Did you apply to Physical Sciences?
That route seems to be just as good if not better than life sci.

Hey can you tell us why you would say physical science is better route (just for my own knowledge)

yeah i wanted to either use first year life sci or enviro sci and then go into either level II biology or health sci. Med school is where i'm aiming anyways

Why physical science? It's really no different than life sci, except for the fact that it's a smaller program. This offers better opportunity to meet profs and such. If you take the right prerequisites, you can still probably get into any second year program. They should have just kept first year as "general science".

Originally Posted by macsci

Why physical science? It's really no different than life sci, except for the fact that it's a smaller program. This offers better opportunity to meet profs and such. If you take the right prerequisites, you can still probably get into any second year program. They should have just kept first year as "general science".

totally agree. its really silly cause you can take all the same courses if you wanted to, and transfer into the same 2nd year program as any level I sci student.

good thing i found this out cause i wasnt sure at first if i was gonna make life sci's new cut-off range, so i applied and got accepted to enviro science and i can still take the same courses.

but now im only 0.5% away from life sci's new cut-off so hopefully i get accepted.
if not i already got my back-up plan.

Yeah I think it's just to make the programs more attractive to applicants

Originally Posted by macsci

Why physical science? It's really no different than life sci, except for the fact that it's a smaller program. This offers better opportunity to meet profs and such. If you take the right prerequisites, you can still probably get into any second year program. They should have just kept first year as "general science".

that's not true though. i'm in physical science, took no bio classes and had to take two calculus, two chem and two physics. life science can't take those same classes if they still want electives and two bios, maybe a psych?

i didn't take bio in high school, didn't want to do it at mac either. I'm glad there's no requirement for it in physical sci.

Originally Posted by stevennevets

that's not true though. i'm in physical science, took no bio classes and had to take two calculus, two chem and two physics. life science can't take those same classes if they still want electives and two bios, maybe a psych?

i didn't take bio in high school, didn't want to do it at mac either. I'm glad there's no requirement for it in physical sci.

There is no requirement, but the idea is that you can still get into any second year program from either route.

For instance, you could have taken psychology and biology as your sole electives and that way, you would've had prereqs for ANY second year program. You can do lin alg in second year.

This is why there really isn't any distinction between life sci and physical sci.

thanks a lot sinthusized, you were right!
i got my offer of admission for life science last monday! i had an 85.5 average, and the cut-off was 86-88.

so i accepted my offer, and i filled out my residence application + paid the deposit.

cant wait till september!

I got an acceptance a few months ago, kinda nice not to have the stress now.
The reason the avg jumped so high so fast is the new "blended-mode" system of grading that highschools are implementing. You can read into it with google, but basicly they ignore your lowest/highest marks and give you what is most consistent. Atleast thats how understand it. My calculus class avg right now is 90.5. If you tank a test, it really doesnt matter as long as you do well more often.

Lets say you get 66, 32, 75, 74, 88, 90, 81, 84, 85, as some of the marks in your class, only the 80s will count and your avg will be higher than by the old system.

Originally Posted by Juicebox

I got an acceptance a few months ago, kinda nice not to have the stress now.
The reason the avg jumped so high so fast is the new "blended-mode" system of grading that highschools are implementing. You can read into it with google, but basicly they ignore your lowest/highest marks and give you what is most consistent. Atleast thats how understand it. My calculus class avg right now is 90.5. If you tank a test, it really doesnt matter as long as you do well more often.

Lets say you get 66, 32, 75, 74, 88, 90, 81, 84, 85, as some of the marks in your class, only the 80s will count and your avg will be higher than by the old system.

Now that is dumb...

I hate how McMaster doesn't screen high schools like Waterloo or Queens does. There were a lot of stoopid people in engineering this year that got a 3000 dollar scholarship and free-pass or whatever into their stream while barely maintaining a 4 average, just because they went to some dumbass highschool that gave away marks.

If any of your classes have an average higher than anything in the high seventies or low 80s; your school is probably doing a bad job.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Now that is dumb...

I hate how McMaster doesn't screen high schools like Waterloo or Queens does. There were a lot of stoopid people in engineering this year that got a 3000 dollar scholarship and free-pass or whatever into their stream while barely maintaining a 4 average, just because they went to some dumbass highschool that gave away marks.

If any of your classes have an average higher than anything in the high seventies or low 80s; your school is probably doing a bad job.

Its not just my highschool, its Ontario that is implementing this system. And hey, I hate the system just as much, it actually brings me down in some classes.

And most class avgs at my school are in the 70s. Its just that the only people that got to Calculus are the ones that have not been weeded out in advanced functions and the classes before that, so its basically the biggest math nerds.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Now that is dumb...

I hate how McMaster doesn't screen high schools like Waterloo or Queens does. There were a lot of stoopid people in engineering this year that got a 3000 dollar scholarship and free-pass or whatever into their stream while barely maintaining a 4 average, just because they went to some dumbass highschool that gave away marks.

If any of your classes have an average higher than anything in the high seventies or low 80s; your school is probably doing a bad job.

completely agreed..this is why I asked myself why doesnt Mac or any other school administer a common test for everyone to write..and top 1000 get in...or something like that..it would be fair to say the least..

Originally Posted by kenvin100

completely agreed..this is why I asked myself why doesnt Mac or any other school administer a common test for everyone to write..and top 1000 get in...or something like that..it would be fair to say the least..

Sometimes it's not as fair since all high schools don't cover all the material. It's like the jump from elementary to high school. I found grade 9 to be such a waste of time because of all the reviewing we did, but some of my friends never covered the material. I found the same thing happened when I entered university, I expected term 1 to be a lot of review, and it was, but I wasn't expecting so much review in term 2.

There are also problems with taking an admission test in one go. The fact that people may be having a bad day or they may be sick. I believe this is the main reason for this new marking scheme in high school. Some days we have bad days, some days we have good days, but this new system reveals where you are most consistently. There is also the fact that in a class, some tests may be extremely hard while others may be too easy. There are all these factors to take into consideration and I believe the new system is being implemented to show where students achieve most consistently.

Originally Posted by jhan523

Sometimes it's not as fair since all high schools don't cover all the material. It's like the jump from elementary to high school. I found grade 9 to be such a waste of time because of all the reviewing we did, but some of my friends never covered the material. I found the same thing happened when I entered university, I expected term 1 to be a lot of review, and it was, but I wasn't expecting so much review in term 2.

There are also problems with taking an admission test in one go. The fact that people may be having a bad day or they may be sick. I believe this is the main reason for this new marking scheme in high school. Some days we have bad days, some days we have good days, but this new system reveals where you are most consistently. There is also the fact that in a class, some tests may be extremely hard while others may be too easy. There are all these factors to take into consideration and I believe the new system is being implemented to show where students achieve most consistently.

true, but this too can inexplicitly explain the hardships of uni life..just look at our exams lol, but I see your point