Registration Tips

• The Academic Counsellors for Science and BMSc students are located in Room 191 Western Science Centre. The Academic Counsellors are Mr. J. DeHeus, Mrs. D. Gregus, Mrs. J. Perry, and Mrs. J. Sexsmith, and their email address is scibmsac@uwo.ca
• To see the responsibilities of the Academic Counsellors, see the Academic Counsellors page on the Faculty of Science website.
• Joan Estabrooks and Kathy Boon are members of the Basic Medical Sciences Undergraduate Education (BMSUE) Office and are not “Academic Counsellors”. Joan and Kathy provide information about the BMSc and Neuroscience Programs.

• A maximum of 1.0 course may be taken during the Fall/Winter sessions at an affiliated university college, unless you are registered in a module offered by the affiliate.
• If a course is offered on main campus and at an affiliate, you have to take the course on main campus
• If you think you have a good reason for requesting permission to take either more than 1.0 course at an affiliated university college or a course at an affiliate rather than on main campus, contact the Academic Counselling Team in WSC 191 at scibmsac@uwo.ca

• Look at the course description of the course you want to take in the online Academic Calendar. If the course you want to take lists a course you’ve already completed as an antirequisite, you will lose credit for the course you’ve already completed.

• Year 4 students must apply to graduate in by April 30, in order to graduate at Spring Convocation in June. During first term, make sure that your program/plan is correct – if you are registered in a Minor, for example, and don’t complete the requirements of the Minor, you will not graduate at June Convocation. Changes to your program/plan must be made through the Academic Counselling Team, before you apply to graduate.
• “With Distinction” is recognition granted to graduating students who achieve an overall average of 80% and no grade lower than 70% on the entire program (with no failed courses)

• BMSc students who plan to graduate with two modules that contain “common” courses must satisfy the Common Course Policy for students registered in the Faculty of Science and the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry (BMSc)”

• Most courses offered by the Basic Medical Science departments have constraints (priorities and restrictions) on them so that students in certain modules have priority access
• Information about course constraints can be found in two places:
  • Fall/Winter Timetable (see the Notes section) for all courses:
  • The Access to Courses page on the BMSc website
• Some courses offered by the Basic Medical Science departments have spaces reserved for groups of students who have priority access to the courses (see the constraint charts on the BMSc website. Departments will not provide students with the number of spaces reserved for students in the various modules. Should the spaces reserved for students in your module fill up, the course may indicate that it is not full on the Fall/Winter Timetable because spaces reserved for students in other modules have not yet been filled. You won’t be able to access the courses reserved for students in the other modules.

Each department has Counselors to answer your questions about courses, such as:

• Course prerequisite permission (taking a course without the prerequisite)
• Problems with course registration (example: a course is full, timetable conflicts)
• Course equivalency -- can a course taken at another university be used in place of a Western University course?

• Check out the Policies and Procedures information on the BMSc website

• First-year courses (numbered 1000-1999) may be taken in senior years but your BMSc degree must contain a minimum of 13.0 senior courses (courses numbered 2000 and above). This means that, although you can take as many first-year courses as you wish, you may not credit more than 7.0 first-year courses toward your BMSc degree. For your degree, you may have as many options at the 2000-level as you wish.
• Some professional programs, etc. do not allow for first-year courses in senior years – check with the schools in which you are interested for further information. Some professional schools, like Western's medical school, require 3.0 of your 5.0 courses in years used to calculuate your GPA to be "year-appropriate" .

• See the online Academic Calendar for GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS, such as Breadth Requirements, Essay Requirements, etc. Transfer credits (IB, AP, university transfer credits, etc.) can be used to satisfy a breadth requirement. For example, 1.0 transfer credit in English can be used to satisfy the requirement of 1.0 Category B course. Transfer credits cannot be used to satisfy the essay requirements.

• Helpline (Office of the Registrar): 519-661-2100
• Should you need assistance in registering for a course (e.g. you’ve received special permission to take a course without the prerequisite or you’ve received special permission to take two courses with a timetable conflict), you’ll have to call the Helpline once your appointment time has arrived. If you’ve been granted special permission to take a course, the permission has to appear on your academic record before the Helpline can manually register you for the course.

Check out the How To... information on the BMSc website.

• Find out if special permission has been posted to your academic record
• Find your Grade Report and interpret the Remarks
• Register for courses
• etc.

• Appointment times will be posted in Student Centre (look for Enrolment Dates) a day or two before registration begins for students going into each of Years 2, 3 and 4. Your appointment time represents the first time you can access the online registration system. Don't worry that your enrolment window ends on July 24th at midnight. All students will have another enrolment appointment for 9:30 a.m. on July 25th, when priorities lift (and reserved spaces in basic medical science courses become available for other students).

• Some professional schools require that a certain number of courses each year are “year-appropriate”. Schulich Medicine, for example, requires that at least 3.0 of your courses in Year 3 are at the 3000-level. If you are looking only at the requirements for your degree, there is no regulation about the number of courses you have to take each year at a certain level. When completing a 4-year honors or non-honors degree, you must have 13.0 senior courses (senior = 2000 and above). This means you can count a maximum of 7.0 first-year courses toward a 4-year degree. You can take more than 7.0 first-year courses only 7.0 will be used toward your degree.

The following courses cannot be taken as options:

• Astronomy 2021A/B, 2022A/B
• Physics 2032A/B, 2065A/B, 2070A/B

• These three courses are laboratory courses that are worth a half credit but run all year. When you take one of these courses, you will register in four courses in one term, five courses in the other term, and the lab half course. Your course load will be heavier in one of the terms. We’ve done our best to notify the Office of the Registrar for students who will be in this situation and you should be able to register in an “imbalanced load” of 5.1 courses. If you run into issues with registration and the maximum number of courses for which you are allowed to register in each term, please email bmscprogram@uwo.ca

• When you try to register for a course, you receive an error message indicating that a course is full but you see on the Fall/Winter Timetable that the course is not full:
  • spaces have likely been reserved for students in certain modules and the spaces reserved for students in your module have already been filled. You won’t have access to the remaining reserved spaces for students in other modules until July 25th at 9:30 a.m.
• When you try to register for a course, you receive an error message indicating that you don’t have the prerequisite but you’ve either received credit for the course from another institution or you’ve received special permission to take the course without the prerequisite:
  • see “Special Permission Requests” for the steps to follow

• The degree and module in which you are registered for the upcoming year is what we refer to as your “program/plan”. To view your program/plan, go to Student Centre and click on My Program -- your degree and module(s) will be listed.
• Should you wish to submit a request to change your program/plan for the upcoming year, you must submit a Change of Status form to the Academic Counselling Team in WSC 191.
• Students in Years 1, 2 and 3 who plan to return for the upcoming academic year will submit another “Intent to Register” in February/March. Your current program/plan is for this year and you will have the opportunity to request a change for next year.

Special Permission requests must be posted to your academic record by the Academic Counselling Team, before you can register for the course concerned. See Special Permission for more detailed information.

• Students registered with the Western Scholars designation must achieve an average of at least 80% in a full load of 5.0 courses each year with no mark less than 65% in any of these 5.0 courses
• Year 4 students with the Western Scholars designation: to be eligible to graduate, you must complete at least 5.0 courses in the Fall/Winter session and achieve the marks requirements stated above
• Visit the Academic Calendar for more detailed information about Western Scholars.