l_c

I also found out today that I'm officially wait-listed. Does anyone know how many people are typically on the U of T wait list, and how much movement there was in previous years? I'm not sure if I should call this one a lost cause for this year and move on, or maintain hope. If you've been on the wait list previous years and had input, I'd appreciate any advice!

Hi, Shrek, and welcome! You get a U of T student number assigned to you when you apply to any program, regardless of acceptance. To see what yours is, sign-in to your account on the School of Graduate Studies website (where you completed your application), click on "view details" under actions (on the right), then "application summary" (third link down). Your student number should be right under your applicant number, and is noted as "reported student number." Hope that helps, and good luck!

Haha, ME TOO. You wouldn't believe the volume of Google searches I've done this afternoon :-) And whatever happens for us, it will be okay. There _are_ options!

Congratulations, DreamingMSW! And for all my talk of just "wanting to know," right now I'm wishing I didn't know that I could check ROSI. No status change for me either. I'm hopeful that this means wait listed with hope as opposed to an outright rejection. In my head I'm trying to rationalize things like "what if they started at a different end of the alphabet?" so the letter next week will at least give me a clear, unambiguous answer that my brain can't twist irrationally.

Great post, DreamingMSW! You have a realistic, positive perspective on this process, and that's something I've found hard to maintain - especially at this point! As I keep telling myself: "everything will be okay in the end. And if it's not okay, it's not the end." (Not sure who said that because the internet is in disagreement, but it helps me to repeat it.) Good luck, everyone!

Me too, b39 - my hope is that it's too soon for ROSI to show changes, and that's just a placeholder. Either way, I'm looking forward to knowing in the next week so that I can move ahead with my plans. Whether it's planning for school or planning to reapply, getting rid of the uncertainty that's causing so much anxiety will be a big help.

Totally agreed with all the thanks above, supu! So helpful to have a date. I keep checking ROSI because I'm crazy anxious - I hope that if anyone sees a change on their acocunt, they post it here!

KatRousi, thank you so much for posting that, and welcome! It's so helpful to hear about other people's experience. Beyond that, it's great to hear your encouraging words about continuing to put yourself out there and not give up when you know it's something you want. Congratulations on your Lakehead admission, and best of luck with the program!

The funding packages from York are awesome - I'm wishing I'd applied there as well! And PregnantSeahorse, I'm crossing my fingers for you that there's movement on the wait list. I can understand having mixed emotions, and I hope that you get to the place where you're proud, because this is an accomplishment :-)

I'm also freaking out - so you have company! If I have to do this again next year, I'm going to have to come up with a better coping strategy than staring at the calendar or willing that decisions get made faster :-) (Edited to fix silly grammar mistakes - oh, Monday.)

I love that you said this, and I wholeheartedly agree. So much of being admitted to a grad program is about a school's funding that particular year, or their current breakdown of students, or something else completely beyond the scope of what an applicant can possibly control. I've known people to apply two years in a row with virtually the same application, and they've been rejected one year and accepted the next. Congratulations on your acceptances, good luck next year!

Hey Erin123, this can be set by scrolling up to the top right of the page, clicking on your account name, then "My Settings." From there, click "Signature" at the left. You can then add whatever information you want in your signature and format the text however you like. Good luck! I'm also a 2 year U of T MSW candidate, and have been checking ROSI - mine still says "no registration history." I don't expect there to be any change until at least the first week of April, as our decisions aren't expected until mid-April, and the ROSI trick seems to only work a few days in advance of the actual decisions being mailed out. (Despite knowing that it's pointless for several days yet, I can't stop compulsively checking. Futile, I know.) Congratulations on your Thunder Bay acceptance, and good luck with U of T!

I can imagine that the uncertainty inherent with the wait lists sucks, but I believe that it's also an achievement. Just putting your application in is a big deal, and a lot of work - and that's not considering all of the volunteering behind what you've written. Getting wait listed for a very competitive program that takes so few students is something to be proud of too! I'm crossing my fingers for everyone, and hoping that there's movement on the wait lists :-) (I'm also crossing my fingers for early decision on the U of T two year stream MSW - I'm dying over here.)

Thanks for the info! Also, that's kind of the worst, and I can understand that last summer would have been rough waiting. I was hoping U of T took an approach similar to Laurier, which someone mentioned above. A nice, civilized date at the end of July, so we're not all biting our nails right down to it and can move on/make plans! Good luck with your application this year! I'm thinking positive thoughts for you and all of us :-)

Does anyone happen to know what date the U of T 2 year MSW waiting list closes, or when it's typically closed in previous years? I know that the decisions aren't expected for a few weeks, but this would be helpful info for me as I decide what my next steps will be. I'm not losing all hope, but I'm realistically looking at this year as a likely rejection or wait list situation, and trying to plan my moves from that. (Also, it's giving me something to do while I'm waiting, other than obsessively reloading ROSI despite the fact that it won't have anything on it for another two weeks.) And congratulations to everyone receiving their acceptances!

Hi, msvuBCHY, and congratulations on your acceptance to McGill - that's awesome! I don't know much about their SW program, but I can tell you that I dreamt about going to McGill from the time I was 6 until I was about 16 ;-) It's a great campus, in a wonderful city, and the school as a whole has an enviable reputation. I'd say the same is true of U of T, so it sounds like you may have a tough decision on your hands if you get accepted to both :-) Good luck with U of T!

