Honestly...probably because there's not a lot of demand for optometry schools here. Waterloo allows 90 students a year, and last year they had something like 300 applicants. That's a pretty standard acceptance-to-applicant ratio for a professional school - it's not like there are thousands of people trying to apply to the one school. (Actually, that's even a pretty high acceptance rate - 30%, when med school is more like 10%). I'm not sure what Montreal's is, but considering it's French, it doesn't really apply to this topic.
Now, to be fair, the applicant number might be lower because so many people think, "Well, since there's only one school it must be hard to get into!" So they just apply to American schools. Who knows.
I'd really like it if they opened a school on the west side of the country, like at UBC or something, but it probably just doesn't look like that many Canadian students want to be optometrists, and it doesn't make sense to open a second school if it won't be cost-effective - or if it means lowering acceptance standards because you can now have 180 students out of 300 of the same applicants.
Also, we have approximately 11% of the United States population, and 10% the amount of schools (if you include Montreal, otherwise it's 5%). So as far as school-to-population ratio goes, they're not far apart.
yes, i feel the same way. im from western canada wanting to do optiometry and will probably end up going to the US. i dont know if this is true but i head that the average gpa for optiometry students in waterloo is very competative, some one correct me but i heard its like 3.7 or something. i know most schools in the US take gpa's from 3.1-3.4 where 3.4 is considered high.
Is that true? Wow. When I attended Waterloo, they accepted only 60 students a year and they would get like 700 applicants a year.
Times they are a' changin I guess.
yes, i feel the same way. im from western canada wanting to do optiometry and will probably end up going to the US. i dont know if this is true but i head that the average gpa for optiometry students in waterloo is very competative, some one correct me but i heard its like 3.7 or something. i know most schools in the US take gpa's from 3.1-3.4 where 3.4 is considered high.
The admissions range is between 81% and 94%, with an average in the mid-80's, so yeah, it's about a 3.7-3.8 average GPA for accepted applicants. Pretty intense. And the average OAT score is 370, whereas in the States it's more like 330 or thereabouts (depending on the school).
I am very glad to see this post. We are launching an aggressive campaign with the Govt to open a private optometry school just like we have in the USA.
It is ridiculous for Canada to undeserve its' citizens interested in studying optometry.
This country is already seeing the evidence of shortage of optometrists and it will get worse over the next 10 years once baby boomers all retire.
We need to speak out to make a change!
