2021 Canadian SLP Thread

[SLPThreadGirl]

1 hour ago, CCSLP94 said:

Hey! I'm currently a first-year student at Western. I applied last year to McMaster and Western. My sub-GPA was 3.73 and I was invited to do MMIs at McMaster and was waitlisted at Western. Ultimately I wasn't accepted to McMaster but since I got to the interview level I figure that was more related to my interview responses than my sGPA. As for Western, I don't know what position I was at on the waitlist but on our thread last year I was one of the first to get an offer off the waitlist so I'm guessing I was close to the top. Also, obviously this changes every year but I was told when I was applying that the incoming class of 2019 (i.e., students in second year right now) at Western had a sub-GPA range of 3.5-4.0. I would say with 3.72 you have a great change, especially if your references are really good and if you did well in the prerequisite classes. I hope this helps you!

Hi there, 

Thank you so much for this information, it's very helpful. I just wanted to ask what sort of volunteer experience you had? I have plenty of SLP placement experience but it is limited to children. As well, how do you like the program at Western?
 

Thanks! 

[CCSLP94]

43 minutes ago, SLPThreadGirl said:

Hi there, 

Thank you so much for this information, it's very helpful. I just wanted to ask what sort of volunteer experience you had? I have plenty of SLP placement experience but it is limited to children. As well, how do you like the program at Western?
 

Thanks! 

I had around 150 volunteer hours, and basically all of them were from the same place. I was volunteering in a rehab center for almost two years, working with adults who'd had strokes. I would mainly do iPad activities with the clients to work on their communication and cognitive skills, observe therapy sessions, and sometimes help with scoring assessments. Ironically, I am almost certain that I want to work with children but I had to take what I could get for volunteering and actually ended up having a great time and learning a lot. I don't think that it will be a big deal if your volunteer experiences are not very diverse, especially since most (or all?) schools are waiving volunteering requirements for applications this year. 

So far I am really liking the program at Western. I'll be honest, compared to last term, this one has been much more stressful and a lot more work, partly because we've started our first clinical placement and partly because a lot of classes this term are areas I'm not very interested in, so I'm finding it hard to focus. That being said, I've found the faculty at Western to be amazing and I think that they are really doing a great job trying to make online learning as easy as possible on us. Of course, everyone is different so some may not like the program as much (and I also can't compare to other SLP programs) but overall I would recommend Western!

[Wuglette]

Thank you CCSLP94 for this insight into your program! I think Western University is probably my top choice when it comes to SLP grad programs. I was just wondering, with covid are you still able to do your clinical placements in person or are you doing teletherapy right now/ did covid limit the amount of placements that were available to students? Thanks in advance! 

[CCSLP94]

4 hours ago, Wuglette said:

Thank you CCSLP94 for this insight into your program! I think Western University is probably my top choice when it comes to SLP grad programs. I was just wondering, with covid are you still able to do your clinical placements in person or are you doing teletherapy right now/ did covid limit the amount of placements that were available to students? Thanks in advance! 

Hi! So for our first placement, all of the students do it at the clinic within the university so there is never an issue with availability for first placements. The clients get to choose if they want to do in-person or virtual therapy and we are randomly assigned to clients so it's basically just luck of the draw if you get an in-person one or not (luckily, I got an in-person one). We got a general email a few days ago regarding our placement for next term which basically said, "COVID has had negative impacts on the availability of student placements. However, we can assure you that clinical placement sites are continuing to work with us to secure clinical placements that address your needs for hours. Please understand that the current circumstances may result in placements that don't align with your preferences". That's pretty much all we know about how things are going regarding external placements.

[Speecheewannabee]

9 hours ago, slp2020ab said:

Like the previous post, I confirm that it is correct. The only way for that semester to be excluded from calculation is taking more courses, which really sucks. For me it is bringing down my subGPA by 0.06 because it's only counting half a credit, but since I failed a course in that semester, the average for that half credit is 1.85 ???

It is a very unforgiving system. I've mostly gotten As and A+s (except for 1 B and 2 B+ in half credit courses) in my last 19 credits, but because of that semester my subGPA is only 3.67.

