I think it would be highly risky to pass up Toronto, and unlikely that you’d then get anything better as a transfer in the US (especially as UMich was too expensive).
So I would go to Toronto and if you really want another option, do the MAT and throw in an application to Oxford and Imperial/UCL for 2024. You’d have to start again there as a first year but could make that decision at the time: it’s a three year course so might just about come within budget (note that at Oxford straight math is cheaper than math with CS).
Just want to drop in here as a Canadian and as a Torontonian and say that going to UTSC will not provide the same student experience as many residential colleges and universities in the US and Canada. U of T Scarborough is largely a commuter campus and has very limited residences for undergraduates. Residence is guaranteed for all first-year students, but again, this campus is largely seen as a commuter campus and many of your classmates will not take advantage of this. There are less than 200 apartments available as part of residence at UTSC for upper year students. How would you feel about moving off-campus in your second year in the second-most competitive (and second-most expensive) housing market in the country, and one of the most expensive rental markets in North America?
You seem to be interested in a LAC environment based on your list of schools - UTSC will not provide this. U of T St. George (main campus) can provide this experience, kind of (it has a ginormous student population, but can be made to feel smaller through the college system - details here: About the Colleges | Faculty of Arts & Science). UTSC will not be a “school spirit” type of school.
The grade deflation really is that bad at U of T, unfortunately.
Is the alternative to take a gap year? Do you have some plans regarding what you might do during a gap year?
If you and your family are willing to drop a bit on the “famous and highly ranked” scale, and if you are willing to wait until next year, then I think that we can recommend many universities in both the US and Canada that are likely to be affordable and where admissions is realistic. Otherwise you might need to go with whichever is the best fit among the schools that you have already been accepted to.
I thought that you said above (if I am remembering correctly) that you were accepted to Waterloo. What happened with that? Did you tell them you were not coming, or is that still an option? Was it too expensive? What major were you accepted to?
Op is on a modified Southern calendar, which means she applied a couple months before the end of 11th grade to try&follow the Northern hemisphere calendar (and was trying to complete ALevels in less time than usual on top of it). She now has her 12th grade results, which can be used to apply, ie., it wouldn’t be a gap year but the most common situation for a student with that type of calendar.
Okay, this helps. So if the southern calendar is just the same as ours but flipped 6 months, it would sound like one option is to take 1/2 a year off (not too bad to get aligned with the northern calendar) and reapply.
In this case to me it sounds like it should be possible to find something that is a better fit that UT Scarborough, with less grade deflation, and that is still affordable. It will however require reapplying to a new set of universities in our fall (their spring I suppose), and waiting a while.
Which leads to the question of where the safeties should be. There are a large number to choose from and they will in many cases not be famous. If the reaches are famous, then might be easier to pick out.
For Waterloo, I declined the offer as it was too expensive. About CAD55000 for tuition fee itself, excluding the scholarship I got from Waterloo(CAD20k over four years [i think it’ll be spread equally] and another CAD2000 for the first year). As compared to UTSC(tuition fee of about CAD62000; Got 180k scholarship/4 years +extra CAD7500/first year), it didn’t appear as attractive as UTSC. Hence I declined the offer from Waterloo.
When I applied last year, I was firm with studying mathematics since I would want to have a solid foundation in mathematics in order to get into AI-related postgraduate programs. And also the fact that the math degree is pretty versatile, and can offer many opportunities.
Recently I became more industry-oriented and am thinking of studying computer science instead. (It would be easier to get a lucrative job.) And if I want to have a strong foundation in university-level math, I can just take more challenging math classes in university.
My country’s school calendar is: eg. January 2017- November 2017, December 2017 being a one-month holiday. There will be short one-week holidays in between Jan and Nov.
In grades 7-11, my calendar was the typical January-November schedule.
Due to COVID, our O levels exams were in March 2022 instead of November 2021. (Hence graduating in March 2022).
For grade 12, I got a full scholarship and enrolled at an international school that follows the Western calendar (My August/September 2022- June/July 2023). I applied to the UK and US in October 2022-January 2023. Applied to Canada in February 2023.
============================================
I didn’t know the difference of the campuses of UofT when I applied, as I learnt that the campuses are equally amazing and beautiful (from QUORA). I also read that it is quite easy to switch between campuses so I just applied to math coop that time.
After I got my offer with the scholarship(which I did not expect), I learnt about the grade deflation of UofT and other voices that I have not heard previously. For the UTSC scholarship, I have to stay in the same faculty and campus, otherwise it will be revoked.
