Jan. 15 and Feb. 1 are the university and college application deadlines, respectively. So whether students are interested in Catholic higher education or secular institutions, “they absolutely, unequivocally need to go on a web site that is called eINFO,” said Josephine Di Meo, head of guidance at Toronto’s Father Henry Carr Catholic Secondary School. “If they have not done that, they are really not ready to apply for university.”
The site Di Meo speaks of allows students to search the program they want to apply to and then lists every Ontario university that offers it. For each item on the list, students can see the admission GPA cut offs and prerequisites.
Di Meo has had more than 30 years experience working in Catholic education and says some students will apply to university and college deadlines without making sure they have the right grades and the right high school courses to be accepted.
“It’s $145 now to apply to university. You get three choices. To make the best of those choices, you need to make sure that the programs that you are applying to are viable because if you are applying to programs that you don’t have the prerequisites for, that’s a waste of an application. If you’re applying to programs that you know you will not have the mark for, that’s a waste of a line on your application,” she said.
Each additional university application in Ontario costs $44.
College applications cost $95 for a maximum of five program choices.
Students are also surprised to learn about Catholic options in higher education. Catholic universities and on-campus groups in Ontario, said Di Meo, have reached out to guidance counsellors with the necessary information.
“In fact, the universities have been proactive in contacting us, all the Catholic boards in Ontario, to say we can provide the continued Gospel values for the students that are graduating from Catholic high schools,” she said.
Some students, when they find out Catholic higher education is available, they say to Di Meo, “Oh Miss, thank God.”
In Di Meo’s presentation to her students, she lists the following Catholic post-secondary schools in Ontario: the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, Brescia University College at Western University in London, Saint Paul University in Ottawa, St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, University of Sudbury in Sudbury and Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay.
Di Meo also says students should be aware that some universities ask for supplementary applications (mandatory or not) that may enhance a student’s chances of being accepted, especially if their grades are bordering the cut offs. She adds that some colleges require language assessments to ensure students are ready for college academic life.
For more information, students should contact their guidance counsellors and visit www.electronicinfo. ca and www.ouac.on.ca for universities and www.ontariocolleges. ca.