Webinars for Newly Admitted Graduate Students 2024 - Registration and Fees

Hi everyone, welcome to today's webinar. I see that our number of participants is steadily climbing as everyone's let into the room. We're up to almost 100 students, which is fantastic. But I do know that some students who tried to log on before the hour will have gone off to get a cup of coffee or maybe they're playing with their dog. So we'll give them a few minutes to recognize that it's 2:00 PM in the webinar can start, and then we will get started.

And I'm going to take advantage of the time to do a little bit of housekeeping before we go on with today's special guest. This series of webinars is intended to help as many students as possible get oriented to the University of Toronto before they begin their programs. So 100%, today's session is being recorded.

Our our platform takes about a week to finalize the video recording and line up all the visual and audio together, but we will be posting the videos of these webinars.

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On the same page where you registered for the webinars. So don't worry, this will be recorded. If you have to step away for a minute and miss something important, you can always come back and watch that recording, which should be posted by the end of next week, but not before then. I've just put the link in the chat so that you can see where those recordings will be posted.

The other thing is that we're very aware that there are two topics that we're not able to cover for incoming graduate students for two totally different reasons, and we know that they're front of mind for students. So we understand why we still sometimes get questions about these. But I need to explain two things that we are not going to cover in these sessions. Neither Victoria nor I is illegally licensed immigration consultant, so we cannot provide information for students who have concerns about applying for study permits. It's literally against the law.

And even if it weren't, we wouldn't want to accidentally misinform someone and give them bad advice. So totally understand that for international students, that's a friend of mine concern. And so I'm putting it in the chat right now, a link to the Center for International Experiences, information on applying for study permits. And if you find any information, they're not quite clear, you need some more explanation. You can actually e-mail or book time with a licensed advisor who works for the university. So they they work for you.

And they are there for you. Today's topic is going to be about registration and fee payment. So how to get yourself properly registered in your program so you are actually a legit U of T graduate student. What you need to do to get your fees paid, You get your student card set up and everything else. And as always, rather than having me try to explain this, we're bringing in the expert. Victoria Hurley is our guest today. She is the manager of Frontline Student Academic Services here at the School of Graduate Studies. She works in the front office at 63 Saint George St.

And she manages the team, the student services advisors who help graduate students and their home graduate units with any number of issues. Victoria is going to be giving a presentation, so we're going to start off with just information flowing out from us to you. And we do welcome questions, but we're saving them for the end. So if you could hold off on your questions until Victoria is done with the presentation, that would be great. If you want to pre type them in a, in a, in a separate document so you can copy and paste them, that's even better.

And questions that you put into the chat only appear in the general chat if either Victoria or I approve them. So if we get a student who's asking questions about study permits denied. If we ask get a student asking questions about whether this session will be recorded, denied. If we get a question about residents denied, we are here to take to talk about fees and registration. And we're lucky to have the expert with us. So I'm going to switch off my microphone and camera and hand this over to Victoria.

Thanks so much, Vic.

Thank you, Rory for that amazing introduction. I, I hope I live up to the hype. So just to everyone, welcome to the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto. It's a great achievement to be admitted to graduate studies here. So congratulations to everyone and I, I think I'll jump right into the presentation.

So firstly I will.

Do the land acknowledgement We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Euron Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

So to start the presentation, umm, we like to start the presentation with an explanation about the difference between registration and enrollment because we realize that the terms may be used differently at other universities, so.

Students register in their programs once they've paid tuition fees or they've deferred their tuition fees. So if you check on the system, you'll see that you're currently invited to register until you pay or defer your fee.

And once that happens, you'll switch to registered so registration is linked to fee payment.

Students enroll in their courses, so enrollment is a term that is linked to course enrollment being in courses adding courses on ACORN.

And you enroll in courses on ACORN unless your graduate unit has instructed you to use the course add drop form. So pay attention to what the.

Your department or graduate unit has informed you to do and to help ensure clarity around the registration enrollment processes will use these terms accordingly throughout this presentation.

So pre registration must dues umm accept your offer of admission. To confirm your acceptance, you must sign date and upload your confirmation form to grad app UH to double check your offer letter for admission conditions. Be sure to clear your admission conditions by submitting all of the required documents that are stated in your offer of admission letter. For example, uh your offer of admission letter may state that.

Final official transcripts with the confirmation of degree conferral must be submitted by August 31st. If you're unable to submit any of this documentation, or if you are going to experience a delay, it's very important that you reach out to the graduate administrator in your home department and let them know that there may be a delay because it's the graduate administrator in your home department that removes the condition from the system.

And three, convert your join ID to Utorid to and obtain AT card. You would have received a joint ID when you apply to the university and after you received an admission letter, you're able to convert your joint ID to Utor ID and pick up your physical T card.

So what is the Utor ID? Your Utor ID is your digital credential at the university, and it's used to access university systems and resources. Your Utori D uses the same name as the join ID, and the Utor ID simply provides access to more services. And your Utor ID gives you access to the UT mail, your official U of T e-mail address, webinars and lecture recordings for some courses, Library resources such as online article databases.

