Canadian MA Program Question

[legush]

I'm applying to Masters Programs in Canada (I'm a Canadian citizen btw).

Do any Canadians know how hard it is to get into these programs? I have already applied to U of T, Western and York and finishing some other applications by tomorrow.

I was originally in school in 2010, but had a very bad academic record with suspensions (I won't get into why here), but at that time I didn't really take that many courses and I was doing mainly science courses. I went back to school in 2017 and started learning philosophy. I took all my philosophy courses from 2017 to 2019 (something like 23 courses in a spam of two years which included summers + some other courses). I fast-tracked my Philosophy HBA Specialist in 2 years. Overall I have a 3.84 GPA (4.0 scale) in those two years (roughly on 2/3 of my credits, the other 1/3 being the crappy grades from years ago) and roughly an 86% average (also 3.84) in philosophy courses in those two years. I only took 200, 300 and 400 courses (a lot of 300 level courses actually) and got a department award as well while at it, with a couple of A+s too. However I was only able to raise by cgpa to a 2.52 because UofT's gpa calculation system absolutely destroys you cgpa if you have bad or fail marks (yet the range for a 4.0 is from 85-100, so even if you get 90s it doesn't improve your cgpa more than an 85 on the dot).
I think I got pretty damn good references. My writing samples are pretty decent. 
I guess my question is how much do these schools care about your past if your philosophy track record is good (I assume 3.84 in philosophy is pretty decent, since on a U of T that's practically an A average, although not a 4.0). 

If there are people who have applied to Master's programs in Canada please let me know (preferably Canadians since I heard its harder to get in for internationals).

 

[BabyFarmer]

I feel like I can't give an ~answer~ but I am a Canadian student at another Ontario university finishing my MA. From what I understand, I don't think it's a strike against you to address your past academic experiences in your personal statement. The general sentiment I've heard here is that upward trends for grades can be beneficial for applicants who had a rocky start to university. Fwiw I did very poorly in a few 100 and 200-level classes (though not in philosophy), and while they affected my average, I still had multiple MA offers.

[legush]

15 hours ago, TheCarbWhisperer said:

I feel like I can't give an ~answer~ but I am a Canadian student at another Ontario university finishing my MA. From what I understand, I don't think it's a strike against you to address your past academic experiences in your personal statement. The general sentiment I've heard here is that upward trends for grades can be beneficial for applicants who had a rocky start to university. Fwiw I did very poorly in a few 100 and 200-level classes (though not in philosophy), and while they affected my average, I still had multiple MA offers.

Thanks for responding! If you're not against disclosing, which MA programs did you apply to in Canada and got accepted into?

[BabyFarmer]

1 minute ago, legush said:

Thanks for responding! If you're not against disclosing, which MA programs did you apply to in Canada and got accepted into?

Sure! I applied to York, Ryerson, UofT (MA and direct-entry PhD), McMaster, and McGill's biomedical ethics MA. 

The biomedical ethics one was a slight regret since they seem to only take current medical professionals. 

I was accepted to Ryerson, McMaster, and York, all with full funding (and also had a job offer from Ryerson other than TAing).

Ultimately I stayed at McMaster.