hey aska! hope university hasn’t started to crush your soul in indescribable ways! i was wondering if there is any recommended number of volunteering hours to get into uoft? i hear a lot of horror stories where a guy has practically perfect marks, but doesn’t get in because of the absence of those hours. thanks much!
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hey there,
class hasn’t started at the time of writing this, though the anticipation/anxiety of going back is probably doing me some serious psychological damage. thanks for asking, though.
about your question: trust me, i take no pleasure in doing this. it’s no fun having to crush the rumours that run rampant through high schools across the country, spread by well-meaning do-gooders who just want more people to volunteer for stuff.
however, the fact is that extra-curricular and volunteer experience almost never affect your admission to uoft. if you’re an ontario high school student, you’ll apply to university using ouac’s 101 form. the 101 form takes your grades and some clerical information (name, address, etc.) but does not require a resume or summary of volunteer hours or anything like that.
your volunteering experience may be helpful if you apply to one of the colleges within uoft that needs a supplementary application (trinity, victoria), or for certain programs (rotman commerce, for example, has certain additional application requirements), but extra-curricular and volunteer experience has no bearing on whether your’re admitted into most programs at this university.
generally speaking, the only thing every program requires is good marks in your top 6 4U/M courses including prerequisites. (though i encourage you to look up specific requirements for your area of interest on this handy-dandy admissions site).
those people telling you horror stories? yeah, they’re probably lying. at the very least, they’re distorting and confusing the facts to freak people out unnecessarily. sorry about that. that is not a cool thing to do. aska disapproves.
best,
aska