After some research, I noticed that UTSC is the most generous with scholarships(as compared to the competitive main campus, St George. )
Going straight from OLevels in March 2022 to 12th grade in 2022-23 also hurt your application.
(Highly selective Us colleges, especially, do not like academic acceleration. I’m sure there was a reason but if your GC didn’t articulate it as an imperative rather than a choice, it would not have been seen as a positive.)
Applying now should yield different results.
What’s your list like? Are you still in contact with your 12th grade teachers and will they be able to give more detailed, more personalized recommendations?
I think that this is a very good combination (math + CS). However, I may be biased since this was what I did as a math major. It did work out well for me.
If you are going to take a gap year, then you might want to both think about what to do during the gap year, and also what universities to apply to for the next round. I do think that you would want to apply to a mostly different set of universities the next time around.
My first reaction is that life is not a race, and it might make sense to take a gap year and find a better fit. However, I can see that this is not an easy decision.
Yeah unfortunately it is not preferable, my reasons are as follows:
Travelling between my grade 12 school from my house to and fro is very costly as it is very far (about 45 minutes drive). No cheaper options(such as bus service) as the area of my school is like a new town(used to be very rural). Though it is a boarding school, but the boarding fee is just as expensive as living in a hotel here (about RM250/day for boarding).
I did not like studying slowly (as in going through topics really slowly). I love learning and so I would normally study or read up a lot on the topic I’m interested in. Also because I am quite good in last-minute revisions, I didn’t like ‘wasting time’ in class.
People in my country usually enter university later than other countries as we enter primary school at 7 compared to 5 in the UK. So I was a bit anxious about my age. Also, I thought if I were to graduate earlier, I can ‘afford’ to have a gap year travelling, volunteering, explore different programs and opportunities.
I actually joined an accelerated A level course in April 2022-august 2022 at a different school before I received a scholarship from my new grade 12 school. The previous school did not offer further math(important for math major) for my intake and I was thinking of applying to math courses in the UK, so I transferred when I received the 2-year full tuition scholarship. I enrolled as a year 12 student and was prepared to start all over again as I thought I would benefit from the extracurriculars of the new school. however, after a few weeks, I was a little discontented with the pace and requested to join Year 13. Another factor is that the clubs/extracurriculars that the new school promoted were not active at all (DOES NOT EVEN EXIST, I feel betrayed). Though the new school gave us freedom to create new clubs or such, I learnt that the ‘support’ they provide was not very helpful (most of the time they were not really responsive, thus it was really difficult to plan things out and carry out activities). Hence I thought I would be better off doing stuff outside school than sit in the class for 2 years. {tbh quality-wise, I prefer the old school teaching ‘style’, they were more professional.}
My school thought the only reason is that I took the accelerated course. (But I actually self studied A2 math, and some other topics of the other subjects the Year 13 students covered before their summer break. So it was really intense for me and so I did not do much extracurriculars. [something i regret a lot])
Also trying to convince myself and my mom to take a gap year. My parents want me to try out the China university first and if I really can’t handle studying math and computer science in Chinese, they are fine with me reapplying. But the thing is that many US colleges do not accept students who have matriculated at another college(even institutions abroad) to apply as first year, and can only apply as a transfer student(which is harder for aid-giving colleges as they tend to focus more on CC students.)(Many colleges don’t even give aid to international transfers even if they are need-blind/need-aware for international first-years.)
The last time I talked to them was during our graduation ceremony. I do have their personal contacts but have not contacted them as I was busy researching about schools and joining summer school this July. My physics teacher is leaving my grade 12 school to another country, while my math teacher is staying.
I don’t think my math LOR is going to be strong as he described me as a ‘smart and terse person+ math competition girl’ (because I proposed many competitions to the school and they did sign me up for some but not all though I am willing to pay) on the last day of school when my friends and I + him were having a conversation.
(Quite sad because in class when he was stuck explaining some concepts, I was the one who explained it to the class. And I did ask interesting math-related questions in class). Though most of the time in class I am comprehending math stuff in my head and would normally google for answers than consult teachers(the trend: my classmates would ask each other subject-related questions even if the teacher is in class, unoccupied, because it will be explained in 5 minutes than 1 hour of contemplating and wrong guesses.) (It may be a little rude to say but it is faster and more accurate)
[ not sure if it is a common thing but in my school, we have a pure math teacher, statistics teacher, and mechanics teacher just for the MATH subject. So we don’t really see each other as often as one would think. For physics we have two teachers.]
unfortunately it is not preferable, my reasons are as follows: