Canadian student in need of feedback.

[mystro]

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I just have a quick question for applying. Is a 75% CDN avg. competitive? I'm not sure what this is in US GPA, because each school is different, and they all say the same thing, like send in my transcript and the committee checks it out or something. I will have 4 references though. 2 Optometrists that i have volunteered with, a professor at a vision research lab, and a professor. Maybe even a grad student if that is useful. If anyone can knows anyone from Canada that applied to the US, if he or she could contact me that'd be a lot of help! I'm just not sure where I stand, and how hard it is to get into US. I know it's pretty darn hard to get into Waterloo. But i'm going to try NEWENCO, PCO, Ohio, New York, Indiana and Chicago. (I think these are all) Also, i'm only 3rd year, and most of those places require a degree. IF i apply in my 3rd year, but require more hours, can they guarantee me a spot? Thanks for all the help everyone.

Mystro

 

[HighlyFanatic]

as a canadian i can say your competitive!

 

[I-Ball]

Wow, I'm almost in the exact same boat as you... I don't know If I can be of any help, but I think it'd be best to ask the indiviual schools. You can also check their average entrance marks. I think they all use a standard 4.0 scale, so convert your GPA to that and see where you stand (I'd assume it'd be a 3.0). Are you going to apply to Waterloo? I want to but I'm thinking it's futile... and finally (sorry to threadjack) but does anyone think (if you're applying with a slightly low GPA you hope to have increase over the next year) that applying early on in the admissions procedure may be detrimental to your application? TIA

 

[acurael]

you should be competitive for US schools. Do well on your OAT and you should be in no problem.
Waterloo....well thats another story 🙄

 

[I-Ball]

Does anyone know WHAT exactly it is that makes a low GPA competitive at Waterloo. They claim to have accepted 3.0's but I assume it happens with irregularity. What else do they want from us?

 

[acurael]

not sure what they want for a low gpa applicant (maybe just the application fee 😛 )

i sent u a pm

 

[drbizzaro]

Does anyone know WHAT exactly it is that makes a low GPA competitive at Waterloo. They claim to have accepted 3.0's but I assume it happens with irregularity. What else do they want from us?

my friends from canada (i know 2 from waterloo optometry), and they say that at the beginning of the year they show the cut off for the grades, and the last 2 years it was cut off at 84 or 85%

the 75% is only to get people to pay money to apply

my friends who got in were maintaining gpas of 95 and 93% overall. and they both got over 390 in the OAT overall

so 75% is a crap GPA for uw... apply to boston!

 

[jd4me]

I think that they'd want to see that your marks are improving, or have improved over time. For example, they'd look at your gpa much more favourably if you started out with a lowish gpa and then each year or each semester it slowly got higher and higher. On the other hand, if your marks get lower as time goes on, then that would not look good at all. So basically if you have decent marks make sure that you show improvement.

 

[Katalio]

drbizzaro,

can you approxiamate how much does it cost in total (including food, living, transportation, books, equipment, tuition ) to earn OD degree over the 4 yrs?....

 

[drbizzaro]

drbizzaro,

can you approxiamate how much does it cost in total (including food, living, transportation, books, equipment, tuition ) to earn OD degree over the 4 yrs?....

ok... i'll do both canadian and US (through conversions)

year 1 (books, living, tuition, and fees) = 42, 290
year 2 = 41, 429
year 3 = 43, 547
year 4 = 44, 444

obtained through http://www.ne-optometry.edu/admissions/tuition.asp

so for a US citizen: 171 710.00 dollars

convert that to canadian = > 226,880.42 (as of july 24, 2004)

so if you are canadian, you better have a spare family sized house to spare to do the schooling.

 

[acurael]

yup thats about right
it varies a bit for each school
ICO is like 175k, Pacific 165k....but rmb that is only an estimation....some schools might underestimate, others overestimate(unlikely)

 

[drbizzaro]

yup thats about right
it varies a bit for each school
ICO is like 175k, Pacific 165k....but rmb that is only an estimation....some schools might underestimate, others overestimate(unlikely)

true, but that guy only wanted an estimate anyways..

i'd say for a canadian- they should be able to bring out 250,000.00 for comfortable spending (ie. going to formal dances, going out, buying clothes, etc)

(but that's just for a person like me who likes to spend)