2021 Canadian SLP Thread

[slpsych]

Hey! 

Can someone clarify how ORPAS calculation works for me? I understand that they take the average of the entire year rather than semesters, but is it the same for summer semester as well? I have 19 half courses in the last two years and 1 in the summer. Would summer also be grouped with fall and winter or would they just be using that specific course in the sub-GPA calculation? 

[jec]

16 hours ago, Quote_Actual said:

 

They include it in your calculation! I did a year abroad in The Netherlands and I had to get the school to send my transcripts to ORPAS. So at the bottom of the pic you will see **Average** under the "Course" heading. That was an average of some of my courses (just enough to fill the remaining credits) I took over there. I was very sad because, if you look closely, it really lowered my overall average ?? But no regrets of course, it was worth it! 

Thanks so much for this! I sent you a private message about this. I also did an exchange year in the Netherlands!

[Owl.on.a.Slide]

On 5/12/2021 at 2:40 PM, slpsych said:

Hey! 

Can someone clarify how ORPAS calculation works for me? I understand that they take the average of the entire year rather than semesters, but is it the same for summer semester as well? I have 19 half courses in the last two years and 1 in the summer. Would summer also be grouped with fall and winter or would they just be using that specific course in the sub-GPA calculation? 

From my understanding the grouping thing only applies to your "oldest" courses if they need to take some credits from a semester where you took more than 1 course (probably because how can they choose which course to pick for the average?). So let's say you took 19 half credits in the last two years, they will need to go back one more semester. If in that semester you took more than 1 course, they will average the gpa of the entire semester.

I may be wrong because it can get confusing, but this is what happened in my situation. I took 3 half courses in 3 different semesters in 2020. They were not grouped, but counted individually. However, when they summed up all the courses I took after graduating to those taken in my undergrad to reach 20 half credits, they still had to take half a credit from my 3rd undergrad year, where I had an awful average. So for my oldest half credit they used the average of that semester (which killed my subGPA ?)

Hope it helps

Edited May 15, 2021 by slp2020ab

[UWOAudiology2023]

Hi, guys! For anyone who got into Western's SLP class and AUD class, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in finding housing together in London?

[friendlyghost]

Hey there, I've got yet another ORPAS question. Does anyone have any know how they treat pass/fail courses? For winter 2020 my school instituted mandatory pass/fail for all students. So 5 of my last 20 courses have no grade. Are they gonna calculate my sGPA with 15 courses instead? Or are they gonna get the 5 classes from a previous semester? I struggled earlier in my degree, and it would be disastrous if they went back another semester. 

[SLP-hopefully]

Got of the waitlist for Western today!!!! Janet emailed about 2 hours ago  

[neuroling]

24 minutes ago, friendlyghost said:

Hey there, I've got yet another ORPAS question. Does anyone have any know how they treat pass/fail courses? For winter 2020 my school instituted mandatory pass/fail for all students. So 5 of my last 20 courses have no grade. Are they gonna calculate my sGPA with 15 courses instead? Or are they gonna get the 5 classes from a previous semester? I struggled earlier in my degree, and it would be disastrous if they went back another semester. 

Unfortunately they don't exist for the purposes of GPA calculation, so they'll go further back  Also note that if they reach a 'school year' boundary (Usually April, if your school offers summer term it's considered its own thing) and need fewer courses than are contained in that year they'll average the entire year (usually sept-april) and weigh it down to match the number of remaining courses. Let me know if that makes sense 

[friendlyghost]

46 minutes ago, neuroling said:

Unfortunately they don't exist for the purposes of GPA calculation, so they'll go further back  Also note that if they reach a 'school year' boundary (Usually April, if your school offers summer term it's considered its own thing) and need fewer courses than are contained in that year they'll average the entire year (usually sept-april) and weigh it down to match the number of remaining courses. Let me know if that makes sense 

So I'm effectively being punished for something out of my control, how delightful. ??? Anyways, thanks for the info.

I think I understand your explanation, but I'm gonna throw some hypothetical numbers out there just to confirm. Say I reach the boundary, and I only have 17 courses. So they're gonna take the average of the preceding school year, let's just say it's a 3.0. Then they're gonna use 3.0 as the grade for all 3 missing classes?

[neuroling]

10 minutes ago, friendlyghost said:

So I'm effectively being punished for something out of my control, how delightful. ??? Anyways, thanks for the info.

