The University Transition Program

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The University Transition Program is an early-entrance-to-university program located on the University of British Columbia campus, commonly referred to as The Transition Program or just Trans. The premise of the program is to compact five years of high school education into two years. Students may apply for the program while they are completing grades 7, 8, and 9; generally, the applicants are from 12-15 years of age. These students are accepted based on their achievements in standardized tests in reading, writing, mathematics, and reasoning/problem solving. The students are required to achieve scores above the 99th percentile; such students will then go on to a comprehensive interview session, where they will discuss, amongst other topics, their motivations for coming to the program. The program is divided into 2 years, and accepts a maximum of 20 students per year, meaning 40 students in both years combined.

The Transition Program is administered jointly through University Hill Secondary School, the Vancouver School Board, and the University of British Columbia. Similar to numerous other enrichment/early university entrance programs (such as the Transition School and Early Entrance Program, which the University Transition program was modelled after), there is a special agreement between the university and the administrators of the program. Students do not take the full course load required for consideration in application to the university; UBC is willing to accept these students based solely on the two prerequisites that the students must complete:
1. Graduate from the Transition Program with satisfactory performance
2. Meet the Grade 12 test score requirements set by each individual faculty.

Recent changes of graduation requirements in the 2006-2007 school year now make Transition students eligible for a Dogwood certificate, thus officially graduating from secondary school. The students come into the program knowing they will almost certainly enroll in the University of British Columbia, for at least their first year.

In the past however, students were given no special consideration in applying to UBC and had to meet all the same requirements and standards as required by any other successful applicant to UBC in order to get into university.

1 Courses
2 Extra-Curricular Activities
3 The Location
4 Staff
5 External Links
6 See also

[edit] Courses

In the first year of the program, students take Biology 12, Transition English, Transition Math, Transition Physics, Transition Science, Transition Social Studies, and Planning 10.

In year two, the students take Calculus 12, Chemistry 12, English 12, History 12, Literature 12, Math 12, Physics 12, and Planning.

Transition students currently have four course taught by UBC professors, which are physics, english, Civics, and Calculus by Chris Waltham, Dr. Betty, Alan Smith, and M. Ward, respectively.

Students in both years are required to complete a set amount of community service, and complete an 'e-Portfolio' for his or her Individual Educational Planning.

[edit] Extra-Curricular Activities

The Transition Program is currently a strong competitor in Reach for the Top as well as Model United Nations.

[edit] The Location

Transition Program is located in the heart of UBC. The building that the Transition Program resides in is located on West Mall above the Math Graduates office, near the math building. This location is troublesome for Transition students as the math graduates who work in the offices below Transition often complain about the noise level; as a result, Transition students are forced to be silenced under threat of a complaint to the dean of UBC.