hey aska,
Allow me to start off by saying thanks to the aska team for the time and effort they put into answering all of these questions, and adding some great humour and jokes to the responses!
So, I’m a first-year student in University College and I was interested in applying for Vic’s Concurrent Education program for 2nd year entry. I’m already enrolled in PSY100, SOC103, and I’ll finish first-year w/ a 5FCE, so I have all the course requirements. What I really wanna know is how can I increase my chances of getting into the program? I know that a cumulative GPA of at least 2.7 is required, but what is considered a good/competitive GPA for the program? I also know I have to complete an applicant profile. I’m worried b/c in grade 12, I applied for York’s first year Con-Ed program and I got rejected, and I don’t know if it was b/c of my profile or b/c my average was 82%. I have experience from working on school committees, tutoring elementary students, and I volunteer a lot. But all that experience is either from grade 12 or earlier. If I got rejected from York, does that mean I’m most likely to be rejected from UofT’s program? I also read somewhere that they only admit 15 students to the VIC program!!! If I DO get accepted (praying), will my college change from UC to VIC? OH and if I complete a minor from the education program, can I still do 2 majors for my degree?
Thanks so so so much for the help!
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hey there,
you guys are just messing with me now, right calling me a ‘team’ and stuff’ pretending like there’s a WHOLE INSTITUTION behind this blog? hehe, oh, you guys…(no but seriously thanks for the props man, that’s super cool of you).
onto your question. you’ve got a lot of them, so i’m just gonna go in order:
1. what is a good/competitive GPA?
i’ve looked around, and there don’t seem to be any official/unofficial opinions about this, but if you’re well above 2.7 (like at least a 3.3), i’d say you’re competitive.
2. how far back does your volunteer/extra-curricular experience go?
CTEP doesn’t require a specific resume, so you don’t have to date everything you’ve done. according to this (no longer available) guide to fulfilling the applicant profile, the questions are pretty general, so i think you could definitely use high school experiences as part of those answers. also, you’ve only had one year of university – the school can’t expect you to have enough experiences from just that to fill a whole application, so don’t worry about it.
3. what are your chances of getting in?
according to this (which, admittedly, is from 2007, but these stats don’t tend to change by more than a few percentages every year), the admission rate for concurrent ed was 16%. that’s almost 1/5th of people! so don’t panic too much. it’s definitely not easy, but it’s not impossible if you work hard. there’s no way to tell whether you’ll get in based on being rejected from york, and honestly, i wouldn’t focus on that. just make your first year as awesome as possible to increase your chances, and that’s all you can do! just keep trying your best, man, that’s my motto.
4. will your college change?
nope!
5. can you do two majors along with the Education & Society minor?
maybe. consider it carefully before you go ahead with it, though. first year is a great litmus test for figuring out how much you can handle, and you should use it to make sure you don’t go overboard in your subsequent years. i’d say it’s doable if you really want to, but if you’re making a compromise between programs you feel like you have to do and ones you feel you want to do, then don’t do it. also, consider the fact that your other program(s) will be complementing your B.Ed. so the things you study should, ideally, be the things you also want to teach.
best of luck! your bud,
aska
P.S. some of these questions are subjective so if you’re a current CTEP student and have something to add, please leave a comment!