Webinars for Newly Admitted Graduate Students - Registration 2023

Hi everyone and welcome to today's webinar for incoming or newly admitted graduate student.

My name is Rory McEwen and I work at the School of Graduate Studies.

But really, all I'm here to do today is introduce you to add value from student academic services. Who's going to be talking about?

What student academic services means, how to get yourself registered, how to get your account set up, and so on and so forth.

I'm going to give you a little bit of housekeeping before we hand over to Ed to get started. That will also buy us some time for a few stragglers to log on. We have over 200 people registered for today and so far we only have 67 students who have appeared. So first thing I'd like to do is say good afternoon or come to think of it, for a lot of you this will be good morning or good evening or good middle of the night because we have students coming in from.

All over the world today.

I suspect a lot of the latecomers will actually be students who've done their undergrads at UT, because what they will encounter when you're here is you have T time where most classes start at 10 minutes past the hour, because we're a large campus and we need to get students time to get across it.

A bit of housekeeping for today. We're keeping these webinars very, very tightly focused on specific topics. So what we're here to talk about today is your student account registration getting set up with your student card. You may have other questions that don't fit in exactly with this topic. And we have to admit we're going to be very, very ruthless. Questions about other topics such as awards or housing or family care options, those have.

Covered in other webinars, and those webinars have been recorded, and the recordings will be posted to our chat page by later today. So any question that's off topic, we're going to be bypassed.

The way this works is once Ed has finished his presentation, you can type questions in the chat.

But that chat is moderated. None of the messages gets through unless either Ed or I approves it, and so we are going to be excluding any questions that are off topic.

We'd like, if possible, for you to save your questions for the end of its presentation so that we don't have to go through a large backlog of messages to go through and approve. But we really are keen to get through the presentation and get on to those questions because the question and answer session is always the most useful and interesting part of these webinars.

Today's session will be recorded and will be posted along with the others, but our system takes a few days, sometimes up to a week, to merge all the media into a file that I can actually post, so don't come looking for this recording until about the first week of August.

So without any further ado, Ed, Are you ready to take it away?

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Alright, yeah. Thank you.

I can hear you just fine. I'm assuming because you weren't waving that my sound was coming across as well.

Alright.

Yeah. Thank you for for UH, for the introduction and uh, welcome everybody. UH, first I wherever you're coming from in the world, if you're from Toronto. Good afternoon and good day. Good morning, Good night.

This webinar is particularly for incoming students, so that's you. So I'd like to congratulate you for receiving an offer of admission to the university. So I'm going to talk about the things that you need to be aware of in terms of registration and enrollment between now and the beginning of the fall term, September term, but before we get started.

I would just like to 1st acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it's been the traditional land of the Huron, 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 study and work on this land.

All right.

So I always like to start off these sessions with some definitions.

Ed, Can I interrupt for just a second?

So I mentioned that we're going to be covering both enrollment and registration. But what's the difference between enrollment and registration? There's a distinction between these terms when we communicate to you. So it's good for us to define these now and align our use of them moving forward. So yeah.

Could you switch your microphone on and off? We're getting a bit of an echo.

It's not too bad, but if we can fix it with a switch quick on and off.

Yeah, how about now?

It's a little bit better.

How about now?

About the same.

I can still make out what you're saying, so let's go, yeah.

Alright, I see. Yeah, what what might help with the echo is if everybody in the call mute.

To try to mute might be better.

Um, so I hope this is this is a little bit better now.

5.

Going to take that.

I say yes.

All the all the participants are automatically needed, so don't worry about.

I ohh OK alright well I hope uh.

I hope you can hear me. I I'm going to keep, uh keep going, but Rory, please interrupt me if the if the audio keeps cutting off.

So, yes, so, so back to the definitions, so registration and enrollment. So you can think of it, students register in a program and enroll in courses. Registration occurs when you pay your fees or have your request to register without payment, known as the fee deferral. Approved enrollment refers to adding a course or an academic activity in your Acorn account. I'll talk about Acorn later on, but you'll notice that I will be referring to.

Corner Lot.

So enrollment refers to adding a course or an academic activity in ACORN, either by you directly or by your graduate units. So to enroll, you add a course in Acorn.

And to register, you pay or defer your fees. So to help ensure clarity around this whole process, we'll use these terms accordingly moving forward.

All right, I'm just going to go over a little bit of some things that you must do before you can start registration. So the first thing is to accept your offer of a dimension. To confirm your acceptance, you must sign date and upload your confirmation form to the grad app. That is the tool that most of you have used to apply for admission.

The second thing is to double check your offer letter for any admission conditions. Be sure to clear your admission conditions by submitting all of the required documents that stated on your offer letter. A lot of you who are either finishing up your current degree may have as an example condition to submit your final official transcript that confirms that you've conferred your degree. So that's an example of an an admission condition. Most admission conditions must be cleared by August 31st.

If you think that you're going to run into issues clearing your conditions or submitting the documentation that is required to clear your conditions, please contact your graduate administrator if you need an extension.

So double check your UM offer for conditions and then convert your join ID to a utor ID and obtain at card. So you would have received a joint ID when you applied to the university.

After you received an admission offer, you're able to convert your joint ID to a Utor ID and also pick up your T card.

So what is the user ID and what is the T card? Your user ID is your digital credential at the university. It's used to access university systems and resources. Your user ID is the same name as your joint ID. Your user ID that's activated simply provides you access to more services. So your user ID will give you access to your UT's e-mail address, your UT mail, plus webinars and lecture recordings for some of your courses.

Library resources such as the online article databases, Microsoft 365 applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Teams. It'll give you Wi-Fi on campus and more, so it acts as a digital credential to give you access to to UFT services. Your T card is your physical UFT identification card. It can be used for things like your ID for exams.

