Reason for taking summer school english?

[Horus]

endless @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 7:51 pm wrote:

Horus @ Sat Dec 27, 2008 3:58 pm wrote:

also from AIF:

Quote:

Distinctions and Honours
Please list any academic honours or distinctions that you have received and the dates when they were awarded.

Please list any non-academic honours or distinctions along with the dates when they were awarded.

I'm not really sure if I have any Distinction honours academically or not. Is grade 8 piano considered one? and is it academic or non-academic?

edit: oh yea, I think I got lots of those honour of Distinctions back in middle school, it was so easy to get back then.

they are titled "award of excellence" and stuff for being in the top of the class.

I also have this one for pascal contest in grade 9 called Certificate of Distinction for ranking in the top 25% of contestants.

are any of those above considered distinction or honour for UW?

i think the aif specifies that it should be within 2 years or something. The only thing i had in those was ontario scholar.
Filling out the aif, i would focus on getting extracurriculars in there and try to fill the chart to gain you extra points.

I think the 2 year only applies to extracurricular activities, not distinction/honour.

for distinction and honour does any of what I said above actually counts? and oh yea, I also have the award for CNML for getting over 20/36 on it in gr 11 does that count?

edit: also does lifeguard certificate count?

[endless]

if you feel that these are distinction that waterloo would like to know about put them in, its not like you'll lose points for having something unrelated.

I'm not really sure what to say about the english, but i would advise against complaining to them about what you view as cons of the high school curriculum.

[rdrake]

Universities now care about your English abilities more than ever. I guess the fact that a number of their students couldn't write decent essays caused them to decide to make a good standing in English a requirement.

Criticizing English in your application for any university would just be stupid.

[iluvchairs112]

I agree with pretty much all of your reasons, but I still pulled off a decent mark in English.

Are you still taking 4 classes each term? You can say something like you wanted those classes and English seemed best to take in summer school so you could focus more on it.

Or if you have a job and are taking 3 classes, say something like you want to spread it out so you can make sure you can focus on each class.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Horus @ Fri Dec 26, 2008 10:08 pm wrote:

The reason I took it in the first place is that:
1. I believe high school English is useless cause all you learn is Shakespeare which is unrelated to the actual world.
2. I suck at English and I want to get it over with in the summer so I'm mostly stress-free during the school year.
3. Trying to write essay in English makes (feel) more stupid.
4. If I took English in the school year, my mom will waste money on me to get this tutor who's a retired high school teacher and have lots of experience including tutoring university students. (It's still useless because last year when he edited my essay and said I'll get high marks, I ended up getting 60% on the essay)

I think you should list all of these reasons on your AIF. --PR

[[Gandalf]]

Quote:

(It's still useless because last year when he edited my essay and said I'll get high marks, I ended up getting 60% on the essay)

Except that. Anyone could edit your (or any) essay and the quality of the ideas in it wouldn't change. That's your job.