Microsoft 365 applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Teams. Uh, Wi-Fi on campus and more. Umm, And your T card is your physical U of T identification card that is used for things like, uh, your ID for in person exams, voting on campus and student discounts. It's used as a library card to pay for printing and photocopying, uh, once you have money loaded on your T card.

And to access university facilities such as the athletics facilities.

To pay for purchases at UFT Bookstore and other food vendors on campus with money loaded on your T Card. And you'll need to verify your identity and legal status in order to activate your Utor ID and be issued AT card. To find out more about that, visit www.tcard.utoronto.ca to learn about how to get your T Card EU Tour ID, which includes step by step instructions. And there's a documentation tool to confirm which documents you'll have to have ready. So the T Card office is a separate office.

From the office I'm in, so you'll have to follow the instructions on their website for getting AT card.

So the University's policy on official correspondence with students states that students are expected to monitor and retrieve their mail, including electronic messaging accounts issued to them by the University on a frequent and constant basis. Students have the responsibility to recognize that certain communications may be time critical, so please be sure that your U of T issued e-mail address, as well as your mailing and permanent addresses are always up to date in ACORN because the University will communicate with you through your U of T e-mail address.

So registration is linked to fee payment. Your registration status is initially set to invited to register when you were admitted On Monday, July 15th, the registration for period for the fall winter session began. So you're considered registered when you have paid your tuition and incidental fees or have requested to register without payment, which is also called a fee deferral. Your tuition fee amounts can be viewed on ACORN as well as your minimum payment to register.

In the invoice on ACORN, and this is normally equal to the unpaid fees from the previous session, 100% of the current full term tuition charges. And you can get detailed instructions on how to pay fees on your ACORN account through the Office of Students Accounts website, whichisstudentaccount.utoronto.ca and they include information about paying from outside Canada, refund schedules, financial arrangement types.

Information about international fee exemptions and your fee payment within the registration period will trigger the switch from invited to registered, so that's important too.

Pay attention to.

So registering without payment are more commonly referred to as deferring fees. You may request to register without payment or defer your fees by ACORN or by submitting a register without payment form to your graduate unit or department.

You're requested to defer fees will be approved if you're receiving university funding such as a major award, research stipend or teaching assistantship which exceeds the minimum payment to register a bound or you are receiving funding from.

OSAP, other provincial government loans or U.S. government loan, or you have an approved SGS payment plan on file with the SGS Financial Aid and Advising Office. Umm service charges uh Please note that if not paid in full, any outstanding account balances subject to a monthly service charge of 1.5% compounded monthly UH for request to register without payment made on the basis of OSAP or other provincial loans.

Service charges begin on other dates for the fall winter session. They begin as of October 15th, winter session February 15th. And my recommendation is that you speak with the graduate administrator at your home department to find out more about eligibility to defer your fees because they would have more information about that.

So the registration deadlines, uh, you'll notice that, uh, we have a few different deadlines. So August 23rd is the recommended tuition fee payment deadline. It's, it's not the actual registration deadline, but it's the deadline that we, it's the date that we recommend to ensure that, uh, the payment reaches the university by the actual registration deadline, which is September 13th.

So August 23rd is the date by which you should sort out the payment or deferral.

Of payment and September 13th is the actual deadline for fall session registration. So this means that your status should be registered or Reg by this date on ACORN and.

There are instances when a fee payment will not trigger registration or a request to defer fees will not be approved. And that may happen if you haven't yet cleared your admission conditions. So this goes back to the admissions conditions issue which I mentioned before. So if you haven't cleared your conditions, you won't be able to register. So it's very important that you speak with the graduate administrator in your department if you have any delays regarding clearing your conditions because that will block you from registering.

So that's something you should do.

When you're registering and clearing your conditions.

So late registration, if for some reason you're not able to register by September 13th, umm, enrollment and access to courses through ACOR will be cancelled. Umm, So re enrollment in courses that were cancelled due to a missed registration is not guaranteed because people on the course waiting list may jump into your spot. So that's another reason to make sure that you register by September 13th because, uh, your enrollment in the courses may be cancelled if you haven't registered by then. Umm. So please contact your graduate administrator in your department immediately if you're not able to register by the registration deadline.

If you don't register by the registration deadline and you want to register after that, you can still register, but there is a late fee of $44.00 and there's an online payment form on the SGS website for processing a late request to register. So that's if you decide to register after September 13th, which which we don't recommend because there is a $44 late fee and you.

May not be able to.

Enter the courses again, if you provide proof of tuition payment along with the late registration fee payment, you'll be manually registered. So that's another thing to consider when you register late.

So campus affiliation, you're automatically affiliated with a campus based on your program of study, and you'll be charged the appropriate level of campus fees that are affiliated with a campus that you're registered with. And those campus fees include the fees for athletic services, health services, and other student services. And if you find that you're spending more time at a different campus from the campus that you're registered at, you can request to change your campus affiliation.

So if a few reasons for people wanting to change their campus affiliation are if you're supervised by a member of a graduate faculty who is on the academic staff of the of a campus that you don't belong to, you can request to change your campus affiliation. Or if you spend the majority of your academic time at another campus, you can do this. So there's an online forum to request to change your campus affiliation.

