Waterloo Optometry 2011 Cycle

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Hey guys,

On UW's website, it says that we need 3 years of undergrad, which equals to 15.0 credits (I assume this only includes 0.5 credit lecture courses and not 0.25 credit labs).

So if I dropped a course last term, does it mean that I'll need to take an extra one this term, or else, they'll automatically "throw out" my application?
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eyenerd said:
Hey guys,

On UW's website, it says that we need 3 years of undergrad, which equals to 15.0 credits (I assume this only includes 0.5 credit lecture courses and not 0.25 credit labs).

So if I dropped a course last term, does it mean that I'll need to take an extra one this term, or else, they'll automatically "throw out" my application?
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yeah I would assume so. Sounds like you would need 3 years of full time study of 5 classes per term. So if you have 9 classes right now... better make it 10 again for the year. Don't count lab credits within that.

Try calling the optom office to get a definite answer though.
 
I don't know... the best bet is to ask the school. If you are good for acceptance I hope they will over look that! (I mean basically if you get in, it's a conditional acceptance where you have to maintain your marks anyway. So maybe if you get in they'll ask you to take another course to make up for it? I don't know.)
 
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I know it is preferrable to have a full course load for each semester throughout your undergrad. Do you guys think it would be a huge disadvantage if out of 3 years of undergrad, there is 1 semester there you only have 4 courses instead of 5? Does anyone have experiences to this?

The requirement of having 15.0 credits isn't an issue as I've taken courses in previous summers.

Thanks.
 
I think it really depends on the rest of your file. If, for example you have only one term of not taking a full course load, but your cumulative average is extremely high, you have a good OAT score, a lot of shadowing and work experience, extracurriculars, etc, i think they could definitely look past it. They do say they prefer that you have taken a full course load every semester, but i really dont think this is the end-all and be-all.
 
Yeah, I think the reason they want a full course load is to prove that you can handle the very busy course load that comes in optometry school. I doubt one semester out of three years is going to eliminate your application if everything else is good; it's more like they don't want you to have taken seven years to finish your undergrad by taking two and three courses a semester instead of five.
 
Yeah like my last term was definitely not a full course load (it was close though... 4.5 credits but apparently i need 5 for it to be full course load). There was a summer where I randomly took one course while I was working full time. I hope that won't be held against me too much lol.
 
yes in my second year of three i only took 4 courses per term (one less than full course load) but have taken 5 in years 1 and 3. I agree that i think it's more so that they want to see if you can hande the full course load and not take 2-3 courses per term. So i wouldn't worry too much about that.
p.s anyone getting impatient about waiting to hear back?? march can't come soon enough!
 
limegreen18 said:
yes in my second year of three i only took 4 courses per term (one less than full course load) but have taken 5 in years 1 and 3. I agree that i think it's more so that they want to see if you can hande the full course load and not take 2-3 courses per term. So i wouldn't worry too much about that.
p.s anyone getting impatient about waiting to hear back?? march can't come soon enough!
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Yeah, I may or may not be going crazy. :rolleyes: It's just so hard to wait, especially because now we've done absolutely everything we can do - interviewed, sent in our fall semester grades...it's frustrating!
 
i can't wait either!! its driving me crazy!... i keep telling myself that if i don't get in there's always next year since i'm only in my 3rd year of undergrad now... but i know i will be disappointed if i don't get in anyway... hope for the best i guess!
 
You'd figured since they interviewed so early we would find out earlier but no... guess being the only english school in Canada, they can take their time... but I hate waiting. I think about whether I got rejected or accepted often now. It's driving me a tad crazy.

And they also should have an "admit day" since people are always finding out in waves. Come on UW, lower our stress levels a bit. :laugh:
 
quackquack said:
You'd figured since they interviewed so early we would find out earlier but no... guess being the only english school in Canada, they can take their time... but I hate waiting. I think about whether I got rejected or accepted often now. It's driving me a tad crazy.

