University of Victoria — Attraction in Saanich

Let's start with the PROs: The campus is beautiful, the professors are great, there are uncountable learning opportunities and resources, and everyone is friendly. Speaking from the academic perspective, this is a great university for study and work.

Now the CONs...

UVic is full of money-grabbing policies and establishments.

• CARSA - biggest money grab, you have to pay (can't opt. out) for regular membership, but it costs additional $$ to use weights or climbing wall or to reserve equipment or space ahead of time.
• The parking is really amazing (not!), even if you pay yearly - you can't find a parking spot when you arrive and have to hunt for one for up-to 30 minutes (sometimes longer), and they can't even remind you to renew your annual pass and then ding you $30-$60 for forgetting. -The food is not that great, considering how expensive it is, like $4.50 for a slice of pizza. Most food outlets close at 2:30 (right after lunch) - what about those students who study till 9pm?? Good luck getting any food on campus during exam week, except from a couple of places. The food shops on campus are there to make money - not to feed you.
• The Student Financial Aid services will help you prepare a document but will NOT fax it to Canada Student Loans for you - you have to pay out of pocket and go across campus to do this yourself.
• On weekends and holidays and daily after 5pm most buildings turn off the heat in the winter, so poor students have to suffer the cold. These are not healthy working conditions. They say the University is "closed", but people still work (including some professors) - so why not provide some heat?

These are just a few small examples, I'm not even talking tuition fees, especially for international students!! Poor international students - my friend was living on campus (dorm) and the school shuts down during the last week of December, so they forced him to move out during that week!!! Where are you gonna live for a week if you're international student??? (answer: not on campus).

This place is seriously ridiculous, and no one is doing anything about it, and it's getting worse and worse each year.

The campus is beautiful and professors are great, that's why two stars. Everything else is highly...

(This is a review about admissions since I have not been here yet) I applied for a visual arts undergraduate program near the end of the application deadline (which was partially my mistake) and as part of the application process, you needed to send in a portfolio of your work using a separate link. Seems simple enough right?

Well the problem is you only get that certain link through the introductory email, which you get a few days after sending in your main application. Well I got my introductory email that instructed me to send in my portfolio a few days into February, and the portfolio was due on january 31st, the same day as the main application.

I tried to send my portfolio in anyways but the form was now closed, which rendered me unable to send it in.

I proceeded with the rest of my application process such as self reporting grades and sending in progress transcripts and tried to contact my admissions assistant regarding this problem to ask for another means to send in my portfolio, but my admissions advisor was unhelpful and did not reply in a timely matter. In fact, to this day i have not received an answer.

To nobody's surprise, I wasn't accepted to my program of choice because of the missing portfolio even though this was through no fault of my own so I basically just threw away 140$ of my application fee and I feel like I was copped out because my grade 12 marks are an A average and I have plenty of references and works to show for my visual arts talents. At the very least, i was offered acceptance to my second program with my grades

I understand why application deadlines are there but UVIC should allow for an extra week after the main application deadline to give potential visual arts students who apply near the end of the deadline a chance to submit their portfolios, knowing that it takes a few days for the introductory email to be sent, or at the very least disclose within the application page that there is a risk that you may not receive the means to send this portfolio in time if you apply near the end of...

I really wish I could give this University a 5/5 review as I thought this was my dream univeristy ever since a young child. However I just completed my second year at Uvic and to be completely honest, it has been the worst two years of my life. The only reason as to why I dislike this University is because of the administration. By that I mean, it seems as if they do not care about their students, and that they treat their students just like numbers. For most of my time in class it almost seems as if they want students fail on purpose. I believe it's a serious problem if for example is one course, over 65% of the students fail shouldn't the admin be looking at the profs rubic and assist students in a better way of passing. I mean, yes there aee some students who do not try hard has others but the ones who do, like myself and my peers - we should be able to have proper tools and guidance for passing this course because at the end of the day it's the students who lose money not the University. Moreover I believe most of the profs specially in the math and economics faculty seem to have no clue what there doing but the ones who do are rarely teaching unfortunately. They are very old school in their teaching and I would highly recommend not attending this school, specially if you are international because to them you are just money grab. They will increase tuition up to 20 percent this upcoming fall semester. Other than that the campus is beautiful but the food is way to...