Voting on campus? Student discounts can be used as a library card. You can use it to pay for printing or photocopying, with money that's loaded on your T card, of course, to access university facilities such as the athletic facilities, and you could use it to pay for purchases at the UT bookstore or other food vendors on campus. Again, with money loaded on your PC card, you'll need to verify your identity and your legal status.

In order to activate your Utri D and be issued at Card so, please visit the T Card Office website. That's www.tcard.utoronto.ca to learn more about how to get your Utor ID and T Card. It includes step by step instructions and there's also a documentation tool that you can use to confirm which documentation you'll need to have, which documentation you need to have ready in order to obtain your Utor ID and T Card.

OK.

So also, the other thing you need to do is, um, be sure to keep your e-mail addresses and all of your contact information up to date. At. 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 universities or e-mail addresses on a frequent and consistent basis. Students have the responsibility to recognize that certain.

Communications may be time critical, so that said again, be sure to be sure that your UTI issued e-mail address as well as your mailing and permanent addresses are always up to date in Acorn.

OK, so as I mentioned in my previous slide, registration is linked to fee payment. Your registration status was initially set as invited to register when you were admitted on Monday, July 17th. The beginning of this week, the registration for the registration period for the fall winter session began. You're considered registered when you paid your tuition and incidental fees or have requested to register without.

Payment, or in other words, you've requested to defer your fees. Your tuition fee amounts can be viewed in ACORN, as well as your minimum payment to register. This is normally equal to unpaid fees from previous sessions, plus 100% of the current fall term tuition fee charges you can find.

Find the exact MPR, the minimum payment to register in your Acorn account and then also detailed instructions on how to pay your fees will also be available in your Acorn account and this Student accounts website thatsstudentaccount.utoronto.ca.

UM, that will provide you with information about paying from outside of Canada, refunds, schedules, financial arrangement types, information about international fee exemptions, and things like that.

So in other words, your fee, fee payment within the registration period would trigger a switch from your registration status from INVITED, which is what it what it was or what it is when you're initially admitted to. Registered students are also to, as I said, register without payment or defer fees. So some students may request to register without payment or defer fees via ACORN or by submitting a register without.

Statement form to your graduate unit and those requests will be approved if you are receiving university funding. So major award research depend or teaching assistantship which exceeds the minimum payment to register amount. So research stream students would fall under this category. You could also defer fees or requests to defer fees if you're receiving funding from OSAP, the Ontario Ontario Student Assistance Plan.

Other provincial loans or U.S. government loans?

And you could also defer or request to defer fees, uh, if you have an approved SGS payment plan on file with our SGS financial aid and advising team and that requires partial payment. So yeah, those categories of students could request to register without payment or defer fees. Just to note though that if you're able to defer fees and if your fees are not paid in full, any outstanding balance is subject to a monthly service charge of 1.5.

Percent compounded monthly, or 19.56 per annum.

So for request to register without payment made on a basis of OSAP or other provincial loans, service charges for unpaid fall and winter session fees will start to accrue on October 15th and every month after that. And then for winter session fees, service charges will start to accrue starting February 15th for students who are in researching programs who are receiving.

Rewards research step in teaching assistantships that cover at least the minimum first payment. Service charges are assessed as of May 15th in the winter session, so these are for both your full year fees or fall and winter fees. Any unpaid fees for those sessions will start accruing service charges on the 15th of May and 2024.

OK, so those are the uh ways that you could register UM, and it's just important to note to do this before the registration deadlines, important dates and deadlines are provided by your graduate unit, but sessional dates for graduate studies are also available on the USGS website and the s s academic calendar. You'll notice that there are two dates related to fall registration, September 1st and September 15th. September 1st is the recommended.

Version Fee Payment deadline for students registering or starting their program in the fall session to ensure that payment is received by the registration deadline of September 15th and to avoid cancellation of registration and course enrollment. International students also should pay by this date to ensure that you're covered by the University Health Insurance plan or you have at the beginning of September, so September 1st will allow ten business days. That is the recommended tuition fee payment deadline.

UM for SO that will allow ten business days for payment to be received by the registration deadline of September 15th again to trigger the switch from invited to registered.

September 15th is the actual deadline for Fall session registration. This means that your status should be registered by this date, either by having a fee payment made or by having a request to register without payment approve or your fees referrals approved.

There are instances though when a fee payment would not trigger registration or a request to defer fees would not be approved. Other in other words, your registration may be blocked. So what could block registration?

Um, two things. For a newly admitted students such as all of you, if you have any outstanding severe admission conditions that are unclear that are not cleared, even if you make a payment, that will block your registration. And even if you request the register without payment, that will. That request will not be approved until those conditions have been cleared. So that's why we started off this session by ensuring that you double check your offer letter to make sure that you don't have any outstanding admission conditions.

And then for the other way that could block your registration or for returning students, if you did your undergrad at UT and you're returning and you have any outstanding fees from previous sessions, that will also not allow a fee payment for not.

Regular registration in that case as well.

OK.

Ohh.

OK, so late registration if you do not register by this September 15th deadline, as I mentioned in my previous slide, enrollment in and access the courses through Cornwall will be cancelled. And it's really important for you to be aware that re enrollment in courses once you've been cancelled due to missed registration is not guaranteed because there's a wait list and if that fails up.

And it may not be possible for you to get back into the class. So if you think that you're gonna run into this situation, first try your best to register by the deadline before the deadline. But if you think that you're not going to be able to, please contact your graduate administrator as soon as possible so you can sort that out. If you're not able to register by the registration deadline and then you subsequently wish to register, you'll be required to pay a late registration fee of $44. You can.

Access the online payment form on the USGS website.

If you provide proof of tuition payment along with the late registration fee payment, you'll be manually registered. But if you don't provide proof of tuition fee payment and you pay the late registration fee, you'll be reinvited.

And that will allow you to make a payment to register or make appropriate arrangements to register.

