Course Load

[Neil45]

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Hi, I am a Canadian student. Last fall, I took four courses( 3 sciences and 1 "easy" elective(Sociology) with GPA of 3.88. I am currently taking these courses in the Spring semester. So, overall this is 28 credits for Year one. I hear that many optometry schools want students who maintain a heavy course load(30-34 credits per year). I know that the University of Waterloo(only Optometry school in Canada🙁 ) places heavy emphasis on the course load issue. Are many American optometry schools like this? Should I start taking full course loads from now on starting in second year? Is this something to worry about?

Thank you.

 

[Chuffsla]

Hi, I am a Canadian student. Last fall, I took four courses( 3 sciences and 1 "easy" elective(Sociology) with GPA of 3.88. I am currently taking these courses in the Spring semester. So, overall this is 28 credits for Year one. I hear that many optometry schools want students who maintain a heavy course load(30-34 credits per year). I know that the University of Waterloo(only Optometry school in Canada🙁 ) places heavy emphasis on the course load issue. Are many American optometry schools like this? Should I start taking full course loads from now on starting in second year? Is this something to worry about?

Thank you.

You might be making too big a deal of it, actually. I was worried about the same thing when I applied to UW, because I had several terms with only four courses. I also took two courses one summer and had another term in which I only took one course due to personal reasons (I was initially going to take that term completely off). I did end up with four terms in which I took the full load while in science. I also had a few full course loads from when I was in the math program, before I switched into science. I thought that might be a problem, but it didn't matter for me. They accepted me even without an interview. Basically, I would make sure that you do in fact do several full terms to show that you can handle it, but it doesn't seem to matter if it's not EVERY term. Make sure you get good marks though and do well on the OAT.