KnitFlamingo

Thanks! Glad to be able to pass along the information

Oh! I actually have an answer to this! I applied to the 2 year MSW but the answer should stand across the board. You are not required to cite sources for the personal statement. However, if you choose to include citations, you need to add a bibliography at the end. The bibliography won't be included in your word count. I put in citations last year and didn't get in. I didn't put in citations this year, and I did get in. So if it makes you happy to include citations, that's great, but definitely don't feel pressured to do so as long as you aren't plagiarizing anything in your discussion of the topic.

When I say "flesh out the picture of your education", I mean including some details that would make your grades make sense. You don't have to come right out and tell them your entire story (that would take too many words anyway), but you can find a place to slip in your lived experience with mental health and ADD challenges. You can frame it as part of your journey and how you overcame those challenges to earn high marks in the later part of your studies. Of course, you'll have to think about the best way to incorporate this information within the answers to the questions they have for you, but it's not impossible. If you're worried about honesty hurting you, just know that I included personal information about my extremely conservative and bigoted upbringing, and how I had to unlearn all of that as an adult-- and I still got accepted to a social justice-oriented program. It's less about admitting to a less-than-perfect past and more about showing your own growth. Your second question isn't silly at all! This can take a bit of digging and there's no one place to find it. One way to do this is to go to their info sessions in the fall. At Laurier's info session, they flat out told us that they "look at a holistic picture of the candidate" and take everything into account: grades, experience, resume, and a lot of weight on the personal statement. Info sessions are probably the most direct way to find out exactly what the school wants, but the drawback is that you'll have to wait until about September/October before the schools host them. You could also compare the information that different programs offer on their websites. You can get a sense of what a program values by looking at the way they describe their curriculum and the requirements they expect of applicants. You may still be able to click on the links for last year's personal statement requirements. Looking over those questions can give you an idea of what the school values in their candidates. If they want you to talk a lot about specific kinds of experience, if they ask about research experience, if they ask you to talk about social justice issues, or if they ask you for reflexive information about yourself, it conveys something about what's important to them. You sound like a busy person, so I'm not going to seriously suggest you devote a lot of time to this next suggestion, but you can also find out a lot about programs by looking through GradCafe threads and what past applicants have said about what they found out via various means (talking to other students, talking to admissions, attending info sessions). For example: part of the reason I didn't pursue UofT is that I have read that UofT is less personal and that the professors are very involved in their own research, to the point that it's difficult to build relationships with them. I'm a very relationships-oriented person, so that wouldn't be a fit for me even though UofT offers a lot of clinical experience/opportunity. I know you were having the grades conversation with someone else, but you can always ask York what their policy is in a case where they have to reach back to another transcript for a full 10 courses. You can also just ask other schools that you might apply to how they calculate the GPA of their applicants.

You say you've had no relevant work experience, but what you've listed is almost all relevant. Different schools evaluate differently, but if you can justify how the work or volunteer experience ties in on your resume, then you've already got a lot going for you. The truth is, different schools evaluate this kind of thing differently. Some want lots of paid work experience, but others are more flexible about paid vs volunteer. You'll want to really highlight the intensiveness of the volunteer experience; the reason paid work is often more valued is that volunteer positions could be as simple as handing out pamphlets. If you can demonstrate that your volunteer work was not only field-relevant but required real skills and dedication, you'll get a lot more credit for it when your application is evaluated. Don't just write down your job duties! Really think about what you did in that position that matters to social work, and tell them about those parts. I don't have much to offer when it comes to your grades, except to say that you might think about how to present information in your personal statement to flesh out the picture of your education. This might take some time and planning. I would look up the schools that you want to apply to and look at this past year's requirements for the personal statement. Every school is going to ask for different information, so you'll be best prepared if you start formulating a response based on the information available. Schools might change the questions a little, but in my experience they rarely have a drastic change from one year to the next. I know some people on here mentioned that they applied last minute and got waitlisted/accepted, but don't let that freak you out. I got rejected last year and spent the next six months rethinking and redrafting my personal statement, bit by bit. You don't have to do it all overnight! A well-constructed personal statement goes a long way. I think you should definitely apply to both BSW and MSW. A BSW would give you a chance to improve your grades and/or develop closer prof relationships, as well as qualifying you for MSW advanced standing tracks. My backup plan this year actually involved an SSW, because I didn't have the right course pre-reqs for a BSW and an SSW would give me the qualifications for jobs that would definitely strengthen my experience profile. An SSW probably wouldn't be counted for grades (since they aren't university courses), but this might be something you could also consider. At the end of the day, any application-- even successful ones-- could be improved. It's important to know that some element of the application process has to do with the person reading your application and the other people applying the same year. Sometimes you may be more competitive, other times less so. Make sure to find out what the school is really looking for in their candidates and, if possible, if they are more holistic in their evaluation or more focused on specific resume items. This will save you effort and money as you rule out the ones that absolutely will not be a fit for you at this time, and let you focus your attention on the ones where you've got a better chance. I hope some of this helps! I know the competition can be quite intimidating, but don't undervalue what you've got to bring to the table. You're doing fine.

I think this will depend a lot on which universities you apply to, but I will say that I had no research listed on my resume and still got an acceptance to Laurier this year. If you have a strong experience profile and a knockout personal statement, I'd say you've got a fighting chance.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/979492336121294 See you there!

If you have an offer with conditions, it should tell you the deadline for those conditions to be met. For example, I received an email with additional information for next steps, as well as an acceptance confirmation page on LORIS telling me that I must submit my official transcripts prior to a specific date in June. You may want to get in direct contact with admissions of the school in question to work out whether they will accommodate your situation.

Congrats!! Nice to see acceptances are still rolling out for those who haven't heard back. Guess we'll be seeing each other in the fall

Congrats, classmate! Hope we'll get to meet for real in the fall (c'mon, vaccines!!)

I suppose it's possible, but it's more probable that they aren't following any particular order and the volume of applicants is much, much greater than the members on this forum. It could be pure, unfortunate chance that more people on here haven't heard yet ?

No, which is interesting because in my rejection letter last year they did list it. I wonder if they only put it in rejection letters, to give applicants a sense of perspective? Based on what they said at the info session, they have a target for accepting about 70 people, but I don't know if that changed at all with any deferrals from last year.

Let's hope their early morning start today means they're hitting the ground running. Crossing my fingers y'all get your emails soon.

My letter didn't. My confirmation when I accepted the offer said to review the terms on the graduate funding page if my letter of admission said anything about it, but it looked like boilerplate stuff that goes on any admissions confirmation, including undergrad. There's going to be a mandatory orientation session in June that will probably cover more about this, since the info session in the fall didn't say anything about internal award procedures.

I could think of a few reasons for this; if they're being sent manually, the admissions team might be on lunch break, or they might be working from home and the high volume of emails stresses the computer. If they're being sent automatically, they might be on a software-determined break to optimize machine performance/LORIS updating. Either way, I hope you all hear soon!!!

Congrats!!! Laurier is more socially justice oriented, but there are some courses that will prepare you for clinical type work. Not as clinical as U of T.