Likewise, as CCSLP94 mentioned the system is unforgiving for outliers! I have mostly A+ and a couple A's with the exception of a bad semester in third year with a C and a C+ and my average was brought down significantly leaving me with a 3.7 subGPA. Mind you, I've been told that some schools look at you more holistically and if you did uncharacteristically bad in one or two courses but overall excelled they will take that into consideration. 

[Wugs]

I was wondering if anyone knew for the 125 invited to do McMaster MMIs, if some decline, do they have a waitlist for potentially more than the 125 to be invited? Or is it 125 max, and whoever wants to do the MMI makes it to the next round? 

[speechncookies]

Does anyone have any insight into how important the cgpa is in our application? Or is it really just the subgpa they're looking at? My sub is high, but my cumulative is quite low... ? 

Edited February 6, 2021 by speechncookies

[Wuglette]

1 hour ago, Wugs said:

I was wondering if anyone knew for the 125 invited to do McMaster MMIs, if some decline, do they have a waitlist for potentially more than the 125 to be invited? Or is it 125 max, and whoever wants to do the MMI makes it to the next round? 

Hi Wugs! From what I understand from last year's thread, there are people who get waitlisted for the MMI (they notify you if you are on the MMI waitlist), and if someone declines the MMI invite they will invite someone off of the waitlist. 

[Luck26]

I feel really lucky that my subGPA is high (3.9) my overall is way lower I had a really good last year in my degree. But I only recently decided that I wanted to apply to SLP so I have no clinical volunteering. I have other volunteering with children and some stuff for first aid but nothing in an SLP clinic with practitioners. I know they waved the clinical requirements because of COVID but obviously people with lots of clinical experience can & will still apply. Do you know of people who have gotten in similar circumstances (especially Western) I know McMaster relies on subGPA and interview so I should at least get an interview unless something is wrong with my pre-requsitites.

I applied to Western, McMaster, McGill and UBC.

[slpapplicant2021]

I am in my final year doing a double major in psychology and linguistics. I applied to McMaster and Uoft and my sub-gpa is 3.81. I had about 135 volunteer hours in total (of which around 50 were with a SLP and the rest were at organizations such related to ESL mentoring and working with kids who have autism). I also started a club at my school related to SLP and audiology. I'm super scared that this year might have a lot of people applying (especially those with higher GPAs and no volunteer experience since UofT waived the clinical requirement). If anyone got accepted into either McMaster or UofT last year for SLP, could you share your GPA and background info so I can get an idea of how competitive my application looks? Super scared Also, good luck to everyone who applied this year ❤️

[15itspossibleslp]

Hi everyone, I just want to ask if ORPAS gpa is the gpa that is considered by the universities, or is there a university criteria for GPAs as well? I am from u of Manitoba and our scale is different and therefore my GPA was scaled lower in the ORPAS. I also realized they did not take my 2019 fall term and summer 2019, but calculated my 2018 instead, I am confused on how they actually calculate the last 60 credit hours.. I am quite worried about it. thank you!

[coco_SLP]

3 hours ago, thisislife15 said:

Hi everyone, I just want to ask if ORPAS gpa is the gpa that is considered by the universities, or is there a university criteria for GPAs as well? I am from u of Manitoba and our scale is different and therefore my GPA was scaled lower in the ORPAS. I also realized they did not take my 2019 fall term and summer 2019, but calculated my 2018 instead, I am confused on how they actually calculate the last 60 credit hours.. I am quite worried about it. thank you!

Hey! ORPAS uses a conversion table to adjust the different scales. I'm in the same boat, my school uses a 12-point system, so this is how they adjust/convert them to their 4.0 scale. Here's a link to the conversion table in case you haven't seen it to show how they convert it --> https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/orpas-conversion-table/

In terms of how they calculate the 60 credit hours, they start by taking all of the most recent ones. However, sometimes if your degree is in progress (or something similar) and they need to dip into earlier years, instead of taking a random selection of courses from the next oldest semester, they average the entire year. For example, for many people who are applying that are in 4th year right now, they might take Fall 2020 grades, Winter 2020 grades, Fall 2019 grades, and then have to pick a few more credits from Winter 2019 grades. However, instead of picking randomly from the Winter 2019 semester, they take the average of that school year (2nd year, a.k.a. Fall 2018+Winter 2019). It can be a bit confusing with how they number the years (e.g. Fall 2020 is marked as 2021 in the table on my ORPAS right now, so your Fall 2019 courses might actually be listed as 2020 in the table, so look for course codes not years maybe), but basically if they have to select a few courses from one semester to add up to the 60 credits, they average that entire year instead, and count that average for however many credits they need to make up. (E.g. if you've taken 51 credits in 3rd and 4th year, then to make up the final 9 credits, they'll average your second year marks, and count it for the final 9 credit hours.