Thank you for letting me know! I'm feeling less anxious because I'm formulating more of a "plan B"... even if that plan's just emailing to ask for feedback ;-) Welcome, superanxious! I haven't applied to York, but wanted to add that I called and emailed them about their program last year, and found them great on the phone for answering questions. If you're unsure, I think it's reasonable to call them to ask. The fewer stressors in our lives as we're waiting for these decisions, the better :-) And good luck!

Ack, I'm also freaking out, and wishing I had applied more places! Realistically, I'm trying to imagine that U of T wait listed will be my best case scenario, and hopefully I won't be devastated if I get declined outright. I'm also away for a weekend in mid-April, if I don't know by then, it's going to be hard to have a good time. (Maybe I can get a friend to check my mail?) And b39, I'm hoping the same thing. Maybe if I have any luck, they'll be a week ahead with our decisions too. I'm trying to come up with a plan in case I get rejected too - I'm thinking continue to volunteer, ask for feedback, and work on my application for next year. Does anyone know if U of T automatically sends feedback, or would I have to ask for a meeting? It's really helpful to have this forum - it's a great, supportive place, and I appreciate all of the encouraging words!

Thankfully, everyone else was on it much faster than I was! And I'll say it's both great and terrible that we can check - I'm having dreams about it. As MSW13 mentions above, thankfully Angela seems to be awesomely on the ball :-) (I wonder if she knows how many compliments she receives on this forum.)

I want to be clear that I wasn't saying that experience or volunteer work doesn't matter - everything you can do enriches you as a person, and as a candidate for an MSW. What I was trying to convey is that helping your grandmother pay her bills can be social work experience, if you come at it the right way. I hope that U of T does indeed look at applications holistically. I'm sure there are many people who have been in caregiver/unpaid roles that perhaps didn't allow as much time for volunteering, but whose experience would mirror volunteering. As someone with significant student loan debt, no help from my family, and living in a very expensive city, I don't have a problem saying that I didn't spend 20 hours a week volunteering for the last ten years, and instead have had a full time job. I explained my choices in my application, and they'll work for U of T or they won't, and if necessary, I'll do it again next year. So much of even being able to apply to grad school speaks to privileges that not everyone has had the opportunity to leverage, and I think it's important we recognize that winding roads are okay. Not everyone's life is the same, and wouldn't it be boring if they were! On a crazier note: I can't stop checking ROSI, even though I know they won't be posting anything for weeks! I admire anyone who can wait for the envelope :-)

I can understand that experience is important, but when you're talking about thousands of hours, you're asking people applying to a SW program to already be social workers - that doesn't make sense to me. If that's the requirement, require on a BSW for admission, which necessarily includes a practicum or eight. I optimistically look at the U of T program as an option for those of us who have had a winding road to SW, in many cases making us excellent candidates for the field. There are people coming right out of school with lots of volunteer and practicum experience, and there are people leaving behind higher salaries and promising careers to pursue what they know in their heart is the right place for them - both groups of people enrich the program. And apple MSW, this was advice she gave because I mentioned that I'd been in a non-SW field for so many years. I needed to prove that my interest in helping people didn't start yesterday, and she said it would be best to include whatever I could. Depending on what you included in your application, it's highly possible you didn't need to go 20 years back! I'm going to take heart in the fact that a diverse group of students coming from a wealth of backgrounds makes for a well-rounded program that will train the best social workers, and hope the places I've applied agree!

I'm wondering the same thing, as I don't recall anywhere that I was asked the number of hours I've volunteered, or a requirement being listed anywhere. With a FT non-social work job, my volunteer hours are WAY lower than 700 if we're only looking at the last year. (On Angela's advice in the info session, I went all the way back to high school with my resume and included all of my volunteer work, which I hope was a help.)

I didn't, and best of luck! And again, it's great that this is such an encouraging place - as we're getting down to the wire, I feel like we need it.

Thanks so much for the welcoming words, everyone! I'm coming from York too, and our grade scale is annoying. When I was getting ready to apply, I wasn't 100% sure I had made the cut-off - I'm a B+, so it was close. In fact (embarrassing disclosure alert), I STILL sometimes wake up in a sweat, worried that I've messed up the calculation. I have to open my spreadsheet and double-check. For real. Someone above mentioned that U of T sends you a rejection right away if you don't meet their grade cut-off, and that helped. I'm worried about the fact that so many people have had to apply to their MSW programs multiple times. I guess it's another year to save the money, but I'm so done with the job I'm in now, and anxious to move on. I'm hoping for a waitlisted position instead of an outright rejection - does anyone know how much the U of T wait list typically moves, and when someone should give up hope?

Hi there, Long time lurker (even last year before applying), first time poster! A big congratulations to all of the people who have received acceptances - it's great to hear that there's light at the end of the (very long) tunnel. I'm waiting on a decision from U of T (two year MSW), and am coming from a non-social work field with little experience outside of volunteer work. I've been out of school for a number of years (save completing some required second year language classes last year), but my third and fourth year average met the cut-off, and my research methods mark is a high A. I'm discourage that so many of these programs seem to require you to already be a social worker to actually get in to the program. Also, a huge thank you to the person who mentioned being able to log-in to ROSI to check U of T status! Mine doesn't say anything right now (I'm not expecting to hear until at least April), but it's great knowing that I have more at my disposal than just waiting for the mail. I've also applied to the post-degree BSW at McMaster as a back-up, but as 50% of their decision is based on grades, I'm concerned because my average does not hit their cut-off because of the required classes mentioned above. I'm taking an online intro social work class, which assuming I get an A, would rectify that. I noticed that no one else has mentioned the McMaster BSW as a plan B - are there many of you using a BSW as a back-up plan?