Okay campus affiliation.

You're all of your automatically affiliated with a campus based on your program of study.

And you'll be charged the appropriate level of campus service fees for athletics, health services, and other student services. You may apply to change your campus affiliation if you meet specific criteria.

If you're supervised by a member of a graduate faculty who is on the academic staff of the campus to which you wish to transfer affiliation, and if you spend the majority of your academic time on the campus you wish to transfer affiliation.

Deadlines for requesting a change of campus affiliation are the same as the registration deadline at the beginning of each term, and retroactive changes cannot be allowed If you were. If you require if you need to change your campus affiliation, you can define the campus affiliation form.

On the SGS website.

Okay legal status change International students may be eligible for domestic tuition rate if they successfully claim the status in Canada exemption. Students must provide documents to US eggs in these cases such as record of landing permanent resident card and and things like that. So you who may be exempt from international fees. So international students who fall within some categories may be eligible to pay domestic fees such as dependents of Canadian.

Citizens or Indigenous Persons Dependence of Permanent Residence. Person who has been approved in principle for Permanent resident status in Canada and their dependents. A visitor with diplomatic status and their dependents and protected persons and their dependents. So please visit the Student Accounts website at studentaccount.utoronto.ca For more information about eligibility requirements for international fee exemptions.

It's important to note though, that change of status cannot be retroactive to any previous session, so the deadlines on the screen are hard deadlines. That's November 1st for reassessment of the complete Fall and Winter session, February 1st for reassessment of the Winter session only, and July 1st for reassessment of the complete Summer session.

If you're a substantial fees you'll be you'll have to claim status and candidate exception in the session that you are charged annual fees.

OK, this is something that may not you that you may not encounter until the end of your program, but all of you should be aware of these concepts right at the beginning. So program length, minimum degree fee, and the balance of degree fee. So program length refers to the period of time in sessions or academic year 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 program. So for master students, this fee is based on the full time program length for each masters program. So that would depend on your program. And then for PhD and professional doctoral programs, this fee is associated with one year or three sessions full full time studies. So if at the end of your program, the total amount of.

Academic fees which 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 the balance of degree fee, and this is assessed prior to graduation.

Just something to be aware of now.

And another thing that you all should be aware of now If not, um.

You can visit your Graduate units website for confirmation as well as the School of Graduate Studies calendar to learn more about all of the requirements that you need to complete your program, such as required academic activities, research activities, compulsory and elective coursework, seminars, examinations, and things like that. Also, your program length and your program time limits, which is the maximum period of registration permitted for you to complete the program you can find.

The School of Graduate Studies academic calendar at S dot calendar at dot utoronto.ca.

And if you did your undergraduate UFT, you're aware of this already. Here are our sessions throughout the academic year. The fall session runs from September to December. The Winter session runs from January to April and then full. Some academic activities run for both fall and winter session, and then the the Summer session runs from May to August, and that is divided.

Into two sub sessions. The first sub session is from May to June and then second session in July to August. Thank you Rory for for sharing those links.

OK. So course enrollment, UM as I mentioned, uh?

You'll you'll be using ACORN for a lot of these things. Most graduate units will permit students to use ACORN to enroll in courses. Some units would require, and some courses would require students to fill out an enrollment form.

Either you know for some restricted courses or sometimes all of their courses. For detailed instructions on an information about these courses, you could consult your graduate unit or your graduate administrator. For the most part, you should be able to.

Good courses to enroll using ACORN, but as I said, some some for some courses you may not be able to if they are restricted, and in those cases you'd have to fill out the enrollment form, the AD drop courses form if you need help with.

Acorn instructions. You can go to helpacorn.utoronto.ca for detailed step by step instructions on how to enroll in courses.

Here are the course enrollment deadlines for this upcoming academic year. So that's for full year and fall session courses, the enrollment deadline is September 20th. For winter session courses it's January 22nd, 2024. For May to June summer session courses and May to August Summer session courses it's May 13th. And for August, July to August summer session courses it's July 8th.

And here are the deadlines for if you need to cancel or drop your courses without academic penalty. It's November 6th for Fall session or full or half courses, February 20th for Full year and Winter session courses, June 3rd for May to June Summer section courses, and June 24th for May to August. That's the full Summer section courses and July 29th for the second sub session.

Of the summer.

OK, so you can use Acorn and thank you Rory again for sharing the link in the chat to view, request, add or drop or wait list for courses. As I've mentioned earlier, you can use it to view your personal timetable. You can use it to view or change your address, your telephone numbers, e-mail safety abroad address if if you are required to go abroad for your program and emergency contact.

Information. You can use it to view your academic history, including final grades. You can use it to see your financial account information, such as your invoices, account details, payments. I mentioned that you can use it to register without payment or defer payment of your tuition. Can use it to update your direct deposit details. Print your educational tax credit forms. You can use it to order transcripts and order convocation tickets at the end of your program.

And more so, Acorn is uh is a quite an important tool for you to to know.

OK.

As you send your UH graduate unit UM or your your home departments graduate office work together to help you to thrive. You thrive in your program. Your graduate unit though is your first stop for most aspects of your degree, but Assad's will play an important role in overseeing the academic progress, degree, mouse zones, scholarships, grants, mentoring activities, professional development and more of of all graduate students.

Well beyond your graduate unit though, there are three s s offices that offer academic services to graduate students. The s s Student Academic Services Office can provide things like official letters. I'll talk about more about that later. Information about academic records, registration, enrollment, program management, and progress. The SGS Graduate Awards, Financial Aid, and Advising Office supports students with activities related to merit based awards and needs to be needs based financial aid such as.

Emergency Financial support. They can help you navigate the various funding opportunities at the university or help you access financial support such as grants, work study opportunities, or students lines of credits.

