Hi! I’m currently in year 12, I study IB and my Higher Levels are Psychology, Sports Exercise and Health Science, and Art. I’m planning to apply to uoft to study clinical psychology in the future but then found out BIO is required after some research. Now I’m confused about this because the websites gave me different answers, one telling me that the only requirements are Calculus and English, and another saying that biology is required too. (if that’s the case would SEHS still be acceptable?)
hey there,
yeah, several people have asked this question before. those admission websites can be so confusing, they’ve got to fix that!
the tldr is that you don’t need bio 12 for admissions, but you’ll need it to go into second year.
admissions
let me explain. when you apply to u of t, you don’t actually apply to a specific program, like biochemistry or immunology, or psychology. instead, you apply to a general “admission category“. basically, all 300ish undergrad programs at the UTSG campus are categorized into 6 admission categories:
- computer science
- humanities
- life sciences
- physical and mathematical sciences
- rotman commerce
- social sciences
you can follow these links to see a list of programs under each admission category. your admission category is what you’ll actually put into your OUAC application, so admission category requirements are the only requirements you’ll need to worry about for now.
if you want to get in to the u of t psychology program, you’ll be applying under the “admission category” of life science. although the psychology requirements website says that you need biology, calculus, and english, the life science requirements website says you only need calculus and english. so for admissions, you only need calculus and english.
program enrolment
HOWEVER, you will need to complete biology 12 to enrol in your psychology program after first year. this is because everyone at u of t actually enrols in their POSt (program of study) when they go into second year. for some POSts, you automatically get in, but many others require pre-requisites or grade minimums. psychology is unfortunately the latter.
assuming you’re hoping to take the psychology major, this means you’ll need to first take PSY100 (the first year psych class at u of t) and get above 75%. you’ll also need to have passed grade 12 calculus and grade 12 biology.
biology equivalents
i recommend you read through the bottom of this page, where it covers biology equivalents and other options. here, it says that they accept IB biology courses, including standard and higher level classes. since i didn’t take IB myself, i’m not sure if SEHS would be counted. you said it’s a higher level IB course, but my question is — is it specifically a biology course?
you can figure that out. but if not, you are able to directly check by sending an email to psy.ug-assistant@utoronto.ca .
anyways, i hope this cleared things up, good luck with everything!
over and out,
aska