Hello! I am applying for U of T soon and I was wondering about the degree combinations. If I complete two majors (I believe you pick your two programs/majors after the first year on ACORN? Please feel free to correct me) how long does it take? Is it the standard 4 years as a double major? I’m planning on taking English and Psychology, if that helps 🙂 Sorry if this is a dumb question! I’m a very confused high school student
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hey friendo,
it’s all right to be confused, and this isn’t a dumb question at all! some students get to this school not even knowing program selection after first year is a thing. trust me, you’re ahead of the curve on this one, and it’s super great that you’re taking this into account now.
u of t basically only offers honours degrees. what this means is that to graduate with a bachelor’s here, you need to undertake one of the following program combinations:
- a specialist
- two majors
- a major and two minors
what you ultimately decide on, among these three options, won’t affect how long it’ll take you to graduate. u of t has set this system up so that all three can be completed within 20.0 credits. each course you take for a semester counts as half a credit, so if you take five courses in fall and five in winter, that adds up to four school years. in fact, you can even add a minor to a double major and still finish in four years, if there’s enough overlap between those programs. keep in mind that there is a limit of three programs total, though.
tl:dr a double major in english and psychology is fully doable in 4 years, if that’s how long you’re planning to take to complete your undergrad! an english major is a type 1 program, which basically means anyone can enrol in it– a psych major is a type 2L, which indicates that there’s a specific grade threshold you need to meet in order to be considered for enrolment. type 2L programs have a cap on how many students they can accept, so it would be best to aim for a grade higher than that threshold to make your chances of getting in better. in fact, the department recommends that you come up with a backup program, just in case admission doesn’t work out for you.
since you’re looking at two different program types, you should be aware of two different program enrolment periods. typically, you can begin requesting programs at the end of winter semester– the dates vary a lil every year. i’m linking you here to last year’s program request periods, just so you have an idea of what they might look like. this year’s have yet to be posted, but i’m sure if you check again later on, they should be up by february at the latest.
best of luck with your application! you know where to find me if you have any other questions.
be Boundless,
aska