AP credit for prereqs at Waterloo?

[dawnfirenight]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey all! Quick question that I hope a UWSO student/applicant may be able to help me with - does anyone know if Waterloo accepts AP credit in place of a general biology prereq course? After spending a couple hours' quality time with the search function and with Google (when I SHOULD have been studying for the OAT, ha) I haven't been able to turn up any answers about Waterloo, and it seems like the policy is different for every school.

Long story short, my uni has two general bio courses, one of which I took in first year, and the other for which I have transfer credit here at my uni because I took AP Bio in high school and got a 5 on the exam. Since it wasn't required for my degree, I didn't see the point in taking the course again in uni, until I started looking into optometry and realized I needed two bio courses as prereqs. I figured I might as well take it here since I had room, but it's restricted to first-year students for another month and there's a grand total of 12 spaces left in the course (out of about 600 seats). I'm going into fourth year and this is my last chance to take it, so...here's hoping I can just use my transfer credit and call it a day.

Anyone got insight? I emailed the Waterloo admissions office, but I haven't gotten a response yet, so it'd be nice to find out soon so I can rework my schedule for next year. 🙂 Thanks.

 

[hutch]

I'm really not sure...
http://www.optometry.uwaterloo.ca/prospective/od/academicrequirments.html#prerequisite try this and click on the bio course to read the calendar description and see if it matches up.
Otherwise, I'd write the school again if it's been awhile since you first wrote. Marie Amodeo would be the best one to ask.

 

[dawnfirenight]

Thanks for the response, hutch. 🙂 I'm fairly certain that both Bio courses will be acceptable as prereqs, since their course descriptions are similar to the ones on the link you posted. Mostly I'm just wondering whether it'll be good enough for Waterloo that my undergrad uni gave me credit for one because of AP, even though I haven't actually taken the course and gotten a university grade in it. I've searched the UW website high and low, and although I did find that Waterloo grants AP credit for one of their bio courses if you've taken the AP exam, it didn't say anything about the policies for using AP credit for opto prereqs in place of actually taking the university course. If that makes sense.

 

[dawnfirenight]

I'm answering my own question, now that Waterloo has gotten back to me via email, in case any other prospective Waterloo OD student has this question in the future and wants to know the answer!

According to the email I received:

We will consider awarding transfer credits for AP courses in which
normally a minimum final grade of 4 is attained. You will be
required to provide us with an official transcript for the AP course
which indicates your grade when you apply. We do not look at
transfer credits assigned by other universities.

They go on to say that, because I took a bio course and have AP credit for another, I have satisfied the prereqs. Makes my life easier!