I'm worried I'm not explaining it well enough, so hopefully this link helps! --> https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/orpas-gpa-calculations/

However if you check these and still think there's an issue in the calculation, then be sure to message ORPAS by February 19th. 

Best of luck!

Edited February 7, 2021 by coco_SLP

[15itspossibleslp]

7 minutes ago, coco_SLP said:

Hey! ORPAS uses a conversion table to adjust the different scales. I'm in the same boat, my school uses a 12-point system, so this is how they adjust/convert them to their 4.0 scale. Here's a link to the conversion table in case you haven't seen it to show how they convert it --> https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/orpas-conversion-table/

In terms of how they calculate the 60 credit hours, they start by taking all of the most recent ones. However, sometimes if your degree is in progress (or something similar) and they need to dip into earlier years, instead of taking a random selection of courses from the next oldest semester, they average the entire year. For example, for many people who are applying that are in 4th year right now, they might take Fall 2020 grades, Winter 2020 grades, Fall 2019 grades, and then have to pick a few more credits from Winter 2019 grades. However, instead of picking randomly from the Winter 2019 semester, they take the average of that school year (2nd year, a.k.a. Fall 2018+Winter 2019). It can be a bit confusing with how they number the years (e.g. Fall 2020 is marked as 2021 in the table on my ORPAS right now, so your Fall 2019 courses might actually be listed as 2020 in the table, so look for course codes not years maybe), but basically if they have to select a few courses from one semester to add up to the 60 credits, they average that entire year instead, and count that average for however many credits they need to make up. (E.g. if you've taken 51 credits in 3rd and 4th year, then to make up the final 9 credits, they'll average your second year marks, and count it for the final 9 credit hours.

I'm worried I'm not explaining it well enough, so hopefully this link helps! --> https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/orpas-gpa-calculations/

However if you check these and still think there's an issue in the calculation, then be sure to message ORPAS by February 19th. 

Best of luck!

Thank you very much, that is actually really helpful, I understand it now slowly on how they calculate it. I just find it weird on why they do the average of an entire year from your earlier years if they look for your last 60 credit hours. Its just that I have poor grades from my earlier years and did quite well on my recent ones but it was not included and did the average of my earlier year. But I appreciate your response and all the best! :)) 

[coco_SLP]

53 minutes ago, thisislife15 said:

Thank you very much, that is actually really helpful, I understand it now slowly on how they calculate it. I just find it weird on why they do the average of an entire year from your earlier years if they look for your last 60 credit hours. Its just that I have poor grades from my earlier years and did quite well on my recent ones but it was not included and did the average of my earlier year. But I appreciate your response and all the best! :)) 

No worries! I'm happy to help. I completely understand, I did better in 3rd and 4th year than 2nd year as well, but they'll be using my second year average for a few credits of mine in the GPA calculation. I'm guessing they think using the average from a longer period of time (e.g. a year) is better than one semester because one individual grade won't have as much power, but I completely understand your frustrations! I hope it hasn't affected your GPA too much. 

Best of luck!  

[Wugs]

I’m really sad by the averaging of the year instead of just averaging semesters. Disappointing way to discredit progress in later semesters 

[15itspossibleslp]

5 hours ago, Wugs said:

I’m really sad by the averaging of the year instead of just averaging semesters. Disappointing way to discredit progress in later semesters 

I agree, I was very confused too, and felt saddened about my hard work on my last few semesters because it was already the time that I realized I want to be an SLP. I tried to boost my GPA during my 4th year but it was not really taken into account. 