So legal status changes umm international students may be eligible for domestic tuition rate if they successfully claim the status in Canada. Exemption And to do this students must provide documents to SGS, for example, a record of land landing or permanent resident card. And so who may be exempt from international fees? International fee International students who fall within some categories may be eligible to pay domestic fees.

Such as dependence of a Canadian citizen, dependence of permanent residents, a person who's been approved in principle for permanent resident status, a visitor with diplomatic status, protected persons independence, and for information on eligibility for international fee exemptions, please visit the Student Accounts website.

But it's important to know that these deadlines to change your legal status are firmly set. So if you want to change your legal status for the fall or winter sessions, the deadline for that.

Is November 1st for the winter session only? It's February 1st for the summer session. It's July 1st. And unfortunately there's no flexibility with those deadlines. So if you if you miss one of those deadlines to change your legal status, we can't do it retroactively. So if you are thinking of changing your legal status, you must do it by those dates. So please consider that.

And you may also want to check with a immigration advisor at the Center for International Experience if you have any questions about your status at Canada.

So another important thing to bring to your attention is the minimum degree fee and the balance of degree fee. So, umm program length refers to the period of time for a student to complete all program requirements while registered full time. All graduate students, both full time and part-time, must pay a minimum degree fee upon completion of their programs. So for master students, this fee is based on the full time program length for each graduate program.

Each graduate master's program For PhD and professional doctoral programs, the fee is associated with a one year, three session of full time studies fee. If at the end of your program, the total amount of academic fees that you paid during the time you were registered is less than the minimum degree fee, you'll be required to pay the difference, which is called a balance of degree fee, and this is assessed prior to graduation. So this issue sometimes comes up if a student.

Finishes early. So if you're, for example, in a program that has a program length of three years and you complete your program in two years, you will be expected to pay what you would have normally paid for all three years. So you would get the balance of degree fee assessment based on that. And if you have any more questions about that, you should contact the graduate administrator in your department as well because they have more information about the program length.

So for program requirements, umm you would visit your graduate units website or the School of Graduate Studies calendar to learn more about your requirements to complete your program UMM, such as academic activities, research activities, compulsory and elective coursework, seminars, exams, etcetera. For your program length and your program time limit, umm, so you can check the SGS calendar, we have a complete list of all of the programs and the degree requirements for all of those programs.

At www.sgs.calendar.utoronto.ca.

So academic sessions at U of TUFT is a sessional university. So we have 3 academic sessions and most of the registration practices and policies at the university are linked to the beginning and end of these sessions. So for fall, for the fall session it goes from September 1st to December 31st, the winter session goes from January 1st to April 30th and for full year courses of the fall winter session it goes from September 1st to April 30th and then the summer session is another session.

That has two sub sessions, so there's a first and 2nd sub session in the summer session. The overall summer session goes from May to August. And there are two sub sessions. The first one goes from May to June. The second session goes from July to August.

So most graduate units permit students to use ACORN to enroll in courses, and some graduate units require students to fill out an enrollment form, or some or all of their courses may have the course involvement restrictions. So sometimes some departments have restrictions on who can enroll in the courses. If for some reason you're not able to enroll in a course, you would have to contact the department that's offering the course to find out what the restriction is.

And you should contact your graduate administrator in the department to find out your eligibility for enrolling in courses or any instructions on how to enroll in courses. And if you visit www.help.acorn.utoronto.ca, you'll find detailed step by step guide for using ACORN and how to enroll in courses.

So there are some course enrollment deadlines to enroll in fall session courses at September 18th. For winter session courses is January 20th. For the first session summer courses or summer courses to go for the whole summer, it's May 12th and for the second part of the subway session courses it's July 7th.

So there are also deadlines to drop courses without academic penalty. So it's important that you pay attention to the deadlines to drop courses.

The for the fall session the deadline is October 28th and the other dates are are listed there. Just for your information, if you for some reason missed the deadline to drop a course, it is a bit of a complicated issue because it becomes a non standard request to withdraw late.

Without academic penalty from the course. And you have to have a legitimate reason for not being able to drop the course by the deadline in order to ask to drop a course late. So it's important that you take note of those drop deadlines because there are a few steps you would have to go through to drop a course after the deadline. And you may or may not be permitted to drop a course after the deadline if you don't have a reason for missing the drop deadline. So.

Mark those dates.

On your calendars because they're important.

So course enrollment, you can access ACORN to view request, add drop or wait list courses to view, your personal timetable to view, change your address, umm, and personal information to view your academic history, including your final grades. So that'll give you an overview of what your transcript would look like. Uh, to view your financial account, register without payment, update direct deposit details.

Order transcripts, Convocation tickets.

And a lot more. So take time to familiar. Familiarize yourself with Acorn because it's an important tool and you'll be using it quite a bit.

So STS and your graduate unit or department work together to help you thrive in your program. And your graduate unit is your first stop for most aspects of your degree. But SGS also plays an important role in overseeing academic progress, degree milestones, scholarships, grants, mentoring activities and professional development. So beyond your graduate unit, there are three SGS offices that offer academic services to graduate students. The SGS Student Academic Services Office, which is the office that I, I'm in.

