MSW13

Jax14, I know how you feel. Last year I was rejected by all 3 schools I applied to. It is completely demoralizing and embarrassing to not get in. It rips apart your sense of pride in your accomplishments and makes you question if you really are 'worthy' of higher education. I also have my BSW and over 10yrs of solid full time social work experience. Although it felt awful to get rejected, I was honest with myself and knew that I was lacking in a specific area and if I worked on it, I stood a much better chance of getting in. Over the next few days/weeks/months once you have had a chance to process what has happened, I sincerely hope that you don't give up and instead call up your schools and ask how you can improve your application. As hard as it is, don't take it personally. As you can see from this forum, many very qualified people have gotten rejected/waitlisted. Also, Jax please take a step back and look at the situation as it is. You have one waitlist and you are still waiting to hear back from Ryerson. The waitlist from UofT should tell you that you ARE a great candidate. Unfortunately you were shut out because there just aren't enough spots for every qualified person. Also, it is not a catastrophe to not get in. You will get a job in social work (if you don't have one already) and you will become a much stronger candidate just by accumulating more experience. Honestly Jax (and anyone else who feels like it is the end of the world to get rejected), this is just one disappointment. In the larger scheme of things, you will win some and lose some--that is life. As you get older you will realize that everything happens for a reason and everything has a way of working out for the best no matter what. I hope you do not read this as me minimizing your disappointment and hurt. I honestly know where you are coming from. I just hope that you don't throw away 4 hard years of university over one lousy application cycle. It isn't worth it...not even for a second.

I read somewhere that the reason a student thinks that they've been rejected/admitted is often very different from the reality. It could have been something as simple as 'fit'. For instance, they could have read your essays and thought, 'wow, this is a strong student but I'm not sure our program will meet their learning goals. Perhaps they would be much better suited for the program at Laurier etc...'.

I agree with Kreamy. The status is updated well after you have been notified via snail mail. Also, even if it does say 'decision made', it will not tell you what that decision is, just that it has been made. So really, you would still end up waiting until you get the letter in the mail anyway.

Thanks for that response, I was hoping you would say that ! I hope my classes are going to be like that too. Would you say that it is hard to stay on top of readings/assignments or is it manageable? That is, can you still have a life outside of school or is it very demanding of pretty much all of your waking hours? I'm just trying to get an idea of how easy/hard it will be to have a reasonable school/life balance.

Hey Thumper, Just out of curiosity, do you find grad school 'harder' than undergrad or about the same? What would you say is the biggest difference? Thanks!

Would your purpose for letting them know about the job be to punctuate the fact that you are a good fit for the program? That is a tricky question and I totally understand why you would want to let them know. However, they are making decisions based on what you have submitted by the deadline. Unfortunately I doubt that if you emailed them that it would be passed on to the review committee. This is just because many students could potentially have new information to buff up their application and it would be unfair to other applicants to add to a file after the submission deadline. But having said that, if you were to be waitlisted, I would definitely email them. In addition to reiterating interest in the program, it would also show that you are 'out there' in the field. Btw, congrats on the job!

Try the "Canadian school applicants" thread in the 'Waiting it out' forum. Hopefully someone will be able to answer your question. By the sounds of it, not all departments at U of T respond by the same timeline. However, on the U of T website, it states that most decisions are made by mid April for most programs. Hopefully you will not have to wait much longer! All the best for good news soon!

Yes, I think that would probably fall into the category of a legitimate reason to defer. I wish you all the best in health and hopefully you will not have any issues with accepting a place in your preferred school.

I think it is hard for someone to get that type of direct service work, especially when you've just finished up your undergrad. There are so many ways that you can demonstrate fit without having actually done the job. It sounds like you were able to link your experience quite well with your future goals which can be very tricky for a lot of people. Exposure to the frail elderly was enough for you to know what you wanted to do AND you were able to articulate it well in your statement. You did really well, you should pat yourself on the back!

The grades carry the most weight.

It sounds like you have pretty awesome experience! Also, it isn't necessarily what you are doing, it is how well you are able to link it back to your future goals as a social worker. Your post made me curious, what do you think constitutes 'related social work' experience and why do you think your experience doesn't quite fit the bill?

I attended one of the info sessions at U of T and this question was posed. They said that they do but it has to be a pretty serious reason. I think they used the example of $$ and this was not good enough for a deferral. I got the impression that they are pretty strict about it. If you do get admitted, be prepared to start in September. If you cant, then unfortunately be prepared to possibly reapply in the future. I believe they mentioned that 2 people asked for a deferral the previous year and neither was granted.

