|
|
Rank: Frosh  Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 23
|
Hi all,
I thought I might share this tidbit of information to you all.
Today a group of admissions officers made a presentation in my city today, and I duly attended. Naturally, I asked them about the difficulty of UofT compared to other universities. The answer he gave came at somewhat of a surprise.
He said "Actually, we changed it two years back when we noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult for students to succeed. We have now released new grading guidelines to professors in order to allow for more As and less Fs. We changed it."
So yeah, he said along those lines basically. I hadn't heard this anywhere, so anyone with further experience care to elaborate?
|
|
|
Rank: Student Body President  Joined: 1/3/2011 Posts: 1,758
|
OOOO: I'll keep me fingers crossed that that is true! Can any U of T students confirm this? Especially any of those in Life Sci? :))) University of British Columbia '15
Bachelor of Science
Major in Biology
|
|
|
|
Rank: Valedictorian
Joined: 12/20/2010
Posts: 597
|
Fat chance that actually happened. Ask those admissions officers to take a closer look at CHM139 if they think they've made it easier on us. The school's still very hard.
The average has to be kept around 65% in every large first-year course. How many people end up getting A's and F's depends firstly on how well you do in an absolute sense, and secondly, how well you do compared to the others in your class (so that when they later have to adjust marks, if you've done at least a bit better than your classmates, you'll benefit because you're feeding off their bellcurve). Tell me if that makes sense.
|
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/28/2011
Posts: 80
|
That is a load of BULLSHII. Their just trying to get the vulnerable 80% avg. kids to come to the school so they can take your mullah baby.
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student  Joined: 12/20/2010 Posts: 285
|
This is why I never applied to UofT...
I've heard horror stories of people who saw their grad school dreams shaterred by awful, deflated GPAs.
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student  Joined: 1/1/2011 Posts: 98
|
I think everyone here's heard the "horror stories", but I've been thinking that we may be getting a disproportionate amount of such stories. Being from BC, I've only read about them on the internet, but, as for disproportionality, I don't think the internet necessarily serves as a good surveying ground for self-reported experience because obviously there's going to be a bias where people who have such horror stories are more likely to self-report such stories than the average student who's had average experiences... University of Toronto, Victoria College, 2015, BA.
Tentative: Philosophy Specialist, Cognitive Science Major; Philosophy Specialist, Comparative Literature Major
|
|
|
|
Rank: Valedictorian
Joined: 12/20/2010
Posts: 597
|
You can do well at UofT - but it is hard. People who say it's impossible are obviously giving you an extremely biased story. I don't want to show off, but I'm doing well. I just don't want people coming in here thinking that it's easy, or that it's inevitable that your life will fall apart after a year here. Neither are true.
|
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/28/2011
Posts: 80
|
theboydetective wrote:I think everyone here's heard the "horror stories", but I've been thinking that we may be getting a disproportionate amount of such stories. Being from BC, I've only read about them on the internet, but, as for disproportionality, I don't think the internet necessarily serves as a good surveying ground for self-reported experience because obviously there's going to be a bias where people who have such horror stories are more likely to self-report such stories than the average student who's had average experiences... Its just the truth, you can do well here but the only people that do well are the 95% avg. high school kids who have to work 24/7 during the school year and have no life outside of school. Its really hard to balance school especially during first year with everything else that goes on in a typical teenager's life assuming your not one of those creepy 40 year old's in a first year class or some Starcraft geek. I know, I am finishing first year life sci at UTSG, and its definitely hard. If you even want to do okay you have to devote most of your time to school. Its definitely not worth it, normal people come to university in order to learn and better their futures BUT they also come to experience what is supposed to be the great exciting journey of University life and you don't get that fulfillment at UTSG. I wish I went to a school like Western or Guelph or a school that still allows you to better yourself as a student and to have fun. Life isn't about spending the entire school year hunched in a corner of the library studying with a ton of other over-caffeinated UofT kids with the thought that this is really what University is all about, cause it really isn't. Take that to the bank all you prospective UofT kids.
|
|
|
Rank: Student Body President  Joined: 12/20/2010 Posts: 1,288
|
prmly wrote:This is why I never applied to UofT...
I've heard horror stories of people who saw their grad school dreams shaterred by awful, deflated GPAs. This. (Well, I applied. But I ruled it out pretty quickly.) Sure, it's possible that a lot of it is exaggerated. But do I really want to take that chance?
|
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/28/2011
Posts: 80
|
Zion wrote:prmly wrote:This is why I never applied to UofT...