Can offer to provide official letters, so for example, if you need a letter to confirm registration, it's our office that you would come to for that. Information about academic records, registration or enrollment and program management. We can provide information about all those things. The SGS Graduate Awards Office and Financial Aid and Advising Office support students with activities related to merit based awards, needs based financial aid such as emergency financial support.

And they can help you navigate the various funding opportunities at the university. So if you have any questions about your finances or funding, you can contact the SGS Graduate Awards Financial Aid and Advising Office. The SGS Program Completion Office staff are here to help you coordinate the details of your doctoral final examination and clarify your questions about the electronic submission of your thesis. And they can also answer your graduation questions and provide letters indicating completion of your degree requirements.

And beyond the services provided by our offices at SGS, there are also other essential supports and services offered through our three centers. We have the Graduate Center for Academic Communication, which offers support designed to target the needs of both native and non-native speakers of English, and they offer non credit courses, single session workshops, individual writing consultations, writing intensives, and a range of additional resources for academic writing and speaking.

The Center for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision supports successful mentorship and supervisory relationships through personalized, confidential consultations with continued learning and commitment to best practices and supervision. So if if you ever experience any issues in your supervisory relationship or if you need support regarding your supervisory relationship, you may wish to reach out to the Center for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision to arrange to meet with them.

And there's also the Center for Graduate Professional Development, which is the central hub that supports graduate student professional development needs at the University of Toronto.

So the student academic Services office can provide two different kinds of letters that you may need. Uh, one is the confirmation of registration letters that provides proof of registration for various purposes, such as securing student visas or maintaining OSOP interest free status. So there's an online application for that. So if you need a letter, there's an online form and you'll be able to get a letter quite quickly for both masters and doctoral students.

You may request a letter confirming that all of your degree requirements have been met. So this is once you reach the end of your program and need a confirmation letter that states that your degree requirements have been completed. And sometimes it does take a bit longer to produce letters. Uh, I would say allow about 5 business days, umm, although with the online process it's quite quick.

So the graduate administrator in your home graduate unit is a very important person. You should arrange to meet with them if you haven't already. If you're unsure of who the graduate administrator in your graduate unit is, you can visit our list of all of the graduate unit contacts. So it shows all of the departments, programs and who the people responsible for administering each of those programs actually is. So if you're in a program, graduate program, visit that website. You'll see a directory listing all of the important people.

And the graduate administrator is the person in your department who would handle most of the advising for your program, and also other information at the department that's important to your program.

And lastly.

The SGS file orientation The details for the SGS file orientation haven't been finalized yet, but once they are, they'll be posted on this website.

As she has done uterato.ca/orientation, the Office of Student Life has a separate orientation fair, the incoming Graduate Students Resources Fair, which will be held on Monday, September 9th from 8:00 to 2:00 PM, and you can find out more information about that on the Office of Student Life website.

So that concludes the presentation.

And I'll just hand it over to Laurie quickly.

Oh, it's not a full handover, Victoria. I still need all the knowledge in that brain. But I'm going to be moderating the questions that get asked. And I have rejected a number of questions already. So let me explain to students whose questions were rejected at least owe you an explanation. We got a lot of questions about, well, do I have to register and pay fees before I can enroll in courses? And the answer is that varies from unit to unit.

So anything about course enrollment, getting into the courses that you want, that is something you'll need to deal with your home graduate unit about. We use the term graduate unit because many of you are housed in departments, but some of you are at institutes, schools, faculties or whatever. But your graduate unit is the the office that runs the program that you're in. So it's important to bear that in mind.

Esther has Esther has commented that EU of T dot me slash grad units page.

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Wasn't being responsive. I had the same problem, but it has since refreshed and reloaded. It can be a bit more efficient if we use the full link rather than the shortened URL, so I've just dropped the full link into the chat as well if you want to look up who's the administrator for your graduate unit.

Let us now jump into questions that are on topic.

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OK, I'm going to answer this once and for all, and then I'm going to reject a whole bunch of questions at the start. We let you know that.

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The recordings are posted on the same site where you registered for these sessions. So for instance, where the link was to register for the awards and financial aid session, that's been replaced by a link that says view recording. We've done that so far for the first three webinars. The next three out of the six, we haven't yet posted recordings. That will be either late next week or possibly early the week after. OK. So we have one student who is also a staff member and has as a result of fee waiver for their program.

Victoria, if someone has that waiver, does that change the registration and payment deadlines or do they remain the same? How do they prove that they've got this so that they can either so that they can register without payment?

It does not change the registration deadline.

I myself was a staff member and a student a couple of years ago and I found that the HR person at my department was the most helpful person to give information about how the tuition the staff waiver can be applied. So I would suggest contacting HR for the details on that.

I.

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Yeah, we've got a very good question that I'm absolutely going to approve, but we're not going to be able to provide an answer for. Ifang wants to know if if their incoming first year PhD student, do they need to make payments or is it handled by the supervisor or by the department? This will vary significantly from program to program. In some cases, the department set it up so that the tuition is automatically deducted from PhD financial support.

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Two BHK flat, 1000.