Lol!

Laurie, it is so nice to see you back on here! (yes, you have me beat with the age!) I remember reading about the terrible wait you went through with York last year. Did you go with the BSW program this year? Have you applied to the same schools for the MSW this year?

The U of T social work website says, "A grade less than mid-B in the required half-credit course in research methodology will lessen the applicant's probability of admission."

I'm older than you (that's all you are going to get out of me )

In a social work classroom, we often discuss our prejudices and biases. A skilled professor can indeed facilitate discussion about an emotionally charged subject to encourage learning for everyone. Again, the article is quoting people who were not there and it is important to realize that you are hearing a story third hand. You may feel that this is enough to vilify the professor but I choose to be more cautious.

Absolutely true. It is hard not get emotionally charged when you read an article like this one but as you said, we don't really know what is true and what is not. I guess I would rather err on the side of caution. I have to have faith that the social work Dept at U of T did a thorough investigation. As well, we cannot assume that this professor was not disciplined (for confidentiality reasons, they would never disclose that). We only have a very small piece of the story told by a third party who is quoting some of the people present and some who were not there at all. However, if it is true that the professor didn't mediate this discussion in an unbiased manner, I hope they did deal with her appropriately.

This is an incredibly sensitive topic. However, I would caution anyone from jumping to any harsh conclusions without *all* of the information presented. But yes you are so right, social work can indeed be politically charged. It is so important to explore our prejudices (we all have them) and understand where we stand on emotionally charged topics. Personally, I think it is great to have this type of dialogue in a class. Not because it is okay to spew racist ignorance, but because we need to feel safe talking about what makes us uncomfortable. If we shut down dialogue every time we are offended, it stops us from learning. As social workers, we will come across all sorts of situations that challenge our values and beliefs. In a social work classroom, you need to feel that you can safely express yourself without it leaking out to be judged by people only hearing excerpts. I recall years ago when I was completing my BSW, a student in my class quite tearfully spoke about her deeply ingrained *hate* for muslims. She was an Israeli Jew and had been brought up with a certain anger towards them. She had no idea how she would be able to work with a muslim client. This was such a great discussion. She talked about things that normally we would keep to ourselves. In hindsight, if it got out, people would have admonished her for being prejudice/racist. However, those of us in the class realized that it was an important exercise in exploring our personal barriers. How can we possibly help others explore themselves when we don't know ourselves?

At the end of the day, that MSW designation is what is going to help land you a job. Although you may not like the Ryerson program, you will undoubtedly learn something that will help you in your career. Sure, Ryerson doesn't have the same ivy league appeal of U of T or other highly ranked universities but it is AMAZING for social work. If you get accepted, don't minimize it for a second. It is an excellent school for social work and you will receive a quality education. Best of luck!

My letter was dated March 4th. You may want to (if you haven't already) check the stats page from last year and see when people started hearing back about their waitlist status. I would assume that it would be around 4 weeks after the initial round of acceptances went out.

Thanks for finding out about that! I saw on another thread that people waiting in other programs also received this generic email. It is pretty cruel if you ask me!

Hi ltr, The letter I received stated that I had 4 weeks (from the date on the letter) to send in the deposit form with the $150.00 payment. There is also an orientation day scheduled for advanced standing students on April 22nd. I assume that they would want the majority of the incoming class present for that. However, the letter states that if people cant make it (I assume this also covers people who will eventually be admitted off the waitlist), there will be another scheduled in the fall. I would think that waitlisted students will start hearing back soon since the 4weeks would be up this week. That means for any student that didn't pay the deposit, their acceptance would be revoked and another student would take their place. Also, as people start hearing back from other schools, you will get some forfeiting their deposits to accept admission elsewhere. Based on past years, there IS movement on the waitlist. Hang in there! If I were on the waitlist, I would be inclined to sent a *very brief* email to the admission dept and just reiterate my interest in the program. Not in an annoying way, just a polite reminder that I'm very interested in the MSW program at U of T.

Although I'm in another program (social work), I received that email as well, as did many others in my program. Unfortunately it is not an indication of admission but is really a generic email sent to everyone, like you already thought. All the best on your application, I hope you hear good news soon.

Why not? A call just to ask where they are in the decision-making process and when you should expect to hear the results by is not a bad thing to do in April (...maybe not such a good idea if it was February )