The Student Room Group

I am EXTREMELY worried

I am a first year student (canadian citizen) at the University of Toronto in Canada- It's a pretty big university so hopefully someone will know their policies and what not.

I'll get straight to the point- I totally flunked first year. I failed 2 courses and received a very low gpa. I'm going to be taking 2 summer courses but that would boost my gpa to a 1.5-1.6 max. Yeah, I know, it's super low. Now, the reason for this, and I'll be honest, was not working hard and not being dedicated. I was a good student in highschool with 80+ in most of my courses but at University, having the freedom to skip classes really changed me. I attended less than 33% of lectures for most of my courses, did very little of the readings, and started studying for tests a few nights in advance.

So I'm in a pretty bad situation right now and I totally regret it. U of T will put me on their policy which means I have to maintain over a 1.6 next year to not get "suspended." Fortunately, I will still be able to get into my majors next year.

A few questions I have are as follows:

If I want to switch universities, they will look at my first year marks from U of T pretty seriously right? Would the only way to switch to a place like York, be to attend a community college for about a year, boost my grades, and show them I've changed?

Would staying at U of T be a bad idea? How badly will this first year GPA affect me from going to grad school? It just seems like all hope is lost for grad school and if it really is, please be honest and tell me. Would it be possible to take an extra year at u of t and take more courses to boost my gpa?

York, unlike U of T, has this policy where if you fail a course and you retake it, the failed course gets removed from your transcript. U of T keeps the failed course on it and makes my GPA take a nosedive. If I switch there, would it be possible to get those failed courses removed if i retake them?

Last question, and this is a pretty serious one and please answer honestly. My parents payed for my first year tuition, I didn't take a loan. If my parents, theoretically, decide to cut me off and kick me out of the house, what would my options be then? Would it be impossible to take a loan? Would I be stuck with community college for my entire life?

THANKS SO MUCH

I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
(edited 11 years ago)
Unfortunately, most people on here are at UK institutions, with no experience of how the Canadian education system works.

Is there a Canadian version of TSR?
Reply 2
What the heck is GPA?
Original post by james1211
What the heck is GPA?


Grade point average. It's a grading system commonly used in America and Canada that usually works on a scale where higher numbers are better, rather than 1st, 2.1, etc. The scale is often 1 to 4, although it can go higher. It's used over a period of time rather than to mark individual assignments, hence why it's an average.

OP: As has been said, most people on TSR are in the UK, so I don't know how much help you're going to get here. Hope it works out for you in the end. :smile:
(edited 11 years ago)
hmmm if you think you can turn things around and graduate with a strong degree classification, then I'd say stick with it. If that seems like too tall an order, then I'd say go with door number 2.
Reply 5
what is a grad school? :s-smilie:
Original post by lolipanda
what is a grad school? :s-smilie:


It's like a university that just does post-graduate education. We don't have them in the UK, but they're quite common in north America.
Reply 7
Can people please be kinder to members, especially new members who are obviously stressed and concerned?

Original post by ITGIRL
Wait. What? He is pathetic? :confused: Are you on drugs? He is spot on!:angry: This is a UK based forum hence the .co.uk prefix. I mean seriously open your eyes! If your international student looking to come to the UK fine anything else go to your own student forum :angry: We don't need more trolls...


TSR is the largest student forum of its kind in the world. Yes, it is primiarly a UK site, but it does have a "North American Study" subforum (in International Study) with a decent number of current or former US and Canadian based students posting there. Moreover, people in the UK do attend universities in both the UK and US, so there are also British people with experience of North American universities, including Toronto.

Whether someone with in depth knowledge of Toronto is online at this moment in time and will see this thread is unlikely, and perhaps the OP is best to seek a Canadian advice or seek advice from an appropriate contact at his or her university. Still, there's nothing wrong with posting a thread on TSR in the hope that someone will be able to help.

Please don't suggest people are "trolls", especially when there is no evidence of trolling.

Moved to North American Study.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 8
Original post by murpo
Well he didn't post in any American section did he? ITGirl did nothing wrong....


No he did not, but TSR, being the largest site of its kind, is very large with many forums and subforums. The OP is a new member who obviously doesn't know where to post his thread and, seeing a large forum called "General University Discussion", and desperate to get some replies, places it there.

People post in the incorrect forum every single hour of every single day either through laziness or, in the OP's case, not being aware of other subforums. It doesn't justify accusations of being a "troll".

A better reply would be "I'm sorry, this is a UK site and not many people will be familiar with the Canadian system or University of Toronto. However, if you post in either the International Lounge or North American Study you may find someone who can help". Or not post and all and just report the thread, asking for a moderator to move it.

I don't mean to be too critical, especially toward ITGirl in particular, I just want replies to be helpful and constructive. This is particularly important when it comes to new members needing advice as I want these new members to remain.
Can you stop studying at U of T and start a new degree at another university? Like just reapply for university admission and kind of don't mention your first year results? There are some people I know who have done this in other countries like Switzerland/the UK.

If you want to *transfer* to another university (start in your second year) then I think they will obviously look at your first year from U of T, but if you reapply for admission it may not be the case..

Either way I'm not sure how GPA works, can you just take more courses to bring your GPA up? Is it like one number that just averages your study up till this data? That's kind of cool. Well if you can just do more studies to get it up and they only look at that number then why not do that. In other countries we don't have a single number so all courses are looked at individually, thats why we get chances to resit failed courses I think.

Either way doing badly in first year or failing usually means you just end up wasting a year, you will graduate a year later if you switch universities. I'm not sure how it works in Canada but normally if you fail first year badly you can't really go into 2nd year and have to repeat some courses, cant you just do that?
Reply 10
You picked the worst university - U of T to slack off at. People who study every chance they get still have GPA problems there.
james1211
x


Grade point average - it's basically a number which tells you how well your doing in all your classes.
(edited 11 years ago)

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