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aww thank you!! so honoured you agree thanks for being such an amazing help to prospective students!

Hey everyone! Since I got accepted into Laurier's 2-year non-BSW program, I'd like to share some tips on what I did in my application, my stats, and some general tips if you didn't get in this round. Stats: Did my undergrad in Psychology. 3.9 gpa in my last year, 3.8 for the last 2 years, and 3.54 cGPA. I got a c+ in my statistics courses and a b+ in my research methods course (not that it matters for this application, but some other MSW app requirements care about those grades). I began focusing a lot on experience in my fourth year, although I began my mental-health related experience in my third year. I have around 3000 hours of work + volunteer experience in mental health clubs, peer facilitation, aba therapy, crisis responder for distress centre lines, student mentoring, crisis, and addiction counselling. Among those roles, I had specialized experience with women, substance abuse, LGBTQ community, domestic violence, and crisis de-escalation. If you're in the GTA and want to build your experience with volunteering, this is a link I used in my 4th year that helped me find some places to volunteer at: https://www.volunteertoronto.ca/blogpost/1302191/291575/10-Places-You-Can-Volunteer-to-Support-Mental-Health Personal Statement: I found the questions to be very specific and detailed. Make sure to use the limited space you have to precisely answer the question, using key words in the question to guide your answer. Make sure you have a clearly defined purpose for pursuing social work, and the MSW in THIS particular school / program. Do some research on different types of social work too if you're not entirely sure what you wanna do in the field! Another benefit of doing so is realizing you may have more related experience than you thought! For example, if you were involved in creative / recreational activities, this can help you dabble in recreational therapy side of social work. If you've done research and you're a good writer, you can excel in research or policy development kind of social work. If you have lots of remote experience, you can succeed in the ever-growing virtual platform in social work through your computer literacy. Another important tip is to look through the MSW course outline and relate your experience or goals to the courses you will take. Include your social location as well and try to relate that to your purpose in pursuing an MSW. Learn about the different ways your social location has given you an enhanced understanding of certain social concerns and how your privileges will contribute as well. If you have access to an academic advisor / career counsellor, I would suggest booking an apt with them to go over your statement. Otherwise, asking friends or students in the program (including me!) to give you feedback can also be helpful. Some key words I included in my personal statement: advocacy, empowerment, equity, diversity, inclusion, intersectionality, stigma, and different therapeutic modalities. If you didn't get an acceptance this year, that is completely normal and does not mean you're not good enough for this field. Hundreds of extremely experienced applicants get rejected each year simply due to the high volume of great applicants and limited number of seats. You can try to use the time away from grad school to build your experience in work and volunteering, explore post-grad certificates or MSW's with winter intakes, look into post-grad BSW diplomas such as Lakehead's HBSW so that you can apply for the 1-year advanced standing MSW instead of the regular track when you're ready. Or instead, take this time off to do things you enjoy. Spend some time in meaningful solitude to understand yourself and find areas of your life you've been neglecting so you can begin working on them. Learn a new hobby, travel if you have the funds to do so, or push yourself out of your comfort zone. I hope this helps and I hope you all achieve your goals in social work. I'm so glad we have so many passionate people willing to enter this very important field of social work. You will all do great!

joined!! can't wait to meet you all soon on a side note - if anyone is planning to commute from far / or rent a place nearby the laurier campus pls message me bc i have questions hahah

Are there any groups / group chats for students starting the regular track MSW at Laurier?

i submitted the day it was due and have about 3000 hours of experience. hope you hear back with good news soon!

thank you so much!! and yes, i received an email!

just got accepted into lauriers 2 year full time program!! SO HAPPY

please let today be the day we hear back from laurier!!!!

not yet! the wait is painful

Laurier (2-year on campus) is my last hope before I have to opt for a post-grad certificate! Really keeping my fingers crossed for some good news

anyone know if there’s any 1 year hbsw or mental health related post grad certificates whose deadline hasn’t passed yet that i can apply to so i have a back up this year? thanks so much in advance

got waitlisted. disappointing but it is what it is. life goes on and this is just a redirection for me. congratulations to all who got in this round! and i hope the rest of us hear good news from other places, whether that be schools, jobs, or just other great opportunities in life

still don’t see anything from uoft losing hope at this point

I did my undergrad at uoft too so it could be possible

It’s strange to me because all my other documents in the application checklist states “received” but I only got an email for my official transcript being received. Then again, it wasn’t mandatory to submit an official transcript so maybe they went through a process of verifying if our transcripts were actually official and maybe did so on an alphabetical order hence mine (my last name begins with D) being received in January. Or maybe there was no method to it at all and I’m over analyzing and going crazy out of impatience LOL