And they also should have an "admit day" since people are always finding out in waves. Come on UW, lower our stress levels a bit. :laugh:
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An "admit day" would be fabulous, because as it stands now I will be obssessively checking quest starting the end of February.... which could lead to an entire month of panic. :D
 
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We will hear back in waves?! I had no idea... so basically we could be waiting around for two weeks with no answer, while others have already heard?? Ahh this is going to be SO stressful!
 
So initially 90 acceptances will be handed out? then depending on how many accept/decline more will be accepted later in the month? Anyone know when the exact date will be? or are we still on a general mid march time line?
 
Hey potential future Waterloo students,
Last year I went through what you are going through. I HATED that I had to wait until March to hear back from Waterloo. It seems so unfair, when all the other schools let you know so much sooner! But I just wanted to say, hang in there!! March will come around! The hardest part is getting the interview, so congrats on making it this far!
 
There is no set date for hearing back from UW. And i don't know really if it's in waves but from the previous years, it seems like there are always some people finding out later than everyone else (besides waiting listed people). But yes.. March seems so incredibly far away right now eeep.
 
Last year, from what I've seen searching the forums, people started finding out on Quest around March 5. The year before, it started around February 27, but there were still people who didn't find out until closer to mid-March. So yeah, I think they do release admission status updates on Quest in waves, so it can take a few weeks to find out. Letters probably all get sent out at the same time, though. *shrug* At my interview, I think I remember one of the professors saying we would find out between the middle and the end of March, but I think that was referring to the official letters, not Quest. (Of course, I could be mixing that up with something I read here. That whole day is a bit of a stressed-out blur, haha.)
 
Hello all, so I don't know if anyone has an answer for me, but here is my situation:

I'm currently in a couple of classes that I don't think I'm going to end up doing to stellar in. I'm getting a tutor and I'm going to try upping my effort a bit more, but I still have a feeling that these classes are going to drag my GPA down to lower than what I have had in the past few semesters. Given that Waterloo accepts/rejects students prior to seeing their final semester marks, is this going to affect me at all? For example, if I get accepted and then they see these marks, can they withdraw my acceptance? Or would they only do that if I did really horrible, like failed something?

Let me know what you think!
 
I am not 100% certain, but given what the schools in the US told me after I was accepted, you would need to maintain a certain average in the completion of your courses. And I would assume that for waterloo this would be 75% since that is the minimum average which you need to apply to the program. This may be different however if any of those courses you are taking are pre-requisites...this is just what I would assume :)
 
HappyMilkshake said:
Hello all, so I don't know if anyone has an answer for me, but here is my situation:

I'm currently in a couple of classes that I don't think I'm going to end up doing to stellar in. I'm getting a tutor and I'm going to try upping my effort a bit more, but I still have a feeling that these classes are going to drag my GPA down to lower than what I have had in the past few semesters. Given that Waterloo accepts/rejects students prior to seeing their final semester marks, is this going to affect me at all? For example, if I get accepted and then they see these marks, can they withdraw my acceptance? Or would they only do that if I did really horrible, like failed something?

Let me know what you think!
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I thought that they just wanted to see your final semester marks to make sure you didn't decide to totally slack off after getting accepted. I think they just want to make sure you complete everything and don't throw in the towel.
 
They do want to see your final marks. But they don't base acceptances on final marks (as far as I'm concerned, if your trend has been good, there is no reason for them to think it'll sudden drop drastically). That's why they give "conditional acceptances" for people who are still in school - you maintain a certain average. Not sure what that exact value is though... like someone said, probably at least 75%.
 
does any one have an idea about how many people they interviewed this year? i'm not sure if it has come up in previous posts but i'm just wondering....
 
Ish. I think there were 72 or so on Saturday morning, so probably a similar number on Saturday afternoon, and then 53 on Sunday. I've no idea how many people did the external interviews, but I would say that 250 is a pretty safe maximum for how many interviewed, and it's probably a bit below that.
 
ok thanks.... i dunno if that makes me feel better or worse! haha.
 
On that note.. does anyone have any idea how many students they typically wait list? I've heard that in past up to the 13th waitlisted student made it into the program but i'm wondering how many they put on this waitlist??
 
i'm not sure... i mean if the only admit 90 i wouldn't imagine that wait list is too huge...
 
