Couple of Questions.

[zhenghank]

Hey, how are you doing?

I'm 16, currently in High School, and my goal is to become an Optometrist. I just had a couple of questions.

I'm unaware about a lot of things about life after High School. I know that Grades 11 and 12 are crucial in High School, as these are the grades that Universities focus most on.

Currently, I'm taking the following:

Functions and Relations Univeristy Level
Biology Univeristy Level
English Univeristy Level
Presentation and Speaking Skills Open Level

Next semester will be:
Computer Animation Open Level
Chemistry Univeristy Level
CO-Op

The co-op will be at an Optometry office near where I live.

As you can see from my schedule, I have selected several courses necessary to become an Optometrist. I'm just concerned about co-op. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Univerisity is more theoretical, where as College is more hands-on. Because of tist, I'm concerned that the Universities I will be applying to in Grade 12 (Waterloo, UofT and others) will be under the impression that I'm not intelligent enough to handle more University courses or something. Should I keep co-op? I would really like to gain more insight into the field of Optometry which is why I took it in the first place.

Also, how important are extracurricular activies in High School? I believe Universities check those as well. Currently, I have the minimum of community hours (40) and am in no clubs. I don't want a lack of extracurricular activites to affect getting into the Unversity of my choice.

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[Eye]

It won't matter for an undergrad program at UFT, UW or most other Canadian Us if you've opted for a co-op course instead of full high school course load. What they do look at is that you have all the high school pre-reqs completed, with a high average, and few/no repeated high school courses. If you have those 3 down, then you should breeze through the application process. So the simplest advice I can give you is, finish as many academic grade 12 courses with grades over 85% (for UFT), it can be lower for UW, assuming you major in science there. It doesn't matter if you took them under a full high school load, or if you took them in grade 10 or grade 12. Again, repeated courses however will look bad and probably kill your odds of UFT (I believe UW has an admissions page telling what programs accept repeated and which don't).

Only certain programs require additional application information such as volunteering or essays, but 40 hours in high school is well beyond the acceptable high school student limit (they usually only look for 10ish). I believe Science has a very lax application process and you won't need anything more than what you already have.

Grade 11 marks are only important as placeholder grades on your transcript until your grade 12 equivalent finishes, so they're not as important as you think (unless you score under 70% on them). If you already have all/most gr12 marks finished by the time you apply, then gr11 course grades won't be essential at all.

Lastly, hs extra-curriculars are nice, they make you look like a consistent hard worker and thicken your resume, but they're not essential. It's better to devote yourself to some permanent extra-curriculars while in University, the more recent your extra-curriculars, the better.

I believe co-op in high school will actually boost your odds above that of every other hs applicant, assuming that it is school-related and adds credit/something on your hs transcript.

 

[zhenghank]

Oh I see. Thanks for your help.

And actually, 40 hours is the minimum at my high school.