible and so many steps are just a money grab. Im sorry you're going through that
the Canadian and American secondary education system is super super inaccessible and so many steps are just a money grab. Im sorry you're going through that
Honestly, I'm sorry for generations of all of us going through this. And accepting this to the point when it became a norm.
It's not just me, y'all pay the same fees (or rather, international students pay slightly more in app fees and a ton more in tuition fees, been there, done that)
Thank you! I took the Casper when I applied to Mac 2 years ago for practice, this time I studied for about 1-1.5 weeks off of a free Casper workshop hosted by my school and did lots of practice questions/mock tests on Youtube and other sites ? I’ve also been reading some ethics/philosophy for leisure which I think helped a little.
I’d be happy to share the workshop I used with anyone who’s interested, message me!
Thank you! I took the Casper when I applied to Mac 2 years ago for practice, this time I studied for about 1-1.5 weeks off of a free Casper workshop hosted by my school and did lots of practice questions/mock tests on Youtube and other sites ? I’ve also been reading some ethics/philosophy for leisure which I think helped a little.
I’d be happy to share the workshop I used with anyone who’s interested, message me!
I’m writing mine on March 1st so I’ll have around the same amount of time which is reassuring! Thanks again and good luck with applications!
firepuma142
66 Posts
TLDR: people seem to be successful with different approaches
I've seen previous students' applications and they took different approaches - one listed ECs with brief (2-3 sentences) descriptions while others had 2 large paragraphs (total, around the same length as the personal statement).
Personally, I wrote 4 paragraphs about the 4 strongest experiences I had in terms of community involvement and leadership and tried to minimized repeating things I mentioned in my personal statement. Altogether, my response was around 600 words. I tried to make each paragraph long enough to be impactful but concise enough so that they don't overwhelm the reader or bore them halfway through.