Modo66

Hi all

My son in 17yrs, old from reading chatty Tracey`s post on GCSE`s i too have a question. When we arrive in Calgary later this year my son wants to attend uni and is willing to go back to school for as long as it take to obtain the points he requires, will this be possible??

Thanks

Nigel

JAJ

I suggest you start looking at the websites of the Canadian universities that interest you to see what their requirements are, eg University of Calgary, University of Alberta.

Jeremy

Judy in Calgary

In the case of the University of Calgary, here is the page of their web site that addresses students coming from General Certificates of Education (G.C.E) Systems.

However, you do need to read the page carefully and, even on doing that, there may be problems that are not readily apparent to you. For example, this is what Morwenna said in that other thread:

As an example of possible problems, our son has had trouble getting his GCSE's accepted for uni as he did combined science and though they did look at the curriculum they decided that this did not have the depth they required, which he probably would have if he had taken separate sciences. He has been refused a place at Calgary Uni on these grounds.

However, if it's any consolation, the University of Calgary did not accept our older son's grades when he returned to Calgary with a high school diploma from the state of Victoria in Australia. He did some upgrading courses at Mount Royal College, and then the University of Calgary did accept him. If all goes according to plan, he'll complete his Bachelor of Science Degree in December 2005. So my point is that it is possible for a student from a foreign school system to do the upgrading that may be necessary to get into a Canadian university.

If your son needs to do any upgrading in Calgary, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) possibly is another college at which he could take relevant courses.

The case of our younger son demonstrates another problem you can run into when you transfer a child from one country to another close to the end of high school, but before he/she actually has completed high school. If he had accompanied us back to Calgary from Australia, our younger son would have had one more year of high school left to do. Because he would have arrived in Canada without a completed high school diploma from another country, there would have been a number of "nuisance" subjects he would have been forced to take in order to earn a high school diploma in Alberta. For example, he would have had to earn grade ten, grade eleven and grade twelve credits in Canadian history. There were a couple of other requirements that he considered to be a real drag, but I forget now what they were.

Because of the hassles he would have encountered in returning to Alberta with one year of high school left to do, he asked to stay on in Australia. It was a tough decision for us, but we let him do it. He boarded with the family of one of his classmates, and they were very good to him. Fortunately he kept his promise to us, and studied hard. He graduated from high school with excellent marks, and the University of Calgary accepted his Australian high school credentials without any questions.

Hope that helps.

Alberta_Rose

After reading your above post, I looked at Mount Royal College as an option to upgrade Andrew's GCSE's to Chem and Physics 30, but they didn't seem to do the sciences.

Then I poked around a bit more and found Bow Valley College seem to do just the courses he needs to upgrade!

He's had another look at the SAIT diploma, and it does not now look as if it is transferable to Calgary as we thought it was. There was mention of possible transfer to Victoria and Lakehead uni's after a bridging course, but upgrading to high school diploma level and then applying for the course he actually wants to do is MUCH the better option.

Thank you very much!

Morw

Steve_P

Another place to look for upgrading courses is Chinook Learning Services. It is operated by the Calgary Board of Education.

Cheers
Steve

Alberta_Rose

Thanks Steve,
will look into that too then.

Modo66

Thanks for the help....... beers on me