I think I understand your explanation, but I'm gonna throw some hypothetical numbers out there just to confirm. Say I reach the boundary, and I only have 17 courses. So they're gonna take the average of the preceding school year, let's just say it's a 3.0. Then they're gonna use 3.0 as the grade for all 3 missing classes?

Yeah It really didn't work in my favour either, it sucks!!!

Yes exactly - So it would be like you got a B in 3 unspecified courses

[Owl.on.a.Slide]

1 hour ago, SLP-hopefully said:

Got of the waitlist for Western today!!!! Janet emailed about 2 hours ago  

Congrats!!! Still in the first quadrant in mid-May ?

Edited May 17, 2021 by slp2020ab

[Owl.on.a.Slide]

2 hours ago, friendlyghost said:

Hey there, I've got yet another ORPAS question. Does anyone have any know how they treat pass/fail courses? For winter 2020 my school instituted mandatory pass/fail for all students. So 5 of my last 20 courses have no grade. Are they gonna calculate my sGPA with 15 courses instead? Or are they gonna get the 5 classes from a previous semester? I struggled earlier in my degree, and it would be disastrous if they went back another semester. 

What school is that if you don't mind sharing? I'm so sorry you went through this. It would utterly outrage me. Same grade if you got a 60 and a 100? And what about people like you that get incredibly penalized for their master's applications? Come on...

[friendlyghost]

49 minutes ago, slp2020ab said:

What school is that if you don't mind sharing? I'm so sorry you went through this. It would utterly outrage me. Same grade if you got a 60 and a 100? And what about people like you that get incredibly penalized for their master's applications? Come on...

I go to the UofA, who did this after we switched online halfway through the semester (thanks covid). Pretty much everyone agreed pass/fail was necessary, but there was a lot of debate on whether it should be mandatory or left to student choice. In the end, the powers that be made it mandatory for every student and every class. Then they proposed this bizarre idea of letting professors write a letter detailing our class ranks, but that never fully materialized. 

I read the application info for UofA's program, and it seems like winter 2020 counts towards the last 20 courses, but gpa is only calculated on the graded stuff (basically situation #1 in my orginal comment). I guess they realized the kind of predicament they created. It's too bad this policy isn't nation-wide.

[neuroling]

2 minutes ago, friendlyghost said:

I go to the UofA, who did this after we switched online halfway through the semester (thanks covid). Pretty much everyone agreed pass/fail was necessary, but there was a lot of debate on whether it should be mandatory or left to student choice. In the end, the powers that be made it mandatory for every student and every class. Then they proposed this bizarre idea of letting professors write a letter detailing our class ranks, but that never fully materialized. 

I read the application info for UofA's program, and it seems like winter 2020 counts towards the last 20 courses, but gpa is only calculated on the graded stuff (basically situation #1 in my orginal comment). I guess they realized the kind of predicament they created. It's too bad this policy isn't nation-wide.

I can confirm this! Those classes count towards your credits for admission GPA calculation for UA and I think Dalhousie too. So I took P/Fs on a couple classes and of my 61 credits (just the way the terms worked out) only 55 of them were actually used to calculate my admission GPA

[hopefulslper]

Hi everyone, sorry to ask another gpa question, but I was wondering if anyone on here had been accepted with a 3.74 sub-gpa anywhere in Canada? Hoping to get some hope from someone  

[neuroling]

10 hours ago, hopefulslper said:

Hi everyone, sorry to ask another gpa question, but I was wondering if anyone on here had been accepted with a 3.74 sub-gpa anywhere in Canada? Hoping to get some hope from someone  

I did 

[EmSLP2021]

anyone hear from Dal's waitlist lately? 

[Guest]

Hi there! Could anyone who has gotten in to McGill/Western/Alberta send me their stats please

[DalSLP]

4 hours ago, EmSLP2021 said:

anyone hear from Dal's waitlist lately? 

I emailed them asking if the seats are completely full and they said “at the moment there are no availabilities”.

[SpeechieAlly]

I need some advice from you lovely people! My sGPA for this admission cycle was 3.45 and I made the 4th quadrant of Western’s waitlist. For few reasons the most I may be able to bump it would be to 3.56. Is it worth it for me to try to get that or is it still too low?

[Owl.on.a.Slide]

10 hours ago, SpeechieAlly said:

I need some advice from you lovely people! My sGPA for this admission cycle was 3.45 and I made the 4th quadrant of Western’s waitlist. For few reasons the most I may be able to bump it would be to 3.56. Is it worth it for me to try to get that or is it still too low?