The USGS Program Completion Office staff are here to help you to coordinate the details of your doctoral final examination and clarify questions about any electronic submission thesis that you you may be required to submit if you can also answer your graduation questions and provide the letters indicating the completion of your degree requirements.

And then even beyond the services provided by our offices, there are essential supports and resources offered through our three centers. The GCAC or the Graduate Center for Academic Communication offers support that's designed to target the needs of both native and non-native speakers of English. They offer non credit courses, single session workshops, individual writing, consultations, writing intensives and a range of additional resources for academic writing and speaking.

CGMS, or the Center for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision supports successful mentorship and supervisory relationships through personalized, personalized, confidential consultations and continued learning and commitment to best practices in supervision. They take a personalized approach to helping you navigate UFT support systems. That means that you can call them or e-mail them personally for confidential support regarding any mentorship or supervisory relationships, and then also the CPD the Center.

For Graduate Professional Development is the central hub that supports graduate student professional development needs at the University of Toronto. They support all graduate students across the the three campuses.

Well, as I mentioned, we prepare two kinds of letters that you may require throughout your studies. The Confirmation of registration letter provides proof of registration for various purposes just as securing student visas and maintaining OSAP interest free status. And then also both masters and doctoral students could request the letter to confirm all the degree requirements have been met.

When they have been met and you need a letter to confirm that you can. You can request these letters by completing the forms on our website. There's no charge for them, but please allow five business days or more during peak periods.

So as I've mentioned, you're graduate administrator in your home. Graduate unit can help you navigate all student academic services available to you. Your graduate unit is your first stop for most aspects of your degree. You can visit UFT dot me grade units or your graduate units website for contact information.

OK, this is my final slide. It's just uh if you haven't, uh if you don't know already, we there will be an SGS orientation on Tuesday, September 5th at the Chelsea Hotel. This will be an opportunity for you to meet other graduate students, faculty and staff and it will focus on the student experience within the community that you're now a part of. So I hope that you can join us to learn about to graduate student life tips and advice from current students and also to.

Network.

That brings me to the end of the session and I'm happy to take any questions now if you have any.

Thank you so much Ed. I meant to jump in a few seconds earlier, but I pressed the wrong button. We actually have some questions coming up Once again, yes, this session is being recorded and it will be posted on the same page where you've got the registry where you registered. So let me just put that.

Once again into the chat, we have a question from Michelle.

Who I think needs a bit more information on fee deferral because it looks as though there's been a misunderstanding. She's asking if she's approved her feed deferral, does that mean she still needs to pay tuition fees by September 15th? The answer is no, but it's a more complicated no, so I'm going to let Ed take that one.

On the.

Yeah, if you've been approved for a fee deferral. So I'm assuming that you were able to request an Acorn or submit a request to register without payment form and now you can see that your registration status and Acorn is Reg registered. That means that you are not required to make a fee payment by September 15th, however you will be required to.

Pending on the type of deferral, if you are receiving a university, some type of university funding. So if you're in a research stream program, you'll know this. Or you're graduate unit. Maybe you won't know yet, but your graduate unit will inform you about your funding information. You'll be required to pay the fees by May 15th.

Otherwise, a service charges will start accruing. If it's not if your fees were deferred due to other reasons such as the OSAP, the Ontario provincial loan or other provincial loans, you will. You don't have to pay fees by September 15th, but service charges will start accruing earlier. It's not May 15, I think it's October 15th and February 15th, it's going to be actually on one of these slides. So let me.

Ohh, no, it's not on the slide. Sorry. I was thinking of a different presentation that I, but yes it was on the 15th of. So short answer, if you are, if you successfully registered without payment or deferred fees, you do not have to. That means that you don't have to make a fee payment by September 15th. But please be sure to do so by the deadline that I stated depending on the category that that you belong to otherwise service charges will start occurring.

OK, so we have a couple of questions about international fee exemptions ad and I'm not sure if you want to answer them or if you'd like to refer them to graduate information. So does asking if as an international student I provide proof that I'm dependent of the Canadian citizen.

Ohh, it's It's even more it's more than that. It's not just a question of paying domestic fees, it's a question of eligibility for OSAP. And do you feel comfortable handling OSAT eligibility questions or should I refer the student to the university registrar's office?

That's right. So, um, it would be best to contact the university registrar's office because they.

Yeah, they would handle that.

So.

And actually the same as the same as eligibility for any sort of international fee exemptions. Really the best thing to do is to go to the student accounts website about eligibility requirements. That would be the first.

Kind of point of reference.

Give me just a second, I am going to put.

The link for osat help.

On the Student accounts website, that link is now in the chat.

And.

Hold on a SEC, I've already put the fee exemption link in the chat, but I'll put it once again now that we're right on topic.

Yeah.

No, I will not. It's not letting me copy from the chat.

Let's see.

After.

But I would recommend that if you're if you think that you qualify for the UT international fee exemption on the basis of your partner or diplomatic status or anything else like that, here's the basic information dropped into the chat at 3:07 PM. But I would also recommend contacting student academic services directly, as they're the ones who make this decision on a regular basis. I just put the e-mail address into the chat.

That's graduate.information@utoronto.ca. Contact them saying you think you qualify for the fee exemption. Send the documentation behind your claim and they'll be able to let you know whether or not you qualify for the exemption.

We have a question from a student who is getting ahead of the matter. So Dana wants to know where to request a where to request forms to request a letter confirming registration and a letter confirming completion of degree requirements. We are definitely at the very early stages of this. You won't be able to get a letter confirming registration until you are registered, that is to say, until you have paid your fees or gotten approval.

To register without payment. If you need any forms like that, we have. Our forms are on the School of Graduate Studies website under the section for current students. So there are the four. There's a link right now in the chat at 3:08 PM linking you to.

EDS ahead of me, he he beat me to the punch. So there are two different ways to get into those into those letters. Let's.

