Hi DeafAudi,
Last year I applied only to Dal. My original plan was to also apply to U of T and McGill, but I decided to focus on Dal and spend the time writing an honours thesis and boasting my gpa rather than taking the pre-reqs required for the other schools. I am 28 and my poor hubby has been supporting me as I have been doing the school thing later in life haha! So I'm going to try again this year and I am also going to apply to OT and Social Work as a back up plan. I'm hoping for the best and I'm going to keep working my butt of to raise my average as I think that's my biggest barrier! I plan to re-take the GRE too.
My current GPA is about 3.5 (4.3 scale) and I'm hoping to bring it to 3.6 or 3.7 Although I know that many applicants have higher! I am hoping that my work, travel and volunteer experience will make up for my low gpa. I have been volunteering with an SLP and Audi team for about a year now and I'm going to continue and try to get more experience working directly with clients. This summer I have been working as a job coach for adults and older teens with Autism which has taught me a lot and I think I will write about it in my letter of intent. I have some volunteer experience from the past 5 years - tutoring in a literacy program and teaching English in China, I spent 6 months in Kenya volunteering and I also worked with children with special needs in child care. I'm trying to decide if I should take up another volunteer position this fall or if I should just focus on my courses!
Anyway, how about you? What kind of volunteering are you planning on doing?
Good luck with UBC!