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Delta Baby: a few years back the Provincial gov't of Ontario made dramatic cuts to education (3 bil. at the time i believe) and healthcare. The logic was that Ontario, being the only province with 5 years of high school, should be able to eliminate a year of high school to save money and be on par with the rest of Canada.
Now, this 5th year of high school is referred to as O.A.C. (ontario academic credit) and is kind of a transition period between grade 12 and university. Only those planning on studying University need to take OAC courses - courses catered to what you plan on studying in the future (e.g. engineers would take OAC Calculous, A&G, Physics, etc.).
Because there is a full year being eliminated, for one year (not this fall the next one) there will be two graduating high school classes in Ontario (which represents almost 40% of Canada's total population). Therefore, there's been a lot of questions being raised whether the universities have enough placements in the classrooms and also in residence. Most agree that a lot of ppl will be rejected because of questions regarding the differences in admissions among the two classes, as well universities do not want to lower their admission grades to accomodate the extra numbers. Also, it should be noted that universities in Canada are too over-crowded, there needs to be more even if we don't take into account the double-cohort.
There's several implications for this:
1. Apart from the ripple affect of increased kids into university for the next few years, these kids will also be graduating around the same time, therefore meaning increased competition for jobs when they all graduate together.
2. For the first time in years, the majority of first year students will not be able to legally drink in Ontario when classes start in the fall. The social aspect of fraternities will be greatly enhanced from now on.
wonder if it's an Ontario wide policy that universities must provide residence for incoming freshman..
Are you bonkers?!? Here at Ottawa the housing situation is ridiculous - for all students. Since coming into university at Ottawa 4 years ago i had no problem getting into rez even with average grades. Since then, each year has witnessed dramatic reductions in housing vacancies than the previous year. At the middle of august there were a waiting list for residence among first year students equal to the total amount of places available (the waiting list was over 2,000). Even with the construction of a brand-new residence, the number of students unable to find a place to live is staggering...kids are taking years off school because they couldn't find a place to stay. I feel like hacking into the OttawaU website with a heading: "Don't come to OttawaU or Carleton, there is no where to live!".
p.s. i'm surprised you canadians use the term frat so frequently...
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