Pop back and find some more questions.

OK, so Nazreen is asking how to arrange for a how to arrange for registration without payment or fee deferral when OSAP has not yet come in. So I'm gonna drop that into the chat as a question and add to keep you take that.

Does hey does this really mean ohh? Does that line spend refers to?

Essentially what you will need to do is UH Enrollment services will need to confirm UH that you are receiving your OSAP, so they could do that manually if it's if required, but you're normally it's automatic and once that's done you could you'd be able to request this through Acorn. I'm not sure what the process will be in terms of do you mean like the the the OSAP payments won't be received by you.

Because that almost does not matter. What Enrollment Services needs to confirm is that you are receiving OSAP. So once they confirm that you will be receiving OSAP, you'd be able to request, or at least eligible to receive OSAP. You'll be able to request to register without Acorn, and the deadline really is September. Sorry, through ACORN, the deadline really is September 15th.

OK, so I'm going to warn about three students that I'm going to be really ruthless and reject their questions because we are getting questions about course enrollment.

Course enrollment is handled at the level of the individual graduate units. So the department center, institute, school, whatever that's offering your specific degree program is going to be handling course enrollment. So if you're looking for a course and can't find it or if you don't know which section of the course to choose, it's not going to be the school of graduate studies that helps you with that. So in rejecting those questions, I am going to put in the chat once again our directory of graduate units.

So the Lincoln I've just put in the chat is portal.usgs.utoronto.ca/public/directory/graduate Units and that is where you can find your graduate administrators contact information so that you can clear up any questions about course enrollment. So few of those are about to get rejected just as we go through.

Umm.

Here we go.

So I've also got two questions that I'm going to handle together. Both of these are basically admissions questions. So Sunai wants to get a letter confirming that all admission conditions are met. So now you're going to need to contact your graduate unit for that letter so that they can clear your conditions on our central student database and reprint a letter that comes without conditions.

I had a similar question, someone who has submitted their transcript to their graduate unit and doesn't see that it's been received. Once again, take a look at that directory of graduate units that I sent you to get the contact information for the graduate administrator in your unit and they will be able to assist you.

Ohh, here's a good question. Ghazal wants to know who should we contact if we need to change status from full time to part time or vice versa. OK, could you take that?

Yeah, the just like anything. First thing is to contact, uh, your graduate administrator. What you can do on your own as well is to go to the SGS calendar, School of Graduate Studies calendar to make sure that there is a part time option for your program. Not all programs have a part time option.

And uh, yeah, so that's the first step. And if if you are, if there are other options, enrollment options, full time, part time, or extended full-time, contact your graduate administrator as soon as possible to get that changed. There are some scenarios where you cannot make a change after once you've begun your program, so you have to make a decision beforehand. And yeah, so contact your graduate administrator. That would really depend on program to program basis.

OK, here's a question. I'm not going to put this in the chat in case the student wants to remain anonymous.

I just tried to defer my tuition on ACORN, but it says you are currently not able to register in this academic session.

Sounds to me is has some severe admission conditions still to clear. Ed, can you talk a little bit about clearing conditions?

Yeah, so I I mentioned a number of or you know or a couple of reasons why your registration may be blocked or you may not be permitted to register just to resolve that again the you'll see a pattern here that you'll have to have a good relationship with your graduate unit and your graduate administrator. You'll need to contact them to clarify or what is happening there. But two things could be happening. It may be that you have you have some severe admission conditions.

Um, that hasn't yet been cleared, so double check your offer letter to make sure if there is anything that you need to submit. Normally it's documentation about your final official transcripts to confirm that your degree has been deferred, but it could be other things as well, so double check that. And then if you were a student at UFT beforehand, make sure that you don't have any unpaid fees from previous sessions because that will also block you from registration, so depending on your situation.

To to be sure, it's best to contact your graduate administrator and they'll let you know exactly what you need to do to in order to to be able to register.

So I've got a three-part question that I'm going to answer, so everyone bear with me and I'm going to warn you that the first part of this answer is strictly for the student asking the question.

Don't assume that this answer applies to you. Shalini's coming into the GP LLM program and she wants to know, amongst other things, what campus she's affiliated with.

The answer for the GPU LM program is you're on the Saint George campus. That's a very, that's a program specific answer that we don't normally give in sessions like this.

But there are some other questions on Shalini's question that I think apply to everyone, and so I'm going to put those in the chat. The 1st is Shalini wants to know how to opt out of the graduate student unions health and dental plans because she already has coverage under another plan.

I'm going to put that information in the chat. There's a 30 day window during which students who already have health and dental coverage under another plan can apply to opt out of the Graduate Student Union plan.

That window is from September 1st to September 30.

In that time you need to contact the Graduate Student Union and here's the link for the information on that.

Explaining that you want to opt out and providing the documentation of the coverage they didn't have.

Yes, still have to go ahead and pay the premiums for those health insurance.

The GSU reviews who has appropriate coverage to opt out and who does not.

They will make a decision. That decision is final, and if you're approved to opt out then you get a refund check sometime in November.

Please note, you immediately lose the chance of that refund check if you use the plans, so there's the link in the chat right now.

So we need also wants to know and it's a great question what is where does she find information on balance of degree fee, so the final degree fee for the overall program?

This is really really easy if you're in a one year program like the GPL M program.

The degree fee for for a one year program is what you see on your tuition invoice at the get go.

If you're in a multiyear program, you won't know what the final degree fee is because tuition fees for those later years have not yet been calculated.

But if it's a if you're expected to complete your program in two years, then expect that it will be.

Ohh about twice what you pay in your first year as your as your tuition. If it's a longer program it can get a bit more complicated, so if you have any questions about this we recommend contacting your graduate unit again.

So there's that added to the chat. Do you have anything else you want to add on on the balance of degree fee?

