treaclemineroad

I just remembered this forum existed! Probably this offer is ill-timed since most will have already made their decisions, but just in case: I am a recent grad from the McGill SLP program, if anyone has any questions from the POV of making a decision between schools, feel free to send me a message/reply to this.

I want to clarify this information on two points: - The applications are closed to international applicants who do not already reside in Canada. If you already live in Canada, you can still apply. - The fall practicum for 1st year students has been renegotiated since I posted this information. There now exists a practicum for the fall semester of first year. Which, by the way, is very early practicum exposure for this program -- it's pretty cool to be getting hands-on experience right out of the gate! Sorry for flooding this thread with info about this but apparently I've already stressed out a couple of hopeful applicants -- sorry about that!

Hello hopeful SLPs! I'm a current second-year student at the McGill SLP program. We just got some info that I thought this thread could benefit from. I don't know if this information has been publicized yet, but I wanted to make sure it was out there ASAP. Quebec has changed some laws to do with criminal record checks, and it means two main things for our program, as I understand it: - The program has CLOSED applications for international students, at the very least for the 2018-2019 school year but possibly longer. - Practicum placements for the 2018-2019 school year will be delayed until the Winter 2019 semester for first-year students. This is a huge change to the practicum schedule and to be honest, I would not want in on this. This is all to do with having to have a criminal record check from Quebec, for which you need a Quebec address. I've passed this along to you guys because if I was an incoming student, I would very much want to know this for making a decision about which school I would attend. In my book, this would be a dealbreaker.

Sorry for the delayed response, but just in case you're still wondering -- I don't know if it's common, since I'm dealing with a sample size of one class. They both left quite suddenly, so I didn't hear their rationale. Life comes up, I think. Hypothetically, I can see the program having a high potential to conflict with anything else that might come up. I mean, it's a grad program. Someone also asked for my stats but since acceptance season is over, I doubt you still want them? PM me for them if I'm wrong.

To inform the McGill stat: I think they aim for about 27 students in a class but we had 31 students back in the fall (... 29 now).

I like it a lot, I was able to find a much nicer place for the same amount of money relative to the last place I'd lived (a basement apartment in Ottawa). It's a lot quieter than anything you'd get in the middle of town. People are friendlier than in the middle of town -- which has sometimes caught me off guard because I don't always understand thicker Quebecois accents, lol. The proportion of people who can be automatically expected to speak English is dramatically reduced relative to the city centre, which is nice if you want to have some eternal motivation to force yourself to speak French. I don't know if you drive or not, but if you don't, if you're reasonably close to the green line (which runs from Honore-Beaugrand to Angrignon, and has a McGill station along its route), the commute's not even that bad -- the bulk of my commute is the bus ride TO the closest green line station. The area I'm in specifically (Mercier-Ouest, but even people who live in Montreal don't necessarily know where that is, so I generally say Hochelaga-Maisonneuve) is particularly endearing because it has a lot of young families and a lot of cultural diversity. When we're talking about long commutes, the real relevance of that is for practicum placements. If you end up wanting to get an English practicum placement within Montreal for one of the major practicum placements (eg in the spring after first year), and you live on the east (French) side, that's when the commute can be particularly daunting. Granted that is a big "if" -- most people do not stay in Montreal for spring practicum. Hi sbog, I'm sorry to be useless again but I believe everyone in my class has lived in Canada for at least 5 years before starting at McGill, and I don't know of anyone who is planning on working in the states after graduation. Although this link https://www.mcgill.ca/scsd/programs/slp/appliedmasters/certification says that SAC & ASHA have an agreement for mutually acceptable certification. I don't know if that's helpful, but I don't know any more than that.

Hi! Very few people do the research option, in fact nobody in my year is doing it. (Unless they've kept it very secret?? This is wildly unlikely.) I'm sorry, I can't remember how long you have to decide, they told us at orientation and it hasn't been mentioned since. Since nobody in my year expressed any interest, I don't know anything about funding either. Sorry, I hadn't planned on being so useless! I can tell you how the first year is going, at least. It's really great. McGill's SCSD is a great, tight-knit community, very mutually supportive. Most of the academic content is in first year (and most of that is distributed in the Fall semester). I'd say in general it's more time-consuming than hard, I think is the best way to describe it. There's a huge focus on group work, if you don't love group work already you're going to have to learn to love it. Grades honest-to-goodness barely matter -- you'll get to stop caring about that coveted perfect GPA soon! I am feeling extra useless today because I'm an outlier in terms of lodging -- I chose to go for the long commute, cheap rent and the immersive french community, so I'm out in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. I can't in good conscious suggest that to someone who is not me, especially because it's nowhere near any of the practicum locations. In terms of neighbourhoods closer to campus... I feel like a lot of it is just personal preference? I know for a fact a couple of my classmates are lurking here, though, so maybe they'll jump in something more useful to say in terms of neighbourhoods.

Hi guys, I just wanted to give a quick hello to all those SLP kids potentially coming to McGill starting in Fall 2017. I'm currently in my first year at McGill so if you have any questions, I'm up for it.

Random bit of advice for people going to Western -- if you can, get a different source of water than London tap water, that stuff's absolutely revolting. I used to get stomachaches after drinking even a small amount. While living in London Hall, actually, speaking of residences.

Thanks for offering advice! My biggest question right now is which neighbourhoods are cheapest for renting, but maybe you don't know that info, since you say you've never rented. I expect that living day-to-day, I'll be able to get by on the level of French I have. It's just working I'm worried about. I just committed to McGill, deposit and all, and turned down Dal and Alberta, fingers crossed that my spots go to someone on here who's still waiting.

I don't suppose anyone can offer similar assistance/resources for Montreal? Honestly I'm slightly intimidated about going to live in Montreal, especially since I consider my French to be intermediate at best (at least for spoken language).

Ha, aww, yeah I know what you mean. It'd be pretty cool to start out grad school with pre-established buddies. I already know someone who is going to be in the McGill class, although I don't know him very well (at the very least, we know the class isn't going to be 100% female, lol). I'm sure you'll get into U of Toronto no problem, though. Follow your dreams/listen to your heart/do the right thing (my advice tends to be very generic, what can I say?).

Good news, McGill's deadline to accept offers of admission have been extended to April 7th. So, they are no longer forcing a decision before U of Toronto starts sending out offers, which was ridiculous. I will most likely be going with McGill, which will mean an open spot for the Dal and U of Alberta waitlisters. I haven't done it yet, though.

Looks like they're starting today, actually. Just got an offer of admission from Alberta.

Huh. Well, I don't really know how to explain why they overlooked the bad grades of my past. It was a different university, on a different major, and I took two years off before I transferred and started fresh, so... I dunno, I really don't. It's a ~mystery. I can only guess at their thought processes. You'd think they'd value improvement.