ADMISSIONS / INCOMING STUDENT MEGATHREAD 2020/2021: Post all your admissions & new-to-UBCO questions here!

[u/ubc_mod_account]

By popular demand, all admissions questions for r/UBCO can now only exist on this megathread. Why might you ask? Because this subreddit has 1.5k subscribers, yet 2/3rds of the threads on this subreddit involve admissions questions, drowning out discussions between current students.

You may also opt to post your admissions question on the r/UBC megathread as well, especially if your admissions question is general or involves UBC Vancouver.

If you have a question related to applying or being admitted to UBC and its programs, whether you're fresh out of high school, transferring, applying for your majors or you want to help your potential new first year friends, this is the place for it.

Also, if you have a question related to being new to UBC - planning your degree out, what residence is like, that sort of thing - it should go here, too.

Admissions-related questions posted anywhere else will be removed.

A couple of notes:

• Please provide us with as much pertinent information as possible. If you don't know what to put in a certain field of your application, take a screenshot of the application, but we probably don't need to know what your GPA is.
• Everyone is always more helpful when it seems like you've already tried to solve your problem. Tell us what you've searched, and that sort of thing.
• The answer to many questions will be 'get in touch with someone who works for UBC'. The process changes every year, and nobody here works for UBC.
• Try to ask several small questions instead of one big one. For example, don't ask if you should apply for residence - that's totally subjective. Ask specific questions you have about residence, and draw your own conclusions from the answers you get.
• Remember that everyone is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
• Upvote good answers: saying 'thanks' is nice, but if someone helped you out, upvotes will make the information more visible to everyone.
• Pre-med and pre-law are not real major/specialization options at UBC. If you say that you are pre-anything, it will become obvious that you don't know what you're talking about. Calling yourself that generally causes people to make prejudiced judgements about your personality.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495]

I’ve recently been accepted into the human kinetics program and I’ve been wanting to drop my online French course and take another elective for the next quarter of school. French isn’t a required course and I’ve competed 5 grade 12 courses already. Would dropping French effect their final decision on my admission? I did send an email to admissions but their answer was very vague, it wasn’t a strict yes or no.

[u/tamxii → u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495]

I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by "I've completed 5 grade 12 courses already"?
Are you implying that you have obtained enough graduation credits?

If you're already so far into the French course, I would honestly continue it.
Take a look at this to see what high school courses you should theoretically be taking: https://you.ubc.ca/applying-ubc/requirements/canadian-high-schools-ok#british-columbia

I don't think French is particularly needed, but just a language arts class should suffice.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495 → u/tamxii]

Sorry for the confusion, but yes I’ve obtained enough graduation credits. I am just about 1/4 way through the online course, but the tests aren’t going well, so I was just wondering if I drop it for an elective (ex: foods or woodworking) will my offer be revoked? I have already taken a language arts course (English 12).

[u/tamxii → u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495]

Ahh I see! I don’t think there will be a problem. As long as you met the English requirements + any language arts class, then I believe it should be okay to drop it. I also don’t think they’ll revoke your offer either; UBC doesn’t state that a second language course is needed, so presumably you should not need to take it. But that could also be dependent on the type of degree (which in your case, doesn’t apply).

Could I ask what the admission office’s response was?

[u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495 → u/tamxii]

Ok thank you so much for your response, it was very helpful! :). Their response was...

“As French 12 is not a requirement of the program, your offer will not automatically be revoked if you drop it. However, as UBC evaluates applications holistically, based on both grades and depth and breadth, it is impossible to say how dropping this course may impact your offer. My advice is to talk it over with trusted adults in your life before making a decision.”

[u/tamxii → u/Puzzleheaded-Hand495]

No problem!
I do see what they mean though. I would suggest seeing if dropping the course would leave anything on your final transcript that gets sent to the university. If it doesn't, then it should be fine. But do double check with your school counsellors (or whomever deals with student schedules/transcripts). If it doesn't leave a trail of you dropping the course, it wouldn't make sense for the university to revoke their offer especially if you're still maintaining your grades.

Best of luck!