No, I think, I think you you covered it. There is another question about UKIP coverage though it's from another person, but it's kind of related to this question because you're talking about you have about when it would start.

OK, I'm I am going to jump in on this one because I don't see that you hit question.

Ohh, I'll, I'll approve it now here. Sorry. Yeah.

OK, great. That would be helpful. Thanks, Ed.

OK, so Chris is asking the very good question of when does he coverage start and the basic official answer is September 1st, even if you haven't paid your fees by September 1st, but you're getting there and they're going to be paid soon if you land at Toronto Pearson airport on September 1st.

Sprain your ankle on the way to the bank machine to pay the fees. Go get that ankle treated before you worry about fee payment your you hip will cover.

If you're arriving in August, I recommend you contact the unit office directly to see about arranging bridging coverage for the month of August. They can make arrangements for students arriving early, but they usually have to make those arrangements very directly. So let me put their in their their e-mail address into the chat, and if you are arriving before the session starts and want to make sure that you have health coverage, there's there's the address in the chat. You've got information at you.

Auto dot.

But what I really want to impress on everyone is international students are actually enrolled in three different health insurance programs through the university.

If you're a Canadian resident, you have basic level health coverage through your provincial health coverage. In Ontario, that's the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, or O.

If you're from out of province, you bring your out of province coverage with you, so British Columbia students coming to UFT are still covered by their home province.

That plan is very basic. It doesn't cover dental. It doesn't cover eye care. It doesn't cover prescriptions issued outside hospital. It doesn't cover physio.

So hold on to those ones for just a second while we talk about international.

All international students or even international faculty members who aren't Canadian citizens.

UM or visitors to campus for more than three weeks.

Buy into what's known as the University Health insurance plan. That is you hit. It's a province wide plan that gives students or anyone else bought into it the same benefits as Ohio. So if you break your ankle and go to the emergency room, you have full cover that.

If you need a cast for that angle, Ohh hip and your hip will both cover a plaster cast, but not a fancy lightweight fiberglass cast or a cast.

Because of the limitations on OHIP and UHIP, the Graduate Student Union enrolls all graduate students, whether international or domestic, then two supplementary insurance plans.

One is for dental coverage and the other is for healthcare costs like vision care, prescriptions, rehabilitation.

The fancy kind of cast as opposed to the basic kind of.

Things like that.

Very often students coming in will have external coverage, whether it's to their parents plan, their spouses plan, and so it is possible in some cases to opt out of the two GSU plans.

It is usually not possible to opt out of UHIP, but you're welcome to contact the UHIP office to confirm.

All right.

Awesome.

So I've got another question. I've got a question here that's mixing up registration and enrollment. So once you've paid your fees, your registration status changes to registered.

And it's just going to stay as registered. That's all it is. Course enrollment is entirely separate and you'd need to contact your graduate unit for details on that.

There.

Ohh OK apologies.

One of our students has encountered is trying to make a payment and is getting told that they don't have access to that during peak load period.

Our student database is.

How would you put it at?

Vintage.

Superman.

Yeah, we'll we'll stick with vintage. So that student database is serving 97,000 plus students and for a few weeks in July.

Large faculties like the Faculty of Arts and Science or Applied Science and Engineering are doing their undergraduate course enrollment and the demands on the system are extreme.

So you may from time to time run into a notification that the system can't process your request at the moment.

Try it again late at night, Toronto time. Try it again in a few days. If you continue to have difficulty with something urgent, like making a payment before a specific deadline, please reach out just to see if the student services office can help you.

There is a question here from Marina that reads Do I need to contact my graduate unit to receive a letter that all of the admission conditions are met? Or is sufficient that my graduate administrator confirmed that that my admission conditions have been cleared in an e-mail? I'm going to just accept that. So normally it's It depends on your case we can confirm.

All of your conditions have been met, but what if your graduate administrator told you that it's been cleared? Then that's that's a good word. That means that you've been registered. But some students may require additional confirmation. Then they graduate administrators confirmation. Such as if you're an international student, sometimes you'll need to, you'll need a letter from the university to confirm that all your conditions have been met, to apply for study permits and things like that. So in those cases, you could request.

Official letter to confirm that all of your conditions have been met and they can provide that. But in other cases, if you don't need an official letter, you can take your graduate administrators word for it and you can also check your ACORN account to make sure that you've been registered successfully. You can see your registration status there.

Yep, that's that.

OK.

So we have a very good two questions that I'm going to take egg while you go fishing for some more. So I'm taking the last two on the list. David is asking what are the different ways that tuition fees can be paid on ACORN? Are they strictly done through a credit card?

Great question David, and I'm gonna cheat a little bit on the answer. The only way to pay fees directly on Acorn is by making a credit card int.

But that involves a service charge, which you may wish to avoid.

So there are also ways to pay without using Acorn. One is if you're here in Canada already, you simply register the university as a bill to be paid at at at your local bank.

And in doing so, you set it up so you can actually pay your tuition and campus fees as a bill without having any transaction fees or there shouldn't be any transaction fees, and putting a link in the chat right now, which is information from the Student Accounts website on how to pay fees from within Canada.

If you're not in Canada and want to pay your fees but don't want to pay that service, charge by using a credit card.

There are a couple of payment options called Convera or Flywire that are accepted by student accounts. I'm about to put that link in the chat as well, but I have to warn you, I believe that Convera and Flywire also have service charges involved. So read the fine print very carefully, define what's going to be the most cost effective way to make payment and avoid as many service charges as you possibly can.

Then Sophia has a really good question and I really want to get it in the chat and answer because it's really quite important.

Sophia is asking whether if she sees her status as invited or invited to register on ACORN, does that mean she can safely assume that all her admission conditions have been cleared?

No. That invited status will apply whether or not you've cleared your conditions. If you have any concern about whether or not you've cleared your conditions, contact your graduate administrator to make sure that they have been cleared and then pay your fees. If you pay your fees before clearing conditions, you won't automatically be rolled over to register. You'll need to contact us to have it done manual.

