Hi Everyone,
I am very new to this forum and I know you guys have been talking together for a while now but my Father (who is an optometrist) has been reading your discussions and relaying them to me for some time now and he thought I should give some imput since I have had quite an experience with Optometry Schools over the past 2 years.
I too am waiting to hear from Waterloo but I suspect since I have not recieved an email that I have been yet again, rejected! I did apply last year, got an interview but did not get accepted. Both my parents and my Uncle are Optometrists in Newfoundland so I have been actively involved in the field since about Age 15. I also worked for a large Optometry practice in Wolfville Nova Scotia for the past year...but none of this seemed to matter to Waterloo regardless! My GPA was 3.42 after Gradutation (but my first year is dragging that down
) and I only recieved a score of 320 on my OATs. I thought about re-doing my OATs as you can imagine but I decided instead to apply to a few schools in the United States and re-apply to Waterloo before going through all the trouble.
Anyway here is what I have endured over the past little while:
-After my rejection from Waterloo I looked at the schools in the US that I had the pre-req's for and went ahead with the application processes. I applied to SUNY(New York), Southern California College of Optometry, Southern College of Optometry (Memphis), ICO (Chicago), Houston, Nova South Eastern (Ft Lauderdale) and again Waterloo.
The applications were all very different and I made sure all applications were in before the end of December 2005. I ended up getting interview calls for all of them (exepct Waterloo). I went to my interview in California first and got an acceptance from them the following week (VERY PROMPT!). I then went to Florida and Memphis for interviews in one trip (I did not like Florida and if anyone is thinking about applying there I will be happy to share my disappointments). I also went for interviews in Chicago and New York. After all my interviews were over I had Acceptances from California, Illinois and Florida and I had been Wait-listed at New York and Memphis (I am still currently in the top 10 at Memphis).
ANyway, as you can see eventhough my GPA and OAT scores were lower than most, the schools in the US are more geared to knowing YOU as a person. Jimmy they would be fallling over backwards to get you to go to their schools I am SURE of it.
I am telling you this because I think you should definately apply. Eventhough the school is going to cost me BIG bucks to go to, I have never met nicer people than the ones I met while on interviews at all the schools and the investment is obviously going to be a good one in the long run.
You should look into it!
Sorry this was so long but I think its important that you all know that you should not count yourselves out as bad applicants and you should consider the long term benefits of applying in the US
Hopefully this was slightly encouraging