In other programs, they will let the student have the first installment of their funding in September, but then the January installment gets clawed back to cover any unpaid fees. So it's really important if you're in a funded program to check in with your home graduate unit what their schedule is for payment and how that is applied to your tuition fee balance or not. We've got a whole bunch of people asking questions about deadlines, and I think they were asking before Victoria answered those questions in her presentation.

But just as an added resource, this page here that I've just put into the chat gives you the listings of sessional dates. That link is stable. You can go back to it year after year and the yearly information is posted on APDF that you can find from that page. But here's a direct link. So that gives you the dates like registration opened on July 15th, that August 23rd is the recommended tuition fee payment deadline that that information is all there on the SGS website under sessional dates.

Let's grab some more questions.

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OK, here's a good one, although it's very specific and I'm only going to be helping one person with this one. We have a returning student who just recently got the notice that their UFT e-mail is about to be converted to an alumni e-mail.

Yeah, you're gonna want to maintain your student e-mail, so just e-mail the help desk, hopefully they are help.desk@utoronto.ca and let them know that you're returning so that they can make sure that that's not done to your e-mail account.

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Nikki's got a good question. Victoria. Is it possible to see on ACORN whether or not admission conditions have been cleared?

I'm not sure about that to be honest. I know that we could check it on our side. I would still check with the department, the administrator and the department to find out if they have cleared the conditions.

So if you have any concerns about that, I think you should reach out directly to the graduate administrator in the department.

Mm-hmm.

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My understanding, and it could be wrong 'cause I know there have been updates to ACORN, is that you can't tell and that the only way you'd find out is if you if you pay your fees and your status doesn't update from invited to register to register. So if you if you know you've only just recently cleared conditions, check with your graduate administrator to make sure that they've input that on the system before you make payment on that front.

Timeline would like to know more about the fee deferral or the process for registering without payment.

For students who have applied for OSAP, and I'm assuming from the way the questions phrased, that that means before they get a decision on their OSAP application.

So for any questions about umm.

Fee deferral or anything related to OSOP? I would recommend reaching out to the University of Toronto Registrar's Office because that's the office that handles the administration of OSOP.

So Rory, maybe you could put in the link to the OSAP office at the?

Yeah, absolutely.

So yeah, the any questions about OSAP, the folks at the.

There it is.

University of Toronto registrar's office, like the main registrar's office, they oversee all issues or questions with OSOP. So Lori is just going to provide the link to that website. There it is. So related questions should be directed to that office.

And I've got an excellent question that I also need to find a link for. Give me just a second.

Here we go.

I'm just there we go. So Ashley has a question of whether any of the fees that are showing up on the invoice can be opted out of and the answer is almost none, but she quite or he quite.

Cleverly mentions What about What about health insurance? So every graduate student at the University of Toronto is enrolled in three health plans. If you're a Canadian, you're enrolled in your provincial health insurance plan. And if you're international student, you'll be enrolled instead in what's called U Hip. But then there's also the dental insurance plan from the Graduate Students Union and the health supplementary health insurance plan from the Graduate Students Union. And that supplementary plan covers things like.

Physiotherapy.

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Vision care, prescription drugs, if you have coverage that matches that GSU plan, you can apply to opt out of that plan. You don't get to just withhold the payment. You have to pay the fees upfront and then between September 1st and September 30th, you have the window to apply the documentation of your current coverage to see about opting out. If your request is approved, you get a refund sometime in November.

And I've I've put a link in the chat for any student who wants that information.

And I'm rejecting someone who asked the identical excellent question.

BJP.

So let's talk a little bit about campus affiliation because Allison is saying that she sees some things listed on her invoice as U of T St. George. Does that mean she's affiliated with the Saint George campus and she's in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry? Victoria, do you want to talk a little bit more about campus affiliation and how that's determined?

Yes, so.

I'm just reading what it says here listed on my invoice. Yeah. So if you see that the charges are going to the Saint George campus, it means your affiliated with the Saint George campus. If for some reason you would rather be affiliated with the Scarborough campus or the Mississauga campus, you would have to complete a change of campus affiliation.

Yeah. So most graduate programs are based on the Saint George campus, Not all, but a lot. And so the default registration for students in most programs is to be a Saint George campus student. But if your supervisor's lab is out at Scarborough or at Mississauga, you may find yourself wanting to use the facilities there rather than downtown. And so you can apply for that change of campus affiliation. This is particularly important for students that you have Team Mississauga.

Because although they pay higher campus fees, they get free access to the shuttle bus that runs between Saint George and UTM. Everyone else needs to pay on a trip by trip basis. So we have a couple of people have asked the question about how to load funds onto T cards and I am just going to put a link into the chat for that and get it out of the way for everyone. So if you asked that question and I rejected you, I apologize, but we are at least covering it off.

OK.

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So we have one student again, asking a good question that we're not going to be able to answer. And that is Sakshi, who's applying for an award that states in its eligibility requirements that the student has to be a full time registered student at the time of application. And since Sakshi is asking 3 starting in September, the question is, can they apply for that award now? And the answer is you'll need to check with whoever is administering the award rather than with us. That's, that's not our call to make.

