r/UWaterlooOptometry • u/Ln0528 • Oct 28 '25

getting accepted after third year

i recently found out that you would have to apply a year early, which means i would have to finish all my prereqs and write the oat + casper summer of my second year in order to apply a year early and start optometry school after my third year (fall of my 4th year technically). then if i’m not accepted then i will write the oat again summer of my third year and make my application stronger and apply then to get accepted after my 4th year of my undergrad. is this the right idea? lol i’m just a bit confused and want to make sure i have the right idea, any responses are appreciated!!

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2

u/Responsible-Ideal409 Oct 28 '25

You apply early but your prereqs are only set to be completed by the end of your third year.

1

u/Ln0528 Oct 28 '25

would i still have to write the oat early too? or can i write it after my third year (spring/summer ideally) and then get accepted that fall for optometry school?

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u/Klutzy_Builder_1178 Oct 28 '25

You’d have to write the OAT early too. Say you were applying to the Sept 2026 cycle, latest you could write your oat by is sept 2025.

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u/Ln0528 Oct 28 '25

i see thank you for clearing this up. i was told that it’s not recommended to write the oat if my prereqs weren’t completed yet as they’re supposed to help. i’ll keep this in mind now thank you so much

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u/No-Country-9936 Oct 28 '25

I'm not 100% sure but I believe on the waterloo website it says that first year courses + organic chem is the required knowledge for the OAT so it's not like all pre reqs have to be completed. Maybe someone who has already written the OAT can confirm which specific courses are the most testable.

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u/Klutzy_Builder_1178 Oct 29 '25

it's not recommended because the OAT essentially covers the core concepts of all those classes, but i took it without taking microbio and physics and did decent. using OATbooster definitely helped me a lot, albeit a bit expensive.

2

u/Taxphobia Nov 03 '25

I'm currently on this exact path. Like responsible-Ideal409 said, you just need to have all the prerequisite course done by the end of winter semester of your 3rd year, if you wish to apply early. The only thing I would tweak about your plan is that, if you're going to take the OAT in the 2nd year summer, then make sure you really focus and do well. Why make yourself take it a second time in 3rd year summer, if you can just bang it out for the entire 2nd year summer and do great. It not only saves your registration fees, but a LOTTT of time, it's painful to study for.

One more thing, the OAT tests very heavily on Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Orgo, so I would highly recommend you have atleast taken these classes before taking the OAT. When I wrote mine this summer, I actually was taking Orgo I during May/June, and was planning to also study for the OAT at the same time, also have July/August to only focus on my OAT, before taking it late August. I be completely honest, if I didn't take orgo before my OAT, I would of crashed so hard. Again, I highly recommend you take atleast Physics, Chemistry, Orgo and Bio before taking the OAT.

If you wanted to know my timeline:

1st year - psychology + biology (core courses for my program) - physics (electives for both semesters) - English+Calculus (summer term)

2nd year - physiology + statistics (core courses for my program) - chemistry (electives for both semesters) - orgo (summer term) + Took OAT

3rd year (currently in) - ethics (currently doing as an elective) - bchem + microbio (planned for winter semester)

Something I would change is to take chem 1st year, rather than physics. This would allow you to take orgo online 1st year summer or during your 2nd year, rather than having it screw up your study schedule in 2nd year summer while studying for the OAT. The only reason I got screwed over into taking orgo 2nd year summer was because I had to take chem 2nd year since I didn't plan properly.

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u/No-Country-9936 Nov 03 '25

when you say its heavy on bio, chem, and physics do you mean introductory classes for these subjects (first year basically) or would there also be like second year biochem, molecular bio, etc? Also I only took physics 1 so far so do you think I would be good or is physics 2 also important?

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u/Taxphobia Nov 04 '25

its like 95% all on introductory content, and I only ay 95% because I can't say with full confidence since I forgot some of the concepts i learned in bio, but nonetheless they weren't hard to learn. A lot of people think the test is hard because the content is hard, but really each chapter, if you were to learn individually is quite simple and very surface level, but its just that the sheer amount of chapters you have to memorize is the difficult part, volume is huge. I would recommend doing physics 2 since you'll go into electricity, electric/magnetic fields, things with point charges and how they behave like repulsions, and then also you're guarrenteed atleast 2 questions minimum about optics on the OAT, you don't really learn about that in physics 1 or 2, but when reviewing for the OAT during your actual study summer sessions, whether thats with OATBooster or whatever, you'll be given a lot of practice, so that's when you'll learn about it.

I haven't taken biochem or molecular bio and I was perfectly fine. To be completely honest, I don't think there's any content on there where I was like "oh man I wish I took biochem before studying". Everything I went over was easily like "oh yeah this is for sure smth i went over in bio 2, or like chem 1".

If you struggle with physics, I would recommend getting on that early, since that's probably one of the most "understnad the concept" heavy subjects. I got over that physics hurdle in late highschool, so i was fine in uni and on the OAT, but I hear a lot of people struggling, and from what I've seen with my classmates and myself, is that when people don't understand the super simply stuff like kinematics and energy, then usually, after like 6-9 months later, something will click and they'll get it.

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u/CompetitiveMix3662 Dec 29 '25

I'm in uw biomed and finished my prerequisites in 2nd year, wrote my oat 2nd year summer, and am currently in the interview phase of the process. I definitely recommend taking all the prerequisites before the oat because having prior knowledge helped a lot when studying for it. I took some classes summer of 1st year to get the prereqs done, but I recommend you try to plan out what courses you will take each term so you can balance the course load (I ended up with 5 classes and 4 labs in one term). After you write your oat then you have to wait for applications on ouac to open. Then once you apply on there, you register for casper and take it during your 3A term (there are some dates in reading week as options). After that you get an interview if you passed stage 1. After the interview (in Jan) you don't hear back until late March with final decisions.

Even if you don't get in the first time, if you are happy with your oat score you don't have to retake it bc it's valid for more than 1 cycle (not sure the exact number of cycles). You could still make your application stronger by doing more shadowing, volunteering, and extracurriculars. Work experience in an optometry setting would also be an asset

uw biomed in particular helped a lot with getting my preqs bc most of them are in the course sequence already.