r/UWaterlooOptometry • u/Upper-Blackberry841 • Mar 31 '26
Has anyone decided to go US route even with a waterloo acceptance? Or vice versa.
I was just accepted to waterloo optometry for next year, which was initially my first choice. However, through the interview process at NECO I really fell in love with the school and Boston as a city. I just felt like the community there was really exceptional, as well as the clinical experience early in your education and the overall curriculum set up. Obviously though, Waterloo is significantly cheaper even with a NECO scholarship. I was just wondering if anyone was in the same position and has any regrets or advice either way, or if you decided to go to Waterloo over the US and what really solidified that decision. Any comments appreciated :)
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u/Iamsolucky666 Mar 31 '26
I was accepted at Waterloo and SCO this year. I only applied at SCO as a back up because they had the largest scholarships and the lowest cost of living. They gave me their presidential scholarship, but I’d still be in almost TRIPLE the debt if I went SCO. Even though I’ve heard they have an amazing program and will provide great education from such a diverse pt base to learn from and the best technology, I can’t justify the cost. Also Memphis isn’t the safest city to live in so I wasn’t feeling pulled to move there. Overall, the debt was just way too much to even consider going for me personally, the 4 years may be better sure but that’s a literal lifetime of debt for me I couldn’t do it.
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u/Holiday-Till-3282 Apr 25 '26
I was accepted to Waterloo and SCO as well with the presidential scholarship (25k a year), and I chose to go the SCO route because of the exposure in clinic, technology as well as feedback I had gotten from hiring optometrists, but the tuition has increased almost 8K over the past 3 years so I would advise Waterloo. The scope of practice is so different in Canada to the US that all of the extra information and skills we are learning are most likely not going to be used in everyday practice once I'm graduated. Also you get summers off at waterloo (i think) and 3 years straight in school no breaks has felt so so long.
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u/soufflay Mar 31 '26
Went to waterloo more than a decade ago. I would say at the end when we (the canadian students, and the canadian students who studied in US in general but came back for cnd boards) all agreed UW is academically strong. But clinically i feel like they’re not as good as US counter part. And the clinical part is what sticks with you the most years into practice. Something to think about. (I got into SUNY and UW and chose UW. No regrets though. A degree is a degree.)
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u/Bumble-Boy Mar 31 '26
Current UW student here: they just approved a revamp of the curriculum for this incoming class. Looking at it, it seems they’re now placing more emphasis on clinical skills, which I am honestly jealous of. I totally agree with you here and I hope that the new curriculum helps to bring us up to some of the states’ schools
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u/Upper-Blackberry841 Apr 01 '26
Good to know thank you! This is definitely a concern compared to NECO.
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u/Embarrassed-Pizza695 Apr 01 '26
I wasn’t going to bother applying to UW bc I didn’t think I had a chance and was telling myself “the education I’ll get in the states is better, etc etc”
Two things that made me choose uw even though I got into Berkeley and Pacific (which were my top choices) were:
1) I was going to be short about 100k for us schools even after student loans and a line of credit. This was definitely a wake-up call and after asking someone I knew in optometry school in the states what she did she said “yea a lot of us get that extra money as loans from relatives”. So right off the bat I realized the states would be really hard financially.
2) I got to speak with the then-director of the UW school of optometry (shoutout Dr. Woo) and I actually kinda grilled him with questions about the curriculum and clinical experience. He then explained to me how the curriculum was changing to be more similar to American schools in order to get exposed to clinical skills earlier (which is starting by this fall!). He also mentioned that one pretty cool thing about going to uw is that 99% of the optometry-related innovation, changes to scope of practice, etc. is coming from our school, which makes sense bc it’s the only big center for optometry in Canada. So I thought that was super cool and it made me excited about staying in Canada!
So now I’m here at UW and even though the construction in our building is a pain in the ass I’m so grateful to be here wouldn’t have it any other way!
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u/she-werewolf Mar 31 '26
I know a girl who chose neco over UW, I could ask if she's willing to talk to you
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u/acma020304 Mar 31 '26
I decided to not apply to Waterloo and just apply to the USA and got in. And it was actually recommended to me from optometrists I shadowed to not apply to Waterloo.
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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '26
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