Posts tagged with application.

Alberta - One app, many fees

Joey Coleman, February 9, 2010 at 4:32 PM

The Alberta government unveiled its long-promised provincial post-secondary application website last week to great fanfare.

 

ApplyAlberta.ca  allows potential students to complete one application for admission to any of the province's publicly funded colleges and universities. Alberta follows British Columbia in combining applications for both colleges and universities on one website. (Ontario has one site for universities and another site for colleges.)

 

The one-stop application service should prove to be convenient for anyone applying to more than one Alberta institution and will attract more out-of-province applicants by streamlining the process. 

 

ApplyAlberta.ca does have one fundamental flaw: It followed the British Columbia model too closely. It took the good part - combining college and university applications. But it kept the bad part - allowing institutions to charge their own fees. 

 

What does this mean for potential students?

 

If they decide to apply to the three largest universities in Alberta, it will cost them the following: $115 for the University of Alberta, $115 for the University of Calgary, and $75 for the University of Lethbridge - a total of $305. A student applying to three Ontario universities will pay the grand sum of $115. A student applying to British Columbia's big three will pay $165.  (UBC - $60, SFU - $45, and UVic - $60)

 

Applying to university in Alberta remains more expensive than applying in any other province - not a distinction any government looking to encourage people to apply for post-secondary education should be proud of.

 

As a political studies student, I cannot help but think of this as another example of why the Alberta provincial Conservatives are on their way to opposition status - they've abandoned middle-class families by allowing institutions to continue lining their pockets. The new streamlined website will save universities money - they no longer have to run their own application websites - but those savings are not being passed on to Alberta families.

 

Considering those same families are already facing massive fee increases for such things as "common space security and sustainability" (yes, hallways) at the province's flagship university, ApplyAlberta is just another example of a government unwilling to confront an out-of-control university sector.

 

ApplyAlberta is a step in the right direction. Now that the government has cut excessive red tape, it needs to stomp out excessive fees and bring its universities back under true public control.

 

(GlobeCampus editor: You may also be interested in Eye on Higher Ed on how students in need got stiffed in the Alberta budget.)

Tagged with university, fee, application | Comments (9) |

Ontario unis: nursing’s in, journalism’s out

Joey Coleman, January 18, 2010 at 4:49 PM

Ontario's Universities' Application Centre is reporting a 2.7-per-cent increase in high school applicants received by the January 13 secondary school deadline, compared with last year. 

The breakdown of application numbers by university and program shows students are looking to smaller universities and affiliated colleges for a more personal undergraduate experience and turning to fields that lead to steady employment. Students are continuing to shun York University in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 CUPE strike at the Toronto university. They are also turning away from Journalism programs, clearly seeing the problems with a degree limited to the trade.

Two older universities, Trent and Laurentian, have seen double-digit percentage increases in applications. Algoma, Ontario's newest independent university - which was an affiliated college of Laurentian until mid-2008 - has seen a jump of more than 20 per cent, from 413 applications to 560; with a 33-per-cent increase in first-choice applicants.

Trent University is benefiting from high rankings in undergraduate surveys, the implementation of all-day GO transit commuter service from Toronto, and population growth in the eastern region of the Greater Toronto Area. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Ontario's newest university institution, continues to experience growth, in part due to its location east of Toronto in Oshawa, but also because of specialized programs in health sciences, engineering, and science.  Trent is seeing an increase of 14.9 per cent in applications, with a 13.2-per-cent increase in students naming Trent as their first choice. UOIT has an increase of 8.9 per cent in applications, with a 13.9-per-cent increase in first-choice applications - the highest of any full-size university in Ontario.

The affiliated colleges of the University of Western Ontario - Brescia, Huron, and King's - are experiencing large increases in applications as students increasingly turn their attention to student-faculty ratios and class sizes in choosing their institutions of study.

Algoma and Laurentian, two universities located significantly north of Toronto in Central Ontario, are both experiencing growth well above the provincial average.

Laurentian University continues to see results from their expansion of francophone course offerings and focused recruitment strategies. This year, the number of students learning in French increased by 26 per cent. LU's new president, Dominic Giroux, personally attends many recruitment events and has focused on outreach in Ontario's francophone communities and secondary schools. He also communicates with potential students as @Dominic_Giroux on Twitter.

Algoma's growth is lead by such programs as biology. Algoma's biology program is heavily focused toward environmental issues - a hot area of study.

Students are applying to education and nursing programs in record numbers. With the recession still battering families, it comes as no surprise that students are seriously weighing their employment prospects before applying to programs. Only three program areas have seen significant decreases in applications: architecture, environmental studies, and journalism. Architecture's overall drop in applications is cushioned by the fact that most of the decrease is not in first-choice students, but instead in students who listed the program as their fourth or fifth choice. Environmental studies was last year's overhyped area of study and the drop is merely a correction. Journalism, on the other hand, is another story, as students are looking at the recession-battered industry and are avoiding a degree with a higher prospect of unemployment than most other fields of study.

Toronto's York University has become a "Last Resort U" for the majority of its applicants. While applications have increased 8.8 per cent compared with last year's retreat in the wake of the disastrous CUPE strike, they still remain significantly below application numbers from 2008. Most concerning for the university is that the majority of applications list York University as third choice or lower.

Institutions will be closely scrutinizing  their individual breakdowns over the next few weeks and figuring out what strategies they need to change as they prepare to recruit the class of 2015, starting this summer.

(See also: In enrolment wars, smaller universities rise to the challenge)

Tagged with employment, university, ontario, centre, increase, application, smaller, statistics | Comments (12) |