Probably along the lines of 5 - 10. I remember reading somewhere it's around that number... can't remember where I read it though.
 
quackquack said:
Probably along the lines of 5 - 10. I remember reading somewhere it's around that number... can't remember where I read it though.
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A year or two ago there were people posting on the forum who were at least tenth on the waitlist, and as mentioned above there have been up to 13 people on the waitlist who were later accepted...I would guess the maximum is no more than 20, perhaps closer to 15? *shrug* I really don't know though.
 
dawnfirenight said:
A year or two ago there were people posting on the forum who were at least tenth on the waitlist, and as mentioned above there have been up to 13 people on the waitlist who were later accepted...I would guess the maximum is no more than 20, perhaps closer to 15? *shrug* I really don't know though.
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I hope so lol, bigger the better, although I can't imagine many people rejecting UW. Really depends on the type of people applying... (Some people are doing this as their main choice, some as a back up and are actually waiting on med schools...so yeah.) I HAVE heard of them exhausting the wait list though! *hopeful*
 
almost march... the countdown is starting!! haha... so is it quest or email that will have the answer first do you think?
 
Probably Quest first according to previous years. I'm pretty nervous right now since it's probably around next week or week after that and my interview wasn't completely awesome.
 
i know i'm getting more and more nervous... i felt good about my interview at the time but the further i get from it the worse i feel! haha... boo.
 
Has anyone else gone completely crazy like me and already started checking?! hahaha... i am getting so incredibly nervous! Based on previous years like the poster above said, we could know within the next two weeks! i thought this day would never come back in november!
 
Yup, as I said in the other Waterloo thread, I've been checking Quest daily just in case the admissions committee got bored and met early. :p But one way or another, we'll know within the next three weeks, I should expect!

A bunch of my friends have been practicing for med school interviews lately, since those are ongoing now, and it makes me so glad I got mine over with in November before the frenzy began. That being said, I helped with mock interviews last weekend, and all it did was make me think of things I could have done better in my interview!
 
Yeah, so many things I could have done better/not mess up on. Sometimes I'm so crazy the interview just replays in my head and I'm like "uh oh i messed up here." except that the sure thing I learned from life is that nothing comes from overthinking things so I need to stop haha.... I'm not checking as religiously yet since it's reading week at waterloo but starting next week... oh boy.
 
i feel like the way that they make us all wait so long between the interview and the decision is going to make the verdict be either extra exciting or extra disappointing (hopefully not...) it just seems that the longer i wait, the bigger of a deal it becomes and i hate that because i think its going to make all the people who don't get accepted feel worse than they need to... i mean it is a competitive program and i don't think people should give up and feel defeated because they don't get in and i think the waiting process probably makes that worse... that is how i feel anyway...
 
Add me to the list of premature Quest checkers. :p I've been checking every day this week, and I expect to be checking multiple times a day once next week rolls around. This is for sure a stressful time for all of us!! I have a feeling that decisions won't be made (or appear on Quest) for at least a couple of weeks though. :( ArrrrRRRRrrrrgh!
 
So do we wanna start placing bets on when the first "YA I GOT INTO WATERLOO YAHOO!" posts will start appearing?
 
Haha, glad to know i'm not the only one! I agree with everyone, i'm definitely not trying to get my hopes up too high, i mean it is a HUGE deal to get into waterloo so i'm not going to beat myself up if it doesn't happen, at least we have other options :).... still won't stop me from checking like a crazy person though lol
 
do they let everyone know at once or does it happen in waves over multiple days? does anyone know?
 
I really hope they change their ways and tell us in a single day. Anyone else think this friday will be the big day?
 
I have a feeling it will probably be this friday. This is going to be the longest week of my life!
 
i dont know, i think they are going to make us wait until next week. I mean if it were this friday then that would be so great! But i think we will be waiting longer..
I'll still be checking quest 3 times a day though just in case :p
good luck everyone!
 
ahhhh this is so cruel. i wish they just had told us a definitive day so at least we knew when to expect the news.... rahhh.
 
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