#cabbagevadge

Hit shuffle on your music device and list the first 10 songs. Rules: no skipping and pass it on to 15 people.

Tagged by soulpants​ curse you. 

Aw yay I love these questions!

Ok so basically the UBC application is comprised of your grades (high school transcript) and then a personal profile which is just like a bunch of questions about involvement. We has to write about 5 activities we do (mine were basketball, tennis, musical, student council, and volunteering at the hospital) and they had to be like 50 words each. then there were 3 long answer questions that were maximum 200 words each and they're pretty general so I suggest using your 3 "best" activities (ex. the ones that show you're a leader, how you overcame challenges, etc.). When I applied the long answer questions were

"Tell us about an experience, in school or out, that caused you to rethink or change your perspective. What impact has this had on you?"

"Explain how you responded to a significant challenge that you have encountered and what you learned in the process"

and "Tell us more about one of the activities you listed above, explaining what your goals were, what you did to pursue them, the results achieved, and what you learned in the process"

These questions are all really general and you are allowed to recycle answers from other university applications you wrote, as all universities pretty much ask the same questions. Just make sure you actually answer all aspects the question they are asking.

If i remember correctly, you need to provide a reference (a teacher, supervisor, NOT a parent or friend) for each of your activities that you use in the long answer questions, and UBC will call one of them and ask them to talk about what you wrote in your long answer questions (basically to see if you are lying or not). Be sure to tell your reference that you are putting their contact information on your UBC application and I'd also recommend sending them a version of your answer for the long answer question that you used them as a reference for so they know what the UBC person is talking to them about.

I'd recommend you start the personal profile way in advance and get you're parents and guidance councillor to edit it for you. I think I did about 5 re-writes of mine before I finally submitted it. 

There is also a page of the personal profile that is something like "is there anything else you would like the evaluator to know?" and i HIGHLY recommend that you use this sectoon to let whoever is evaluating your personal profile why you want to go to UBC and what your degree plan is and what you can bring to the school. It doesn't matter if you actually stick to that degree plan, they just want to know that you are there first and foremost to get an education that you cannot get at another university. Basically just suck up to them. Some of the topics I covered in this section of my application are:

-what you want to study/why/why you would be good at it

- what you want to continue to learn

- what you enjoy learning in school

- why UBC (ex. the diversity? the beauty of the campus? the prestige as one of the best universities in the world for your field? the amount of co-op and leadership opportunities?).

Basically say why you could see yourself succeeding at UBC in the long term and integrating yourself into ubc culture by like playing on a sports team, volunteering, joining house council (if you're in res), joining a club, etc.

In terms of extracurriculars, I recommend covering as much of the "categories" as you can, with the categories being:

music

sports

volunteering

working at a job

student council or another leadership position

I was in IB so by default I ended up covering a lot of the categories through IB CAS requirement. But if you have never gotten involved before, start as early as you can! the admissions board doesn't want to see someone who had no extracurriculars until senior year. I also recommend splitting your extracurriculars between school and outside of school events. 

For a lot of UBC programs, your personal profile is the first thing they see in your application. Sauder School of Business accepts students based heavily on their personal profile, and in Science I know some people that were rejected with 98% averages because they didn't bother filling out their personal profile. Also, if you're grades are equal or slightly less than the minimum grade average for that faculty, you may still be admitted to that faculty if your personal profile is really good. Arts pretty much everyone gets in.

Lastly, when you apply you are asked to rank your program (faculty) choices (1st and 2nd). If you get accepted to your first choice your second choice will not be evaluated. If you want to get into Sauder put Sauder as your first choice. A lot of faculties, like Sauder, will not accept you if you put them as your second choice. For example, if your first choice was engineering and you did not get engineering, then, naturally, your application gets handed to your second choice's faculty admission board with the comments that your first choice wrote on it when reviewing your application. If Sauder was your second choice, they would get your application and see that it had already been reviewed, and they wouldn't even look at it. Generally, you put your "harder" choice first and then your "safety" as second.

If you want your personal profile to be reviewed for scholarship purposes, apply by December 10th. You keep checking your scc acount to see if you have a response. Also keep checking your scc because there may be problems with transcripts getting lost in the mail. It takes about 2 months to hear back from them (I heard back in February and I applied in early December), but it can take a really long time depending on how many applications they have to review. I also recommend applying early because some people got rejected with really high marks because the number of first years allowed in that faculty was already full.