I guess 0.11 is still a good bump but it does still seem a bit low and unfortunately applicants' sGPAs are only going to get higher...McMaster is definitely not an option. For Western and UofT, not sure how your volunteering/research experience is, but you'd probably need a stellar one to have a slim chance. But it is still a bit of a gamble as you won't know how much your volunteering will improve your application, and I have a feeling that UofT might do the same they did last year and disregard volunteering experience, so sGPA will weigh more.

If you have the means and you really want to get in, it may be worth it to do a second degree...I know it seems daunting and a waste of time/resources, but you'll have the opportunity to get a lot of high grades and fresh references from profs. I wish I had done that 4-5 years ago instead of taking a million courses here and there! Or I guess you could try CDA, but it won't improve your sGPA so it might not help too much except down the road if you have thousands of hours of experience... 

Not the most ideal solutions, it really sucks  

Edited May 20, 2021 by slp2020ab

[SpeechieAlly]

59 minutes ago, slp2020ab said:

I guess 0.11 is still a good bump but it does still seem a bit low and unfortunately applicants' sGPAs are only going to get higher...McMaster is definitely not an option. For Western and UofT, not sure how your volunteering/research experience is, but you'd probably need a stellar one to have a slim chance. But it is still a bit of a gamble as you won't know how much your volunteering will improve your application, and I have a feeling that UofT might do the same they did last year and disregard volunteering experience, so sGPA will weigh more.

If you have the means and you really want to get in, it may be worth it to do a second degree...I know it seems daunting and a waste of time/resources, but you'll have the opportunity to get a lot of high grades and fresh references from profs. I wish I had done that 4-5 years ago instead of taking a million courses here and there! Or I guess you could try CDA, but it won't improve your sGPA so it might not help too much except down the road if you have thousands of hours of experience... 

Not the most ideal solutions, it really sucks  

Thanks so much for your response. This kinda what I was expecting. At this point of my life I don’t know if it’s worth it for me to complete another degree and still not be guaranteed admission. I might be time to put this behind me and find a new dream ??‍♀️

[2nd year Dal Student]

On 5/20/2021 at 8:52 AM, slp2020ab said:

I guess 0.11 is still a good bump but it does still seem a bit low and unfortunately applicants' sGPAs are only going to get higher...McMaster is definitely not an option. For Western and UofT, not sure how your volunteering/research experience is, but you'd probably need a stellar one to have a slim chance. But it is still a bit of a gamble as you won't know how much your volunteering will improve your application, and I have a feeling that UofT might do the same they did last year and disregard volunteering experience, so sGPA will weigh more.

If you have the means and you really want to get in, it may be worth it to do a second degree...I know it seems daunting and a waste of time/resources, but you'll have the opportunity to get a lot of high grades and fresh references from profs. I wish I had done that 4-5 years ago instead of taking a million courses here and there! Or I guess you could try CDA, but it won't improve your sGPA so it might not help too much except down the road if you have thousands of hours of experience... 

Not the most ideal solutions, it really sucks  

Yea, I agree with you.

I asked around and the only place that seemed to accept people with something under a 3.7 is Alberta, but those people had an unbelievable amount of experience. U of T emphasizes sGPA whereas Western experience. But still, I havent heard many people get into Ontario schools with under a 3.7. 

I do know someone who almost did a whole second degree and they got into U of T! I think it depends on the person's long term goals and if you believe its worth it

Edited May 23, 2021 by Quote_Actual

[Katielariv]

I was waitlisted for OttawaU on April 1st and still no updates yet. Have a feeling it might be while as I've heard that some people don't find out until the day before classes start. 

[rmaam]

4 hours ago, Katielariv said:

I was waitlisted for OttawaU on April 1st and still no updates yet. Have a feeling it might be while as I've heard that some people don't find out until the day before classes start. 

hey ! We're in the same situation... It's so stressful tbh ! I got accepted into OT but I'm still on the waitlist for SLP ... urgh the wait is killing me since I know so many people in this forum and in my personal life who got waitlisted...  

4 hours ago, Katielariv said:

I was waitlisted for OttawaU on April 1st and still no updates yet. Have a feeling it might be while as I've heard that some people don't find out until the day before classes start. 

 

[jnayar04]

Does that mean its as good as a rejection or is there still a possibility? Will they update near Sepetember when school actually starts? That seems really late and there are quite a few things that I need to closeout before that happens - I wonder what people are thinking of doing?  

On 5/19/2021 at 2:02 PM, DalSLP said:

I emailed them asking if the seats are completely full and they said “at the moment there are no availabilities”.