Fatima is asking if you can pay for only the fall term first. Yes, you can. Victoria answered that the deadline to pay winter fees is in November.

OK. So Esther's got a question because I think the the idea of a balance of degree. So Esther's asking what happens if you go past the program length like if you're in a two year program?

And it takes you three years to complete What additional payments show up? What what? What else has to be paid?

Yeah.

So you would have to pay the fees for those additional years. So the full time fees for those additional years that are posted on the student accounts website.

So if you if the program length is is like three years and you go past that, you would still have to pay the full amount for those additional years.

Once you go past your program length, you are paying fees session by session. So if you were supposed to finish by August 2027 and you had to do, you know, continue with some extra thesis research into November of that year, you'd pay the fall session fees. I'll just use an example of balance of degree fee to to to make sure that people aren't frightened of it. The most common scenario where a student ends up paying a balance of degree fee.

Is when they're admitted as a part-time student but somehow end up taking a full time course load and therefore finish early. So they're expecting to finish in three years. They finish in fewer years. That's when a balance of degree fee would come up.

Here's a good question, Victoria Do students have to have paid their fees in full before they can get a letter confirming registration?

You don't have to pay it in full. There is a minimum payment to register that's listed on ACORN on your ACORN invoice. So if you submit the minimum payment, your status will change from invited to registered. So if you need a letter confirming that you're registered, the minimum payment or deferral of payment will change your status to registered. So it's what your status is in ACORN that we look at when we produce a letter confirming registration.

If on ACORN it states that you're registered, we can produce a letter confirming that you're registered for the session that you're asking for.

Yeah, we've got a great question that I'm going to go find the link for. But Kim Jin is asking for detailed information on international fee transfer methods. So if you're paying from outside the country, Victoria, do you want to talk just a little bit about the different fee payment methods and I'll get the specific link for paying from outside the country?

Actually, I would actually refer them to directly to the Student Accounts website because the Student Accounts website lists all of the payment methods. So Rory, if you could provide the link to the Student Accounts website, that link that provides the payment methods, that would be the best thing to do.

Coming right up.

So here is the information straight from student accounts so that I can't misunderstand it or misspeak and somehow give you incorrect information. That link at 2:47 PM in the chat is where you'll want to go for answers to that question.

OK.

Play.

So we are getting a lot of questions about fee deferral with OSAT and I'm really sorry, but we're not the right office to answer that question. Once again, I will put the link to the university registrar's office into the chat so that you can direct your questions to their office. The Ontario government only wants to deal with one office per university. So that's that's in the hands of the Central University Registrars office rather than us and the worst thing we could do at this stage.

Is provide incomplete or slightly incorrect information, so I'm going to reach out to someone by name, by the way.

Play.

Without answering their questions saying, Nasir, I see your question and I'm not going to get rid of it, but Victoria and I are going to follow up with you by e-mail after this session, OK? So we will get to you, I promise.

Yeah, so Davin has is an international student who got permanent residence this year. Congratulations.

Um, Victoria, could you let Devin know what they, what they need to do to update that status?

I'm just looking over the question.

Yeah, OK. In order to get your legal status changed in the system, please send an e-mail to the SGS, uh, main e-mail address, which Roya has already must have read my mind because there it is. It's graduate.information@utoronto.ca. So if you contact our office through that e-mail address and you provide the supporting documents as attachments, the person who responds to that e-mail address can update your legal status or ask you.

For more information, if there are some documents missing, you can also do this in person in our office at 63 Saint George Street, we can on the main floor. We can update your legal status in person as well.

So I've got two very similar questions from Elizabeth and Heba asking about the different healthcare coverage. I'm going to take Elizabeth's because it's the more detailed question and she is asking whether international students are enrolled in those two graduate student union programs and what's covered.

I'm rather than fully answering that I am going to provide you with the link to the benefits list.

Yes, all graduate students unless they are enrolled in the GSU plans and that is what that's the benefits that are listed at the link I've just put in the chat. So UUTGS, e.ca/health and dental benefits. I'm also going to get you a link to EU Hip information because if you're an international student, it's important to know what is covered by UIP and what is either something that you will cover out of pocket or you'll be covering through coverage.

Through the GSU plans, it's really important for students who are looking to access healthcare to know what's covered and what's not so that you can plan your care accordingly.

If if, if doctors are giving you options, some of which are covered and some of which are not. You need to be making informed decisions, so make sure you read over this information.

And Craig is asking an excellent question on the same topic for which I don't have an answer. Victoria might know off the top of her head. And that is, do part time students have the same benefits plan as full-time students? And I don't know the answer to that question.

Yes, and I wouldn't know the answer either because health plans are not administered through SGS. So if you're a domestic student, you would have to reach out to the student union office, the UTGSU, they handle the health plans. So I don't know Rory, if you.

Give me, give me, give me just a second and I can actually get you the e-mail address for that.

Yeah, so he's going to provide the e-mail address for domestic students. If you're a domestic student, your health plan is administered through the University of Toronto Student Union, the UTGSU, and they have a person an e-mail address that you can e-mail directly to ask questions about your benefits plan.

Yep, and here comes that address right now.

