Job as extracurricular activity at Waterloo?

[manceid]

Hi, I'm a non-Canadian and planning to apply to UW. Can you tell me what are the determining factors for admission @ UW? I have been doing a software dev job since 15 (I'm 17 now), working on Dialogic/Asterisk developing contact centre, IVR and VoiP solutions. I know a bunch of programming languages (C/C++, C#, PHP and little Scheme). Is it enough for getting admission? I don't have good grades because I was working full-time, am I at a disadvantage here?


Thanks ; - )

[Tony]

I believe that international admissions are different from local, so I'm not certain of the details. Typically they do focus on grades; programming is not even a requirement for admission to Computer Science.

As an international student, I think English proficiency will one of the big determining factors; although judging by this post, you seem to be doing fine.

[Turing_Gamer]

Tony is right, as far as I know. I'm not entirely certain about international and local admission requirement differences but all I know is that universities access some kind of Report Card Database and pick out the required subjects you took. I believe that experience also comes into effect for admission. All I can say is keep up the good work. Yet again I don't know much (I'm only 16)

[unoho]

http://www.findoutmore.uwaterloo.ca/admissions/international.php

check out this site. you could choose what type of study you did in your country and it tells you the requirements.

[manceid]

I checked the site, all it listed was a high school certificate for my country (Pakistan, if you are in doubt). No minimum grades, just a certificate. Well, if that's really the case then I'm happy .

Perhaps, any international student who applied to UW could tell me more about it?

Thanks

[andrew.]

I'm not sure about this, but it's possible that you also have to do an English proficiency test when you get there.

[jcollins1991]

andrew. @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:39 am wrote:

I'm not sure about this, but it's possible that you also have to do an English proficiency test when you get there.

"All University of Waterloo undergraduate students are required to write and pass the examination."

http://elpp.uwaterloo.ca/elpe.html

[unoho]

manceid @ Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:14 pm wrote:

I checked the site, all it listed was a high school certificate for my country (Pakistan, if you are in doubt). No minimum grades, just a certificate. Well, if that's really the case then I'm happy .

Perhaps, any international student who applied to UW could tell me more about it?

Thanks

i believe pakistan has either british or indian education system?
if it's british, then A-level Mathematics and one other academic A-level, each with a minimum final grade of B. English at either the GCSE, AS, or A-level.

if it's indian, then Standard XII Mathematics with a minimum final grade of 85%. Standard XII English. One other Standard XII course with a minimum final grade of 85%. All Standard XII courses with a minimum final grade of at least 80%.

frm my experience (although im not internation student), try to do as good as you can in your math and english class. UW puts a lot of weight on those two. and also note that, this was only for Computer Science. If you are interested in software engineering, it has more requirements

[manceid]

@Tony: Sure programming might not be a requirement for admission but do you think that it will cater for my weaknesses (I do not have excellent grades.)