I applied to the University of Toronto Scarborough Life Sciences Co-op program. Two questions:

1. When is the deadline for receiving an offer?

2. I want to go to the St George campus instead. Is this possible? How can I set about doing this?

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Not even a hello? Ruuuude.

But anyway, did you know UTSC has their own aska-esque thing? I just discovered it a few days ago in my daily journeys across the interwebz. Or I might have googled myself. Yeah that. Anyhow, after getting over the inital “HOW DARE THEY?!” I noticed that it was really just aimed towards incoming students like yourself.

So deciding to try it, I searched for Question 1.

Greetingless Questioner: “When is the deadline for receiving an offer?”

UTSC’s Not as Awesome as askastudent Ask a Student: “Current Ontario high school students will receive a decision by early June. For all other applicants, admission decisions are made on an ongoing basis.”

So early June — although that seems weird to me because last I heard, Ontario high school students have to accept their offers by June 3.

Next:

Greetingless Questioner: “I want to go to the St George campus instead. Is this possible? How can I set about doing this?”

If you start off at UTSC, you’re going to have to do an internal transfer to go to St. George instead. You can take courses at St. George as a UTSC student, but to be a St. George-r, you need transfer. OR you can just do the thing where you take a year off (a.k.a. don’t go to UTSC) to ponder your past life choices and the future ones and then reapply to university, this time applying to specifically St. George.

Basically, although UTSC (and UTM, at that) go by the name of “University of Toronto,” they’re kind of these separate universities if you will. You can take a feeeew courses at campuses that are not your own, but for the most part, you’re encouraged to stay close to home.

But yeah.

Cheers!

aska

Hello askastudent,

I’m in my 3rd year and I go to UTSC where you have to get more than 1.6 to get out of probation. I am in a terrible mess. I was placed on probation end of April 2012 and in Fall 2012 my sessional gpa was 1.57. My winter semester looked okay until now, I tried calculating my gpa and it doesnt work out to 1.6. And just to make things worse, I have an unpaid tuition fee remaining of like 3,700 – which I only have about 2 weeks to pay off or else I will be denied? further registration for the entire year. Now I’m at risk of being suspended and denied further registration due to financial reasons. What should I do? Should I just take this year off? I don’t think I have much else I can do…

Signed,
Very worried UTSC student

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Very Worried UTSC Student,

Why do you say you’ll be denied registration for the entire year (2013-14)? From what I’m reading, you’re only really denied registration until you pay off the debt of the first year. So say you pay off your $3700 in June — theoretically, ROSI should allow you back in since you’re done with those payments… right?

Waaaaah UTSC policies confuse me.

But yeah, at the same time, your pending suspension is another deciding factor.

So should you take a year off? Maybe. That’s entirely up to you, but if you keep falling into this situation where a) you can’t keep up the grades that b) you are PAYING for, then there isn’t really a point in you being there right? Sorry. That might have been a little mean.

What I’m trying to say is that a year off can’t hurt. It’ll give you time to consider if university is actually for you. Likewise, it’ll give you time to make some moniez and be prepared for the next year so that you won’t be in the same unfortunate situation.

But keep your chin up! You never know how you’ll do this year in terms of whether or not suspension actually happens. 🙂

drowning in student loans,
aska

Hey there,

I’m a second year student at UTSC. My biggest problem right now is that I’m not sure what my other minor should be… I’m leaning towards Bio since I’m really interested in it and I’ve already got the intro courses done (transfer credits from high school). But the problem with that is that one of the courses which will pretty much unlock the ones I’d like to do (BIOB10Y) has a prerequisite that I failed (CHMA11 due to stress from a then unknown medical condition). While CHMA11 isn’t required to minor in Bio, do you think I could get by if I just register and get into BIOB10? Or do you think that would create any problems? Thanks so much.

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Yo!

So yeah BIOB10Y seems to be a necessity for this minor. However, without the prerequisite, you’ll have to either 1) well, get the prerequisite, or 2) beg the instructor to let you in.

But your program requirements for this bio minor would be 4.0 FCE — 1.0 of which must be BIOA01H and BIOA02H and another 1.0 must be in C or D series. It’s not totally impossible to finish the minor without BIOB10Y. For example you can do:

• BIOAo1H Life on Earth: Unifying Principles
• BIOA02H Life on Earth: Forms, Functions and Interactions
• BIOB31H Plant Physiology
• BIOB50H Ecology
• BIOB51H Evolutionary Biology
• BIOC54H Animal Behaviour
• BIOC62H Role of Zoos in Conservation
• BIOC63H Conservation Biology

See? Not impossible. 🙂

Cheers!

aska

Hi Aska,

I’m currently a first year management students at utsc but I have not been doing very well in my courses and I am afraid that I will be kicked out of the program. If I’m kicked out, do I still get a chance to apply for other programs? And how would I go about doing so?

