University of Victoria {College Visit Notes}

Welcome to my first college visit post! These are all going to have the same basic format, which some changes for each school to cover it's unique points. This is going to be in the form of a Q&A, with the questions being ones I asked at the school, and the answer being what information I received or gathered on the topic.

What is the living situation for students?

Dorms are guaranteed for first year students, but no one is required to live on campus. Most students live off campus after their first year. Most dorms are single rooms, but there is also cluster housing, where six or eight students share what is basically an apartment. There are also a small number of double rooms.

What travel opportunities are available for students?

There are many foreign exchange options. Also, through the co-op program, students have the ability to gain paid work experience in their field of study, and those opportunities often involve travel all over the world.

All the stuff I got sent home with.

What is the academic focus of the school?

Academically, UVic seems to be a strong school in most fields. They have a strong focus in research, particularly undergrad research, which tends to lead more to a focus in STEM fields, but it does seem like they are strong in many areas.

How are Running Start credits handled?

This was one question I didn't really get a good answer to. I'm not sure how they would handle my RS credits. They did say that if you had 8 or more transferable college courses you were automatically a transfer student, so that might be how that would go.

What is the size of the school?

There are 17,000 undergrads and 3,000 graduate students. A lot bigger than a lot of the colleges on my list. Not necessarily too big, but I wouldn't want to go any bigger.

What is the cost?

$27,000 a year (including room and board). One major issue potentially is the ability to take U.S. scholarships to Canada. Some you can take, others you can't. It's a bit iffy.

What is the town like?

Victoria is a beautiful city. It's one of the safest cities in the world, and I think it would be a great place to live.

I don't have any pics of campus, but this is downtown Victoria.

What is the campus like?

The campus itself is a little confusing, thought I'm sure if I went there I'd find my way around pretty fast. It's a young school (about 50 years old), and that means the campus is in an odd position where it doesn't have any of the beautiful old buildings you see on many campuses, but  it also doesn't have any of the shiny new buildings you see on a lot of campuses. 

How are homeschool applications handled? 

This is another iffy thing. If you homeschool through an "accredited program" it's fine, but if you don't (and I don't), it's trickier. We're currently looking into how this might work.