Yep, there it is.

OK this part I can't answer. Yizu is asking how and when will you will they get their their their actual piece of paper for you HIP? You have to register with EU HIP office on arrival and you have to set up your account. The instructions for that are provided on the page I sent earlier with the link to you HIP information.

Great question from Alexandra on the jury. If I went to UTM for my undergrad, will I need a new T card for U of T Saint George?

BCCI.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. We see students who maintain their old T card from before. You might run into some building access issues if you're in a department that uses the T cards for building access, so check with that.

Umm, and you can always check with the T card office to be absolutely sure. Let me just put.

Their website's information.

Into the into the chat.

OK, so Winter has apparently accidentally registered as a Saint George student instead of a UTM student.

That's pretty Victoria, do you have advice on this?

If if your invoice shows the charges going to say George rather than UTM, that would mean that you're accidentally affiliated with Saint George, so you should do the campus affiliation. But to be absolutely sure, I would actually suggest sending an e-mail to our main e-mail address to ask our office to look into that a bit more at graduate.sorrygraduate.information@utoronto.ca.

MMM.

Mm-hmm.

Thinking whether it's possible to have the T card mailed from Saint George campus since they're in aerospace which is way up north. Unfortunately you do have to pick it up in person. They they will they will not mail that.

Here we go.

OK, so Sophia's asking if students who are studying on fully online need to pay the same fees for insurance?

My understanding is that those fees remain even if you are.

Studying remotely.

Yes, everything remains the same. There is no difference for studying Vermontly.

Sayida wants to know about enrolling in courses when registration opens for her program. So she's not asking us when registration will open, but she's asking once it does. If she doesn't yet have a study permit, can she can she enroll in courses for her program? And the answer is yes. This happens every year. If course enrollment is opening soon and international students are still out of the outside the country, they usually won't get their permit until they they land here in Toronto.

So it's fine to go ahead and enroll in courses even if you're still out of the country and waiting to come to Canada. That's that's not a problem.

Switch to.

This isn't the right place to ask the question, but idiot Busari is asking if there are parking facilities for students at Oyster if there are fees attached to this. I believe Oisi has a parking lot, but handily there is a central.

Parking office at U of T.

That has information about all the parking availability on campus and I'm just going to drop that into the chat.

Here we go.

So there's the link to all information you might need about parking, including rates.

Oh, here's a good question. Not sure we'll have an answer for it, but it's a good question.

Esther is asking, does the deposit pay the tuition deposit paid to secure the place in the program count towards the minimum payment fee to register or does it go beyond or is more money still needed?

I don't think it does.

I don't think it does either.

I think it's a. It's a separate payment I think.

Yeah, so.

My understanding is if you need to pay the fall fees to to register then that 500 counts towards the fall fees. But it doesn't just get you registered. Leslie's asking for part time students. Is it a flat fee or is it based on the number of courses?

I can answer that. So that actually confuses some. It causes some confusion because a lot of undergraduate students are used to paying fees based on the number of courses that you're in. However, for graduate students, you're paying a program fee based on whether you're in the part time or full time option in your program, if that's available. So it's a flat fee.

That's based on the program. It's a program fee.

And if you take more or less courses, it does not affect the amount that you pay. So if you pay, if you pay the flat fee and you take less courses than anticipated, you're still charged the flat fee. The number of courses that you're in does not affect the amount you have to pay.

So Rice is asking a question about fee deferral.

So the question is when does the deferral last until? So if race is getting funding but not getting it all at once, how much is the minimum to pay at the start of the year or is there and to when does that deferral go through till?

Yup.

For that, I would actually suggest that you speak to the department, to your own department because they could, they would have a better idea of what the deferral of payment was based on and they can advise you on when the deferral is over, so when the fees are actually due. So I would recommend speaking with the department.

So.

So Sarah registered for T card a few weeks ago. She's asking if she needs to pick it up right away or can she pick it up when she starts school in September.

I think.

Well, actually, maybe you know the answer to this. Do they need to pick it up to get access to the utor?

Know that students students are able to go through SOAP. You start with your joint ID and you get access to ACORN and Housing services and so on. You set up your T Card online and when a staff member in the T Card office approves your document submission, they send you information to get your secret activation key to promote that to AU Tour ID. At that point you should, and if you can't, you should contact the T Card office.

Be able to set up your UFT e-mail account and access whenever your unit opens course enrollment. You should be able to access anything that's that's utor ID controlled at that point. You can do that even before you have the physical card so it is possible to go and pick up the T card later in September when you start your program. My personal advice is if you have the chance and if you're in Toronto, go early.

September and late August are a super busy time for the T Card office. Now that they're letting students start setting up in in in June and July, it's a little bit better. But we used to see lineups around the block outside the T card office in September. So don't get stuck in that lineup. If you can go early, do go early. Now. Amy's asking when she tried to set up for her T card, the office said that she's not currently enrolled in courses and so she wasn't able to proceed. Amy, you need to contact the T card office on that one. That is, that is not how the system is supposed to work. And so you're going to want to contact T card.

Dot office and I'm putting this in the chat at you toronto.ca, because if you're invited to register for September, you should be able to set up your T card now. And the fact that you can't tells me that there's something wrong there. I'm really sorry, guys. We're getting people asking question after question about the number of courses they can take in a semester. What will the department allow them to? We can't answer questions about course enrollment. The answers vary too much from program to program.

You need to contact your home graduate unit. So anyone asking about number of courses, sorry.

Yup.

I'm not going to put this in the chat but I am going to answer the question. We have a student who paid a housing deposit and then decided not to take up campus housing and they want to get a refund. The answer is you don't. That's how a deposit works. If you pay the deposit and the housing office said sorry no residence for you.

Skip traffic is effective.

Then yes, they should give the deposit back. If you were offered a spot in student housing and opted not to take it, the deposit should be forfeit. If you are concerned about that, you can contact the housing office if you think that that was somehow not properly communicated to you. But what I have seen on their website is pretty clear that so they've got two addresses that they use. I would send to both at the same time. But if they offered you housing and you did not decide to take it, you lose the deposit and.

That's why they charge the deposit, to make sure that they're making offers to people who are going to take up the offer.

We have more students asking about.

We have more students asking about, oh, here's a good one who's just asking if she's a part-time student. Will will you only pay the minimum degree fee no matter the number of years taken to graduate?

So part time program supposed to take three years if you graduate in two.

You're paying the balance of degree fee to have the full three years. What happens if you go into year 4 Victoria?

OK. So the the minimum degree fee is actually based on the full time fees. So it would be based on.

The full time fees for the minimum time needed in the program. So if it's a three-year program, you'd have to pay the full time equivalent fees for three years in the program.

If you go beyond that, then you would have to pay the additional sessions.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Yeah. So by the time, if it's a three-year program, by the time you hit that three-year mark, you have just then you've paid the minimum degree fee. But that doesn't mean that anything that follows after that is free.

So the T card office, we've been asked where to pick up the their T card. I'm going to dodge that question because the T card office is in a temporary location at 800 Bay St. and I'm not sure what the timeline is.

For when they'll get back to their usual place at.

On at College in Saint George. So once again there's the link to the T card office information before you go to pick up your T card check and if they've if they've moved back, they will have updated their location.

We're getting more OSAP questions that we cannot help.

We're getting questions about whether it's possible to book an online meeting with the department administrator. Ask the department administrator.

Yeah, the departments handle their own schedules. We, we don't oversee that. Like if we're, it's a very decentralized system. So if you're with a department, you you would speak, you would have to contact them directly to schedule meetings with them.

OK. And again, for privacy reasons, I'm not going to put this in the chat.

And I need to find.

Sorry, we have a student who has an apparent balance from previous study.

And they they see that there is an outstanding arrears on their account from previous study at U of T. So if you're unsure about what's happening there, you're going to want to go to.

Student accounts for information on that.

And you access service from student accounts.

Through an online portal, uh, they, they no longer have an e-mail address, uh, for you to contact. Uh, so if you click the link that I've just put in the chat at 3:06 PM, uh, the service portal, uh, will let you log in and direct your questions directly to student accounts.

That way you don't have to share all your financial information with everybody else who's here on today's webinar.

Emily Burt, and I hope she's still on because she asked us a long time ago, I apologize, is asking what letter is attached to the second sub session in summer? Do you want to just go back to that slide, Vic?

The second subsection is. It's a S.

Sam S as in Sam.

S yeah, yeah. S as in Sierra or Susan or Sam, Yeah.

I've got a question from someone who's still preparing their application which we can't help with today.

OK.

So one last time, yes, today's sessions are being recorded.

Stadium website can be signed up for.

And the the recordings will be available on the same website where you signed up. I'm putting the link in the chat right now once, one last time. All the questions that I have left are either things that we have covered or.

Are program specific, such as can master students and PhD students take the same courses?

Depends on the program, so if anyone has any last minute questions we'll wait a few more seconds or minutes while you put that in.

Play.

Yep. So Enrique is asking if you'll get a U of T e-mail once you get the join ID promoted to a UTOR ID? Yes that is that is how it works. Once the T card office approves your document submission, they will send you the information you need to promote the ID.

Chapter collective privacy next year.

All right, I'm going to very quickly copy the one of the questions I rejected because I did promise Unisier the Victoria and I would get back to you after this session.

Play.

But other than that, I think we've covered everything we can. We've covered all the questions in the chat so far. We're really in a position to cover. So give me just a second while I paste that information so I know how to reach the student.

Sorry to keep you all waiting.

There we go. Excellent. And now I'll take one last look in the chat to see if we've had any more new questions come in that I should approve.

OK.

Racer has questions about e-mail so I honestly don't know what can be done to change e-mail accounts. You're going to want to contact the help desk and I am putting that e-mail address in the chat one last time.

All right. I'm all I'm seeing now are thank yous. So you're very welcome. It was our pleasure to present. And Victoria, thank you so much for sharing your expertise today.

For those who said we will follow up, we will follow up and have a great rest of your day and we look forward to seeing you mostly on campus. Some of you will be remote, but most of you will be on campus.

Bye bye.

In in September. All right, take care everyone. Have a great rest of your day.