<p>I'm currently in the IB Diploma programme and will complete it upon graduation. I'm a Canadian citizen residing outside of Canada and attending a US accredited American international school. I've been given my predicted scores and they are lower than I expected. I have a lot of EC's and leadership positions but am told that schools like McGill (my dream school) do not look at the EC's...</p>
<p>Can someone please chance me for the following schools:
-University of Western Ontario: Richard Ivey School of Business
-University of British Columbia: Faculty of Arts & Science
-Queen's: Commerce
-McGill: Faculty of Arts & Science
-University of Toronto: Faculty of Arts & Science @ St.George</p>
<p>IB English A1 HL: 6
IB Math Studies: 5
IB Psychology SL: 6
IB History HL: 6
IB Spanish BSL : 6
IB Biology HL: 5
EE Predicted: 2</p>
<p>This might help other students who have around the same grades..
Also, is it true that McGill solely looks at the predicted scores and not your high-school transcript?</p>
<p>McGill Arts: Safety
U Toronto Arts: Safety (I assume that you want to declare majors that do not require Math SL)
UWO Ivey: Safety (because Ivey is not directly entered into)
UBC Arts/Sauder: Safety
Queen’s commerce: High reach (it demands Math SL with 5+)</p>
<p>@Catria, thank you so much for your prompt response. On UBC’s website, it says that math studies does not “meet the requirements”; is this just a recommendation for me to have Math SL or HL…or should I still apply with studies?</p>
<p>For UBC Sauder, I believe that you need to have SL/HL math, meaning that Math Studies does not satisfy the math criteria. I could be wrong here (I believe that was the case like 5 years ago when I applied). As for Arts, not sure if studies would be ok. But in terms of the website I believe for Sauder SL is a minimum. But you should really go and contact the adcom and figure that out from there. In terms of UBC/Sauder though, excellent institution. Had a great time during my 4 years there and Vancouver is an amazing city, so is the campus.</p>
<p>Edit: Realized did not answer your question Without knowing your EC’s its hard to tell your chances for Queens/Ivey/Sauder, but Ill give it a shot based on your grades. </p>
<p>McGill: Safety-Target, all they care about is your grades, no EC’s.
UofT: Safety, fairly easy to get into. With UofT if you don’t get into St. George they tend to offer admissions to another program.
UWO Ivey: Safety-Target, most likely safety assuming your EC’s are decent.
Queens: Arts Safety, Commerce no-go if they require a minimum of 5 on SL math. Canadian uni’s are very strict when it comes to their requirements. So even if you are a great applicant, if you dont met that one thing you wont get accepted.</p>
<p>The faculty of arts wants: B/B+ average in grades 10, 11 and 12; B+ in each
English and each prerequisite math and science.</p>
<p>Note that McGill mainly looks at your unweighted gpa rather than your weighted gpa. Essentially to get into Arts you shcould be fine if you have at least a 3.3 unweighted for grades 10-12.</p>
<p>Here are the IB score standards for McGill:</p>
<p>PS: the faculty of Arts and Science at UofToronto is very different than all others. It is essentially a giant catch all category for about 85% of undergraduate students that includes all students in all the humanities and and social sciences and physics. Pretty much the only thing that isn’t in A&S is engineering, business, medical school and graduate studies. Each department has very different requirements (eg. physics vs classics). Think of A&S at UofT as an amalgam of most universities Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Sciences for administrative reasons. Therefore saying you are applying to the faculty of arts and science at UofT doesn’t really mean much in terms of chancing you here because all it says is that you essentially are applying to an undergraduate degree that isn’t business or engineering.</p>
<p>For more detailed analysis of your chances at UofT please post the department you are interested in applying to. If like McGill you are more interested in an arts or social science, the requirements are pretty similar. Get a B+ average and with you IB score you should be fine.</p>
<p>Business schools are much more demanding to get into than Arts at pretty much any Canadian university.</p>
<p>Business schools are much more challenging to get into</p>
<p>Yes, McGill is my dream school. Math has always been my lowest grades though, from grades 10-12, I’ve always gotten around a C+ to a B-, my average for math would then probably be a C+…the reason why my non-weighted GPA is a 3.75-3.85 is because all my other subjects are all As. So for McGill, I have at least a B+ in my English and in my sciences (biology), but not at least a B+ in Math. I’m not looking to do anything “math related” at McGill, would this affect my chances of getting in? I’m applying as an IB Diploma student though, do they just look at my predicted? or do they look at GPA as well?</p>
<p>For UofT, I’m interested in doing economics first year and is what I have down in my OUAC app; should I change it to Poly-sci or International relations (IR)? I’m applying to A&S at UofT but chose Econ as my major, would that lessen my chances in comparison to if I put down Poly-sci or IR as a major?</p>
<p>I don’t think your low math marks will be a problem for arts at McGill. I think I may have mis-copied the end of the requirements for “Arts” from the “Arts and Science” requirements. “It only says B/B+ in each English” so sorry about that. Your grades and scores are fine so I have little doubt that you will get into McGill arts (As you exceed all the requirements for admission you are almost certain to get in, as it is very numbers based) so that’s pretty much your dream school in the bag off the bat, so Good for you!</p>
<p>As for UofT:
At UofT you apply to your major(s)- (Generally people do a double major or a specialist degree at UofT rather than the traditional 1 major+ 1 minor)- after your first year and your grades in your first year and whether or not you have taken all the required courses for your prospective major generally determine whether you get into that major, so what you apply within the Arts/Humanities/Social sciences right now probably will not make much of a difference on your chances, so I would say pick what you want and don’t be too worried, (just make sure to check that their isn’t a specific math requirement for economics before you apply). The real reason you apply to specific departments in freshman year is that they give you preferential start times to apply for their courses. UofT is a big university and for a lot of the basic first year courses there are often generally more applicants than spaces in the lecture, which means getting first dibs at these spots is really important in shaping what majors you can apply to at the end of the year. (and be warned, while 4th year class sizes are generally around 30-40 students at least some of your first year courses will have hundreds to even a thousand students- look for courses offered in Convocation Hall to be this size). That means although you could theoretically go from being in any department in Arts and Sciences to declaring a major in any other department also within A&S (eg. could be a philosophy student first year and declare a human biology major in second year with virtually no red tape) to do so you would have to have all the required first year courses to get into that major (eg. BIO150, CHM138, CHM139, ect. for human bio) and as most of the spots in these courses are taken up by freshmen within the department who have first dibs on these courses, you coming from an outside department could find that the courses are already full before you get access to apply to them.</p>
<p>In short it is possible to do the strategy where you apply to a less competitive department within A&S just to get into the university and then declare a major in another department at the end of freshman year, but it would mean that you might have to take one or two of the required courses for said major over the summer because you were not able to get into them during the year.</p>
<p>If you have a solid shot at getting into the department you really want out of high school it is generally a much simpler and potentially cheaper strategy (summer courses cost extra).</p>
<p>I would assume gpa matters as it does for Canadian and US applicants, but I honestly cant say for certain for the IB program since I am pretty unfamiliar with how UofT or McGill handle IB applicants. Anyway your gpa is fine so it certainly wont hurt your chances. Your best bet would to be to contact the admissions department at each university.</p>
<p>I included that long answer about UofT, because as an alumnus I just want you to be aware of the fairly extensive bureaucracy that can be there. This is because UofT is a very big university, easily one of the biggest in North America (McGill is also pretty large at about 30k students), but Uoft is about 50 0000 students on its main campus (St. George) and 20 000 on its satellite campuses (who often have courses on the main campus as well). You have to be prepared to navigate the system of things like choosing your course load (For first year this isn’t a big problem because everyone in a given department generally takes the same core set of freshman courses, but in later years you have to read over the course calender very carefully so you know what the prerequisites and co-requisites of each course you are interested in) and signing up for courses (pick you courses ahead of time and sign up right AT your start time, don’t delay because spots fill up fast!). The upshot of this is that if you look carefully you can often find some useful info that can really help you structure your majors efficiently (ie. you can sometimes find courses that can cover a requirement on each of your majors, since at upper years you generally have more flexibility to pick your courses from a list that satisfies a certain requirement for your major).</p>