Sincerely,
Distressed First Year

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Hey Distressed,

If you get “kicked out” of BBA Pre-Program, it’ll most likely to be the result of low grades… granted, for your situation a “low grade” could very well mean a “77” and here at UofT, there’s a grand number of students who would kill for something like that.But to be clear, all programs throughout the university will be looking at grades for admission, so just be careful to maintain your GPA as well as you can.

Now is there a reason you’re not doing particularly well? Not interested in the courses? Too many Thirsty Thursdays? Is Management actually for you? For now, take some electives. Test the waters, feel out the situation, take a look at the other side, yada yada yada. If you’re doing poorly, maybe management isn’t the program for you. But if it’s what you really want, then it’s time to work your butt off and isolate yourself into the deep crevices of the UTSC library (they exist — I’ve worked in them) and study hard!

But from what I’m reading, the Pre-Program seems to require you take some electives alongside those dreaded number-y course things so take advantage of that opportunity to take some that you’ll probably like and do well in. I mean that certainly can’t hurt your GPA, right?

And as an aside, I have a friend who was in your exact situation. I’m like 90% sure he was almost failing all of his courses. Somehow, however, he turned that around and has been taking six courses at a time and absolutely rocking them just to graduate next June. It gets better, my first-year friend. I mean, you haven’t even written your exams yet! Work hard for the next two weeks (and onward, obviously) and you’ll be fine. Good luck!

unnerved by numbers,

aska

Hi,

I’m taking POLA84H3- Globalization and Governance next semester. I was wondering about the difficulty of the course. Is it a lot of work? Is it a difficult course or fairly easy?

Any info or advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

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Hey hey!

Okay, I don’t really have anything concrete to tell you. I never took that course and I don’t know anyone who has. If you were at St. George I’d link you to the anti-calendar, but UTSC doesn’t have one of those so I’ll just test my luck on Google!

One Mr. “fenixconnexion” from some sketchy forum about UTSC bird courses claims:

POLA84H3. i had it with skrobacki (sp?)
you can get a good grade without buying the books and skipping lectures, just make sure you attend the tutorials, and work hard on the essay outline and actual essay. theres a good study guide provided for the final exam and you can use google to find everything out.

And that’s basically all I could find for you. But I read the course description and it sounds interesting!

Later days!

aska

Hello there,

I used to be a student in London, United Kingdom. For personal reason, I had to move to canada. I was very glad to be canada and in Uoft. Then, i bought a condo downtown to be close to university. little did I know, I was in scarborough campus which is like country side.To sum it up, it ruin my expectation about university life. so, is there any reason they sent my there is there any possibility to make a complain?

Best regards,

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Hey,

So, sure there is always a possibility to make a complaint, Canada has freedom of speech (do they not have that over in England … ). BUT they will just scoff at you and tell you to leave because unfortunately this was your doing, not the university’s.
It’s been many a moons since I’ve applied to university but it’s your responsibility to know what campus the program is being offered at and choose accordingly. From my recollection, the campus is in brackets after the program choice and if offered at multiple campuses you choose which you would prefer.

You can request an internal transfer after first year but that depends if the program you want is actually offered at the St.George campus.

suger and love,

aska

Hi, my name is Shaheen and I applied at UTSC for human biology for 2011 but I have a few questions first…

First of all, I’ve heard alot of bad things about UTSC. Rather than believe everything I hear, I decided to ask someone who actually has first hand experience. Is it true UTSC has the feel of a highschool? That there’s cliques and that highschool atmosphere?

Secondly, how boring is the campus really? I mean it’s in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the zoo around, right?

And thirdly, this question may seem a little strange but what are the student demographics at UTSC? Would you say the vast majority are South Asian?

Thank you so much 🙂

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Yo yo concerned UTSC-er,

It’s different experiences for different people … as is everything in life I guess.

It is a smaller campus, so its a little more intimate then the St.George campus, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it is similar to highschool.
I’ve actually never been to the campus, but I imagine they have activities planned and you can really make fun out of any situation. It’s university try new things (take this any way you want) and make your own fun.

I’m sure there are a few south asians wondering about, I’m not sure I would say the vast majority though.

St.George campus really is the solution to all your concerns. They have human biology, a decent asian population, massive and uncliquey (unless you count the engineers) and the city is non-stop adventures.

love,

aska