This spring I applied to University of British Columbia in Vancouver and have recently been told that I have been accepted. But when I got my admission papers I realized that I haven´t been accepted to any specific courses yet, but only to the university "in general" (whatever that means). I also learned, after asking the idiots at CIS who are handling my application here in Sweden, that before I get to register to any courses I first have to pay $500 that may or may not be non-refundable (they didn´t know and to find out sure seems to take a long time). They also said I was still not guaranteed a place in any of the courses I applied for.

So here I am, about a month before the winter term starts, still not knowing if I will be accepted to any course at all. Therefore I haven´t been able to apply for housing, visa etc. So I´m beginning to think that this won´t happen for me. And since the university only let´s this organization CIS (who are incompetent) handle the communication I can´t get any answers.

These are my most important questions, if maybe some of you Canadians out there might be able to answer:

1. How can it be that I have to pay before I register? It seems to me like having to pay for my groceries before entering the supermarket instead of at the exit. Is this normal in Canada?

2. Is the money refundable if I don´t get accepted to any courses or don´t find any that I like?

3. How do I know which courses I can choose without them colliding time-wise? Will I be able to see the dates and times for the whole term online? (you see, here in Sweden we only study one subject each term and therefore don´t have that problem)

4. Is it normally difficult or easy to find a place to live on campus?

If I think of any more questions I will add them. I´d really appreciate it if somebody knows something about this because like I said I´m not allowed to ask questions directly to the university (silly as it may seem).

This is great news.
I wish I could answer u're questions though. Being a Canadian citizen it is a different application system compared to International Students.I know the costs associated are significantly higher, but other than that
I do have a number of friends attending UBC, I'll send off an e-mail inquiring about the International Student process and see what I can find. Have U looked into the Universities web site? (just a thought)

Honeylove said:

Thank you very much! You know, I´m very much looking forward to going to Canada. It seems like a really nice country (and Vancouver seems like a wonderful city), so I would be very disappointed if this would go down the drain in the last minute.

I have tried to search the university´s site, but I couldn´t find the specific details I was looking for.

Very nice of you to ask your friends about this! I really appreciate it!

(just bringing this thread back up into the spotlight)