When Being Refused Admission Is Not The End Of The Road

Your first-choice program is still within reach!

You had your sights set on the perfect program for you – but then you got refused. Painful, yes, but not fatal! You’ve still got plenty of options for moving forward towards your goals. Three common reasons you might have been refused admission:

• You didn’t have the marks required
• You didn’t complete the courses required
• The program you applied to is highly competitive and there simply wasn’t enough room for all the qualified applicants

Concordia University’s manager of recruitment Savvy Papayiannis has words of comfort. “I tell students not to think is the door is closed,” she says. “You’ve still got plenty of options at Concordia.”

One strategy: apply again, but this time set your sights on a program whose requirements fit with your academic history. Then, after a year of solid performance at Concordia, look into transferring into your first-choice program. You can use your stellar showing during first year to boost your academic record: admissions staff will only look at your university marks, not your high school or college marks. And, the courses you took in first year will count as electives towards your degree in whichever program you eventually settle on.

Let’s say you’re missing the required courses to get into your first-choice program. For example, you’d like to study business, but you didn’t pass your higher-level math class in college. There’s no need to put off going to university until you’ve upgraded – you can do those courses at Concordia. Applying for a certificate program would be an excellent place to start.