I've heard horror stories of people who saw their grad school dreams shaterred by awful, deflated GPAs. This. (Well, I applied. But I ruled it out pretty quickly.) Sure, it's possible that a lot of it is exaggerated. But do I really want to take that chance? Good decision. Even if the school wasn't some GPA killer I wouldn't recommend it, the school is just full of unsocial people and not much fun to be had here.
|
|
|
Rank: Frosh  Joined: 1/19/2011 Posts: 29
|
Sheldore wrote:theboydetective wrote:I think everyone here's heard the "horror stories", but I've been thinking that we may be getting a disproportionate amount of such stories. Being from BC, I've only read about them on the internet, but, as for disproportionality, I don't think the internet necessarily serves as a good surveying ground for self-reported experience because obviously there's going to be a bias where people who have such horror stories are more likely to self-report such stories than the average student who's had average experiences... Its just the truth, you can do well here but the only people that do well are the 95% avg. high school kids who have to work 24/7 during the school year and have no life outside of school. Its really hard to balance school especially during first year with everything else that goes on in a typical teenager's life assuming your not one of those creepy 40 year old's in a first year class or some Starcraft geek. I know, I am finishing first year life sci at UTSG, and its definitely hard. If you even want to do okay you have to devote most of your time to school. Its definitely not worth it, normal people come to university in order to learn and better their futures BUT they also come to experience what is supposed to be the great exciting journey of University life and you don't get that fulfillment at UTSG. I wish I went to a school like Western or Guelph or a school that still allows you to better yourself as a student and to have fun. Life isn't about spending the entire school year hunched in a corner of the library studying with a ton of other over-caffeinated UofT kids with the thought that this is really what University is all about, cause it really isn't. Take that to the bank all you prospective UofT kids. Hey, if you had any info to give to me about more of your opinion...I mean, you made your opinion pretty clear but I'm feeling awfully stuck between U of T and Guelph for the exact reasons you described. I would really appreciate any extra input on the topic :) University of Toronto, Victoria-Philosophy
University of Guelph- Philosophy
University of Waterloo-Philosophy
York University, Glendon- Undeclared
Ryerson University- Contemporary Arts & Studies
Grad '10, Victory lapper '11... Wooo...
Accepted! Still waiting!
|
|
|
|
Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/28/2011
Posts: 80
|
^ Well in reality even if your a genius that thinks they can pull of 90's in UTSG you should still go to Guelph, some people will scoff at you for choosing Guelph over UTSG but its the choice a smart person would make. Unless your really big on doing research and such than UTSG is good for you, even then research positions are only offered to students with high marks. UTSG's entire undergrad program is flawed and horrible, the entire schools reputation is based off of research and their post-graduate programs, their undergrad program is definitely not their best attribute. I would honestly go to Guelph, I have a few friends there who honestly seem truly happy and content with the choice they made to go to Guelph for university, it has a nice community feel and there are great parties, and you can do well in school too. That's just my opinion though.
|
|
|
|
Rank: Frosh
Joined: 2/20/2011
Posts: 2
|
A little late, but I thought that I would add my 2 cents.
With regard to the grading policy, the old story was that there were limits to the number of high grades given in introductory classes. A professor or TA could get around the limit by writing a simple letter explaining that the grades were deserved. There is a section now in the UofT's grading policy which specifies that a class or department cannot start with a policy officially limiting the number of grades in a certain range. To my knowledge this hasn't made any standards any lower. However, a policy which should have been followed all along (and probably was in most cases) is now expliitly stated.
If you are interested, it's available online.
I'm in fourth year at UofT, and I can confirm that it is possible to do well - but not easy. Think about what you want out of university. I've been able to participate in a number of campus groups, research opportunities, volunteering, etc. - but at the cost of an ever-dwindling social life and much sleep (and sanity ;) ). It is true that you need to devote the majority of your time to school. I'm not sure how anyone expects otherwise, though.
|
|
|
|
Rank: Student Body President
Joined: 6/3/2011
Posts: 2,118
|
littleroom wrote:The average has to be kept around 65% in every large first-year course. How many people end up getting A's and F's depends firstly on how well you do in an absolute sense, and secondly, how well you do compared to the others in your class (so that when they later have to adjust marks, if you've done at least a bit better than your classmates, you'll benefit because you're feeding off their bellcurve). Tell me if that makes sense. This is called a curve. It's not exactly new, and it's certainly not unique to U of T. Many universities apply the curve officially or unofficially. I'd like to think I would have probably done well if I had done my undergrad at U of T, based on how well I did at U of A (engineering, while playing a varsity sport, while having a life).
|
|
|
Powered by YAF |
YAF © 2003-2013, Yet Another Forum.NETCopyright © 2003-2013 Yet Another Forum.net. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1998-2013 studentawards.com & boursetudes.com - Studentawards Inc. All rights reserved.