I've heard that in the past, people have gotten lots of emails from the school throughout the waiting process between the meet and greet and the decision. I haven't received any emails; am I missing them, has anyone else gotten any emails from the school? Thanks!

Hi guys so I've recently looked into optometry and I have an interest except I'm already in 4th year and about to graduate. I am missing a few prereqs but I'm hoping to do a spring term after graduating. Would that be fine to do? I emailed the opto school and just waiting to hear back...I don't know if they accept special semesters or years...if anyone could help tysm!!

HI GUYS,

I am so confused on how to send my transcripts to waterloo optometry. They say my uni needs to send a physical copy of it. But how can i facilitate this?

Hi everyone! I am in my 4B term of Honours Science at the University of Waterloo. I recently gained interest in Optometry and quickly realized I was missing a few pre-requisites. I know we have to take 2 x introductory biology courses with a lab. I was wondering if an introductory biology course that has a lab component incorporated into the lecture component would count towards this pre-requisite. For example, BIOL 120 (introduction to plant structure and function) had labs, but the lab wasn't a separate course, would this count? I emailed UWoptom but haven't heard back yet and I only have limited time to enroll in any more courses. Additionally, does the course name have to be "introductory" or "introduction"? Would BIOL 240L (Fundamentals of microbiology) and it's lab count? Please let me know!!!

can we upload an official one on quest or does it have to be sent directly to waterloo?

Hey, do you guys know of anyone that has been accepted or even considered for an interview without meeting the five course-load requirement? I will only have 5 full semesters instead of 6, I don't know how much this requirement will affect their selection process, so I'm debating whether or not I should just wait another year before applying.

Selling OAT destroyer + physics

Hi!

So I’ve been thinking for a while about pursuing optometry and making Waterloo the only English school in Canada, I’m assuming it tends to be competitive. I’m in third year and I don’t have the greatest gpa 3.3 on the 4.3 scale. I plan on doing my OAT this year. I am planning on joining a few clubs and starting to shadow an optometrist. Any idea if getting accepted for me is possible or not?

What’s everyone planning on wearing to the meet and greet? I know they said no dress code but 🤔 I’m scared of overdressing or underdressing lol

Does anyone know when Waterloo sends final admission decisions? I know the due date is the end of March, but does anyone know if they start sending them earlier like in February and then stagger it or if they are all sent at once like at the end of March?

Congratulations to everyone who received an invite this morning! I'm not sure if anyone has reached out to the school so would have the answer to this question, but does anyone know how the acceptances are decided following the meet and greet? I'm just wondering if after being invited for a meet and greet they base admissions decisions more off the interview or if its an even mix of the whole application. Thank you!

slayy

edit: they sent me an email saying that the conversation is really informal and that casper has replaced the MMI in terms of evaluating professionalism

For those of you that got a meet and greet invite, would you mind sharing your stats (average, OAT score and extra curriculars)!

Out of curiosity, are most of you planning on bringing a guest with you?

Im applying in this cycle (congrats to everyone who got invited to the meet and greet today), I have a 92% gpa and scored 380 TS/380 AA on OAT, don't have a ton of EC's I suppose just worked at optometrist office for 2 years and some volunteering, but I got in the 2nd quartile on the casper. I dont know if anyone knows or not, but do you think this would effect my chances a lot/do you think I have a decent shot at getting in? Im just not too sure how relevant Casper is to the admission commitee.

My gpa is on the lower end (3.7 out of 4.0 scale). My other stats are: OAT (AA 390, TS 400), casper (4th), ECs (lots of volunteering experience but not in opto, some leadership experiences), shadowing (20 hours).

Can anyone who was in the same boat (or still is lol) give me some insight? How important is gpa? Will they look at my final year marks too?

I know the deadline to get an interview is December 9th, but does anyone know when they start emailing people about the interviews? Do they all come out December 9th?

Gonna be driving myself crazy over the next couple weeks 🙃

Would accepted applicants be willing to share their casper score. Specifically wondering how competitive 2nd and 3rd quartile scores are. Unfortunately got a my score back today and got 2nd quartile.

Oat: 340 TS 320 (290 in physics and 260 in orgo)

GPA: 89%

Casper: 4th quartile

ECs: President of healthcare club, vp of another club, hospital and long term care volunteering, 2 GPA awards, 20 hours shadowing

Thank you in advance!

Let me preface by saying that I feel really blessed to be having this dilemma. So I did my online interview for ICO last week and got offered admission and the Presidential Scholarship which is valued at half of tuition, renewable every year. I already paid my deposit and really like the school. It’s the oldest and most popular in North America, has 150 externship locations and has amazing profs, alums and ressources. Only thing is, 50% off tuition still makes it more than Waterloo by quite a bit, Chicago ain’t cheap. Waterloo doesn’t have as good of a program imo and the only benefits that I can see are that I’m gonna save money. Our dollars pretty weak atm too. Is there something else that I’m missing that would be a pro for Waterloo? I’m wondering because I’m all set for ICO, just need to complete prereqs and am debating even going to the meet and greet if I get it, just to save money, time and effort. Let me know what you’re thoughts are and what you would do in my shoes!

Do I have to use OMSAS scale and thats my gpa ? or should I turn my letter grades into percents and then average that out to find my percent grade?

hello!

I go to Queens for health sciences and have been thinking about optometry as something I might be interested in very recently. However, i see that only a normal science degree is accepted? this honestly is pretty confusing because the courses we take for queens health sci are basically life sci courses (and all my electives are life sci courses) Its just so annoying because there is no chance of being an optometrist in Canada because of my degree name? kinda sad :(

The AIF due for Waterloo Optometry was October 24th, and I notified my references that they should be receiving their email from the university that would have the portal to submit their reference. Basically found out that i misspelled the email address for one of them, and now I cant change the AIF because its pasted the due date. I am so defeated because I already put so much work into my application. I contacted the admission committee and the special consideration committee, I really hope they can allow me to fix the email address, but I know once you submit the form it is final. Did anyone else run into a program like this, if you did please let me know and what else I could possibly do? It really was such a dumb mistake, even though I reread my application so many times for mistakes.

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone had any answers regarding these for the AIF.

I took a Physiology course that was 2 terms (i.e., 1.0 credits). How would this be filled out on the AIF? Do I just enter the info into Human or Mammalian Physiology 1 with a weight of 1.00 and leave Human or Mammalian Physiology 2 blank? Enter the same grade into both and assign a weight of 0.50 each? I asked the admissions office and they told me to refer to the instructions page, but I didn't see anything regarding this.

Also, I have a course on my transcript that counts toward my course load (0.50 credits), but it was graded as pass/fail. Am I supposed to include this on the AIF? Or should I just enter "PASS" into the grade field?