So the correct order of operations is see that you're invited to register on ACORN.

Make sure you've cleared your conditions. If not, clear them.

Then make payment.

Yeah.

OK, I have a few students asking questions about clearing conditions, such as making sure that their ILT scores have been received. You'll need to contact your graduate unit for that. So, Laura, you're at IMS, contact IMS directly to see whether or not they've received your test scores. If not, they will reach out to the School of Graduate Studies to find out what's happened to those scores. But it's the unit.

It needs to have received because it's the unit that will be clearing conditions, not us.

And I accidentally approved a question from Vincenzo, so we'll do our best to answer it.

So again, we're getting a, we're getting a question that's confusing registration, which means you're safely into your program, and enrollment, which means you're safely into your courses. There are separate questions. You can be registered in your program and miss the deadline to enroll in any courses, or you can sometimes enroll in courses while you're still invited to register, but then if you missed the deadline to register, you'll be bumped out of your.

Courses when you're reading the instructions really carefully to make sure you're maintaining that distinction between registration and your program and enrolling in your courses.

I got a great question from Carly, so I'm going to jump in on that while you find something else to take.

Carly says that in her admission letter it says that her tuition will be covered, but according to ACORN, she still needs to pay tuition. What's going on?

That's a great question. And this comes up because different programs who are funding their students arrange it in different ways. Some programs will pay the tuition for you and hand over whatever is left of the funding for you to deal with as you will.

Other programs hand funding over to you, but then say make sure that you pay your tuition fees out of the money that we've given you.

Check with your graduate unit to see how it's arranged in your unit, because this does vary from program to program, and then plan accord.

Remember that if you are in a funded program and you are receiving installments in September, January and May, if you have outstanding fees in January, usually those the the funding installment will be applied against any outstanding fees.

Before any amount is passed on to you, if there's any leftover, So you really want to make sure you know how your unit arranges funding and plan accordingly.

I'm going to answer one worry. Um.

About this is from Aleem. If if our status changes from Invited to register, does that imply all admission conditions have been met, IE documents received? This is a good question because no it does not. It does not necessarily mean that all documents have been received or all of your conditions have been cleared because there are some admission conditions that will allow you to register conditionally. So those are called non severe admission conditions I was speaking.

Earlier about blocking your your registration being blocked with severe conditions, but so to answer this question if you're if you've been invited to register and you now see that you were able to register successfully.

Um, please still double check with your graduate administrator if you're not sure if all of your documents have have been received.

Just to double check with them that that there aren't any outstanding severe admission or yeah outstanding non severe admission conditions because those types of conditions, the ones that are non severe, you're graduated administrator will know may allow you to register conditionally for for one session. So just be mindful of that.

OK.

So.

Well this this is this is a good one. Jasmine is asking on the online banking page. So on the information on how to pay for within Canada, it states that your account number to register you FT as a bill to be paid consists of the 1st 5 characters of your surname plus your student number. What happens if your name is fewer than 5 letters?

My answer is I'm not 100% sure but you can find it by going to your invoice on Acorn and looking up the account number at the top. Usually what would happen is it would take it would take some characters from your first name, but just to be sure, check on the top of your check on the top of your invoice to get that answer.

Hmm.

There's a question here from Jasmine. I'm just going to, I'm not going to accept it, but I'm just going to address it quickly in terms of how, unless you know Rory, the answer she is asking are we required to apply for the OSAP deferral if we applied for OSAP?

In so and then for example, if we apply for OSAP but we do not apply for the OSAP deferral, we'll OSAP deposit the grants and loans into our account after the tuition payment deadline. I think it would be best to contact the university registrar's office in terms of how those funds will be handled. I know certain awards, so graduate awards and certain merit based awards may be deposited into your ACORN account in your student account directly.

But I'm not too sure about OSF, so it would be best to contact the UH, the URO, and then in terms of applying for OSAP and applying for the fee deferral, again, those are two separate things. So if you apply for OSAP doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have to apply for a federal it doesn't and it doesn't necessarily mean that you've been approved for a fee deferral.

There are two separate processes.

Give me just a second because.

The university registrar's office has just rearranged its contact page.

Ohh, yeah, you know, it's a, it's a it's like a I just had it in my.

Here we go.

It's like a support ticket now.

Yeah, so they want you to start with their virtual support desk and it's trying to make me log in, so give me just a second.

Copy link, address alright if you have questions about OSA.

Really and truly, you need to go to the university registrar's office.

Yeah.

And that no, because that is the contact Ed's giving you the link to their general contacts page. On that page there's a link that I have just put in there and that is there, that is there.

That is their online ticketing system so that they can answer your questions.

Um, here we go back to our questions.

OK, here's a good one. What if on ACORN that tuition deferral button is not there?

Yeah.

Contact your graduate unit for assistance with this one. It is possible for your graduate administrator to mark off that you should be approved for deferral.

Yeah.

Here we go.

In.

Another St. asking if you if you've got funding, do you still need to apply for the tuition deferral? Go on to ACORN and make sure that it's allowing you to defer, and if not, contact your graduate unit.

Yeah, I just wanted to also add on to those cases where if you think you're eligible to defer and you're not able to request an ACORN there, it could be for various reasons that we explained, but Rory's rate contactor, graduate administrator, so that you know your own reason. In many cases, you may be required to submit the register without payment manual form instead of doing it in ACORN. There's cases where the system may not know.

You're eligible to register, but if you are indeed receiving funding that that is equal or that exceeds the minimum payment to register, you could be you could request to register without payment, and in those cases there is the register without payment form that you could use to to manually request to defer your fees.

So here's a question from Dana that might not get a direct answer, but I think it's something that's important to discuss. Dana is waiting for approval from province or territory regarding funding and scholarships from from from our home province.

