What Is McGill University Like?: Finishing My First Year "How was the admission process like?"

Despite the covid-19 situation abruptly ending my second semester in an unprecedented manner, I must say I am both proud and sad to officially close my chapter as a "first year" or shall I say "U1" in McGill. It was my first time going to university, and though this should be obvious, when I first started university, I had felt as though I was the only one who had absolutely no idea what to expect. Therefore, now that I have technically become a "senpai", I thought I would attempt to guide those thinking to enter McGill and become proud

"U1"s ... or "U0"s through today's blog. Please note though that I am merely stating my experience and not necessarily facts that could apply to everyone :>

I will be covering these topics in the coming McGill info series.

• How was the application process like?

• How was the transition to University like?

• What does the campus actually look like?

• How was the residence life?

• Any regrets entering McGill? Expectation vs Reality

Today as Part 1, I will be writing about my experience with the admission process.

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How was the application process like?

Just to give context, when I applied for universities, I applied to some others in Canada, namely UBC, University of Toronto, and University of Waterloo. A big difference in the application process was that universities in Ontario had a portal where I could send my application to numerous universities in one go (Called OUAC https://www.ouac.on.ca/), but since McGill was obviously not in this list, I had to directly apply through their website portal( https://www.mcgill.ca/undergraduate-admissions/apply ). Though this meant that it took extra time, I actually received a reply from McGill before any of the others, and it was actually the first university offer I had gotten. Though this could just be a coincidence, perhaps other universities that receive student information through another portal take longer to process the documents than if it was directly applied (U.S universities also have a collective site, I believe I used https://www.commonapp.org/apply).

However, at that point, I had only received a conditional offer. The process after that was extremely stressful. I was an IB student, and though I was given a conditional offer, it was merely "conditional" and this could change based on my final IB results. My results came out, and though overall, my points fulfilled the requirements for admission, one of my science grade ( I applied to Bachelor of Arts and Science and Bachelor of Science) seemed to not. This led to the big question of "DID I GET IN OR NOT?" which caused great anxiety because if I had not got in, I would have to respond to other university offers immediately.

What was so crucial in this situation was that I get a clear response from the university and this was sadly not the case. I have a feeling it might be the same for any university, but trying to find an answer to my question, specific to my situation through their site was a headache. I would email head of administration and try reaching them through their online chat service, "Service Point" (http://uccxchat.mcgill.ca/spc/),but with the time difference it was really hard to reach them or actually receive clear information in the limited time. Perhaps, if I had lived in Montreal or even in the U.S, things would have gone smoother as I could have physically visited the help center or call them, but this was not an option for me. I guess the weakness of online remote administration was highlighted here. But just to be clear, I am sure this is not only applicable to McGill; it is better to think that university applications in general are stressful, especially if you are applying from abroad.

As I got official acceptation letters from my other universities, McGill didn't give me a clear response for a very long time. McGill was one of my first choices for university, so it was hard for me to let go of their vagueness of such an important matter. The only hope I had was through the service point chat, the person told me, "You can enroll to courses on the McGill Minerva interface right? Then I am pretty sure you are in.". They also told me that in McGill, when you get a conditional offer, that was pretty much an official offer unless you really had a drop in your grades. "And if so, you would have a received an email to talk over the situation. It's still rare for them to refuse your admission though".

...And that is how I got in.

I eventually did receive an official acceptation letter, but only through their Minerva interface where you had to find it. Though I really wish I received a caps locked "CONGRATULATIONS" email with animated party crackers. That's all I wanted McGill!!! No need to be all subtle and smooth about it...

In any case, I guess McGill's "conditional" is "official" and turns out my requirements were fine (I thought otherwise but OKAY!) and so I made it into the Bachelor of Arts and Science just like that. My mom thinks it might be the French influence of McGill being very...not expressive about the happy news but I can't really say. I guess it might be their unique "If I didn't say no, then you are in!" stance.

All I can say though that no university offer letter beats University of Waterloo.... THEY SENT ME A HANDWRITTEN LETTER! And it wasn't a computer generated "handwritten" Oh NO! A professor had written me a personalized letter in orange gel ink pen! Now that's how to do it.

McGill, take notes.

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WORD OF ADVICE

• Don't be so stressed if McGill is slow with their responses. There is a higher chance for you to have been accepted than rejected. (according to service point at least)

• Each university has their own way of responding. It's better not to judge based on just that. Though Waterloo's letter was incredible, I still chose McGill in the end!

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