[coco_SLP]

Yeah, I understand the frustration with averaging a year and not a semester. I'm guessing they do it though because it's a larger sample size. Say you take 5 classes in each semester, and mess one up, then the average of 10 classes (with one bad one) is a much better representation than the average of 5 classes (with one bad one). Although this system doesn't help people who raised their grades in later years, it does help those with consistent good grades with one or two anomalies.

I think they might also do it because sometimes they need to add/average more credits than one semester can allow, so I wonder if they might just take the yearly average as default because then it's the same, regardless of how many more credits need to be added to reach the 20 half-courses/60 credits. 

Nonetheless, I'm sorry for all of us who have averages being brought down by this system! I can understand why someone would be upset. I know some schools also look directly at transcripts as well, so hopefully if they look at yours they'll be able to see the trend of improving grades. 

Best of luck to you all!  

[Wugs]

Great to hear from both of you! I appreciate you thisislife15 knowing you too are in the same situation. I feel grateful for the community I’ve found in this forum! 
 

Thank you coco_slp’s for your elaboration on the reasoning why they might be doing that. It seems inevitable that some people will be advantaged and disadvantaged no matter the calculation method, so now that I have the frustration out of my system the levelheaded side of me say: okay, fair enough. ?

Hope you’re all hanging in there! 

[coco_SLP]

No worries! Always glad to help. 

And haha, I'm hanging in here, anxious to start hearing back but I know I'll have to be patient the next couple of months. 

I hope you're hanging in there as well!

[SLP2020!!]

I received an email last week confirming that my application for Dal is complete and was sent to the committee for review! I asked the admin roughly how many applications they received this year and she said roughly 200 in total (meaning both SLP and audiology) and they have 39 spots in total (roughly half for SLP and half for audiology).

I've heard they had up to 500 applications in the past so this made me hopeful!

[SLP-2020]

5 minutes ago, SLP2020!! said:

I received an email last week confirming that my application for Dal is complete and was sent to the committee for review! I asked the admin roughly how many applications they received this year and she said roughly 200 in total (meaning both SLP and audiology) and they have 39 spots in total (roughly half for SLP and half for audiology).

I've heard they had up to 500 applications in the past so this made me hopeful!

That is great to hear! I wish you luck  I have not heard from Dalhousie yet, is anyone else still waiting to hear back?

[SLP2020!!]

Just now, SLP-2020 said:

That is great to hear! I wish you luck  I have not heard from Dalhousie yet, is anyone else still waiting to hear back?

Thank you! In the email she said they have not finished going through and confirming all the applications yet

[Wuglette]

14 minutes ago, SLP2020!! said:

I received an email last week confirming that my application for Dal is complete and was sent to the committee for review! I asked the admin roughly how many applications they received this year and she said roughly 200 in total (meaning both SLP and audiology) and they have 39 spots in total (roughly half for SLP and half for audiology).

I've heard they had up to 500 applications in the past so this made me hopeful!

That's nice to hear! Does anyone know if the other schools are receiving more or less applicants than previous years? It'll be interesting to see how covid affects the number of applicants because I can see it going both ways (having volunteer hours removed as a requirement for many schools vs the possibility that school may still not be in person by the fall, etc.). 

[2021speechie]

15 minutes ago, SLP2020!! said:

I received an email last week confirming that my application for Dal is complete and was sent to the committee for review! I asked the admin roughly how many applications they received this year and she said roughly 200 in total (meaning both SLP and audiology) and they have 39 spots in total (roughly half for SLP and half for audiology).

I've heard they had up to 500 applications in the past so this made me hopeful!

Hi! I received an email from Dal last week as well, did your email explicitly say that your application was sent for review? I got an email saying that they received my application & they gave me a Dal student number but it didnt say that my application was complete or that they were reviewing it. Goodluck! 

[SLP2020!!]

4 minutes ago, 2021speechie said:

Hi! I received an email from Dal last week as well, did your email explicitly say that your application was sent for review? I got an email saying that they received my application & they gave me a Dal student number but it didnt say that my application was complete or that they were reviewing it. Goodluck! 

Hello! My email said " We are pleased to let you know that your application is considered complete and has been passed onto the school's admissions committee for review." I never got a Dal student number though, strange!