Hmm.

Um, she won't know an answer until mid to late August. So what should Dana be doing?

The first thing, unfortunately Dana, is to make a backup plan in case that funding doesn't come through. So you need to know what you're going to do if that funding isn't approved and you don't have that funding to back you up. Can you still afford your program, or do you need to look into possibly deferring for a year while you reapply for funding or make other arrangements?

Once you have confirmation of the funding, if it's not something that feeds automatically into our system, that would be something that as Ed was mentioning. That would be a situation where you would need to get the manual form to request to register without payment. So if you're receiving funding from a third party scholarship fund that makes its payments in November, you would get documentation for that funding and submitted along with the request to register without payment.

Your graduate administrator in your unit would put that through, and then you'd need to make sure you made payment promptly when the money comes through.

OK.

I'm also going to share just general information about out of province loans that's available on the Student accounts website.

Great. Thanks for sharing that.

One very basic question with a very easy answer. Bruce is asking when can you start to request your register without payment. The answer is.

It's Monday.

As of last Monday, as as soon as tuition was posted to your account, that's when you started to be able to request to register without payment now.

If you've gone on to ACORN expecting to be able to defer and were not able.

There you go.

That's when you contact your graduate unit to find out what's the block on allowing you to defer.

Is to register with that payment.

Ohh, here's an interesting question Ed.

And I'm not sure how to answer it, so I'm hoping you do, but if not, we will ask Bernice to contact her graduate unit.

Hmm.

So she's congratulations. By the way. Bernice, you've just shared with the entire chat that you've won a Masters Canada Graduate Scholarship. Awesome.

No, seriously, congratulations. That's a very beautiful.

Yeah, that's great.

And her graduate administrator has.

Yeah, if.

We hope hopefully marked her as registered, but the deferral button is not working. Does Bernice need to check and make sure that the fees have been deferred so she avoids any late payment charges October 15th? Or is she safe? My instinct is to tell her to contact her graduate administrator if you have a more precise answer.

If uh, again for the same reason as I shared before, it's OHH. If you have some doubts, it's good to to contact uh, your graduate unit just to confirm. But based on what I'm what you're telling me, because of your funding, because you're receiving funding, you're eligible to register without payment or defer your fees, and that's been successfully done if you can see. So I'm not sure if if what you mean by marked as registered. If you can see yourself as registered in Acorn, it means that you've successfully deferred your fees and have registered.

But uh, still contact your graduate unit, your graduate administrator to make sure that there's nothing else that you need to do from your end. I'm thinking of any admission conditions that are not severe that or or anything like that as well. But yes, so always it's normal for you not to see the deferral button, but if you because you're registered already. But still a good idea just to double check if you have doubts about any outstanding things that you need to do to ensure that.

Don't have anything else to submit.

OK, add, we haven't had any new questions in the chat for almost 10 minutes.

And both of our voices are getting a bit raspy. So first.

Yeah.

If you're frantically typing a question and haven't got it in yet.

Hit enter on a partial question so that we can see that you're typing.

And we will wait till you finish so that we can answer your questions. We do want to make sure that we get to everyone.

If your question was rejected, it will be either because it was something very program specific about what your unit has sent you an information that your unit has communicated to you. You need to contact your graduate administrator.

Or it was about questions that have already been answered as part of the chat.

So thank you to every. OK, here we go.

So.

So Sophia's asking if she plans to pay her fees using OSAP and personal savings.

Should she request a deferral so that she can pay with OSAP, and then can she choose not to use her stipend to pay the remaining fees of those? That doesn't cover everything.

As one, yes, you should request a deferral.

But two, as far as I understand if you don't, if you have outstanding fees starting in January?

If you're paid out any award in January, that will be applied to your fees before it comes to you. So if you are getting a $5000 award payment in January and you have $8000 in owing tuition and fees.

You won't see any of that money in January. It'll go straight against those outstanding fees, and you'll only owe 3000 now, but you won't have anything showing up in your bank.

So.

You're gonna want to make plans accordingly. Check with your unit to see how funding is managed for your program, because it does vary a lot from program to program. And make sure that you know what's happening with that January installment so that you can pay rent and eat.

Yeah, if, uh, also Sophia, if you're talking about the statement that is part of your graduate funding. So I'm it sounds like are you getting OSAP in addition to that, if so?

Uh, it may be better to request to defer based on that based on your university funding package because your deadline to pay is later. For the provincial loan, it's the October 15th is when service fees will start accruing. But whether university award or if you're receiving university funding package such as a research assistantship, a research stipend, teaching assistantships.

Or you won't be.

Basically, you won't be required to pay until May 15th. Well, you should be paying on a monthly basis, you know as you receive funds, but service charges will not start accruing until May 15th, so.

We will be very precise. You should be paying before then, because many awards are set up to go and be applied against your fees rather than coming to you. But it's true that service charges will not.

So I think that's all the questions for today. I'm gonna put one last link in the chat and that is.

Where you registered for today's session and also where the recording will be posted. The system won't have the recording ready until late next week and then I have to deal with communications to get it posted. So please don't come looking for that recording until the first week of August, but we will get it posted as soon as we can.

Big thank you to Ed for giving this webinar. I think information is incredibly useful, and thank you and congratulations to everyone who attended. You made the smart decision to come out and get as much information as you possibly could, and you're doing the right things to get yourself properly set up when your program start in September.

Hopefully we'll see you at the USGS orientation on that. What? What day was it? Tuesday, September?

5th at the Chelsea Hotel.

5th At the taxi hotel you'll see a lot of USGS staff on hand to help direct you around and answer your questions, so hopefully we'll see you then. And otherwise, have a great rest of your day, Rest of your night, whatever time of day it is, wherever you are, and we'll look forward to seeing you in September. Take care everyone.