BSW Apply Now
Application opens
October 1, 2024
For Fall 2025 admission
Questions about your eID and password? Contact IT Support
Application deadline
March 1, 2025 - 11:59 pm MST
Deadline to submit your application and fee, including responses to the program specific questions in the online application
Transcript deadline
March 15, 2025
Consult your UCalgary Student Centre for all required transcripts
Questions about transcripts or ELP? Contact the Admissions Office
Prepare Yourself to Answer the Program Specific Questions
You'll respond to the program specific questions in the online application.
What is Social Work and what do social workers do?
Review the Canadian Association for Social Workers (CASW) background information on the profession and role of social workers.
What is the Social Work Code of Ethics?
The Code of Ethics provides a consistent set of values, principles and standards of conduct for all social workers across Canada.
What are the Standards of Practice?
The Standards of Practice outline the minimum standards all social workers practicing in Alberta are expected to meet.
What are the program specific questions?
Question:
Our program is committed to creating a welcoming, respectful and thriving environment for students with diverse backgrounds and experiences. You are invited to reflect on who you are as a person, your lived experiences and your life influences, and discuss how they have contributed to your pursuit of social work education.
400 word maximum
- How did you grow up? Did it affect your perspective or values?
- What relationships with others have influenced you and your values/beliefs about people?
- Did your geographical location (urban,rural, international) influence you?
- What life lessons are you bringing forward with you?
- Are there challenging situations or experiences that have impacted you?
- Be as specific as possible
- Provide concrete examples of your background and lived experiences
- Examples: privilege, oppression, ethnic, socioeconomic, racial, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and cultural differences
Question:
Tell us about your community engagement, an issue you are most concerned about, and what you think are the root causes or contributing factors to the identified issue.
400 word maximum
- What are your observations about the struggles in your community?
- What is your sense of personal security and belonging in your community?
- What messages are community leaders providing?
- What do you believe is the primary cause of the issue in your community?
- Is the issue becoming larger, smaller, or remaining the same over the last 5 years?
- Any ideas and/or solutions to address the issue in your community?
- Provide specific details/examples of how you have been involved in your community.
- Give thought to different activities, volunteering, events, acts of social justice (petitions, marches, letter writing, etc.)
- Why is it an issue for community members?
- Review the Canadian Social Determinants of Health
- Why does it exist?
- Link the social issue to social work.
Question:
What do you hope to develop in our social work program and how do you see your future practice as a professional social worker?
400 word maximum
- What are your personal strengths?
- What are your professional strengths?
- What are areas for improvement both personally and professionally?
- Where do you see yourself professionally in ten years?
- How will you create positive change?
- How will you advance social justice?
- What skills, knowledge, and areas of growth are you hoping to develop in your BSW journey?
- How will you be able to contribute to positive change and social justice with a BSW?
- Share your vision and provide ideas of what you will do with a professional social work degree.
Write your answer
My application is complete - what happens next?
You’ve completed the application form, paid your application deposit, and submitted all your required documents. What happens next?
At this point your application is considered complete. The Admissions Office will assess your previous coursework and calculate your GPA. If you satisfy the admission requirements, your file is sent to our faculty admissions committee to review.
Our faculty admissions committee will start reviewing application sent from Admissions following the deadline.
Due to the nature of the assessment process, you'll be notified of the outcome of your application by late May or early June - but you may receive a decision earlier. You can monitor the status of your application in your Student Centre.
All applicants will receive either an offer, regrets, or waitlist notification by email.
I've been admitted!
Congratulations on receiving an offer.
Review your offer of admission carefully. It outlines how to accept your offer and pay your non-refundable admission deposit, conditions of your admission (if applicable), critical deadlines, and required official transcripts.
Questions about your conditions? Contact the Admissions Office
Questions about accepting your offer and paying your deposit? Review these instructions
Your deposit must be received to confirm your spot in the program. We'll send you detailed registration information after your deposit has been paid and posted to your account.
Transcript mailing address
Admissions and Recruitment
Hunter Student Commons 2nd floor
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4
CANADA
Waitlist
You are not given a number on the waitlist. The admission committee will consider everyone on the waitlist to determine who will receive an offer at the time a spot becomes available.
This means that we cannot estimate how long it will take for each waitlisted applicant to receive a final decision; waitlisted applicants may receive their final decision as late as the end of July.
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Your GPA counts for 50 of the 100 points assessed by the Admissions Committee, the Program Specific Questions account for the other half.
Admission decisions are final and non-appealable.
We've provided general feedback for improving your application for next cycle below. Additional requests for feedback will not be responded to.
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Program Specific Questions
Each applicant is different with unique attributes, qualities and backgrounds, and vision for future social work practice. Your responses provides the committee with important context about your personal and professional strengths, as well as areas for learning goals, and lived experience and relevant human service experience.
Tips for answering the program specific questions:
- Be as specific as possible (give concrete examples) as to who you are, about how you are connected to the community (weave in work and volunteer experience if possible), and identify a social issue you have researched the causes and factors influencing the issue.
- Identify ways you could use your privilege to advocate and give voice to this social issue.
- Demonstrate self-awareness in skills, knowledge, social justice, and critical understanding.
- For each question the evaluators also assess your writing ability, that is, not just what you express, but how you express it.
- Organize your thoughts and ideas so your writing is well constructed, free from grammatical errors, and provides evidence of scholarly and critical capacity.
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Increase your GPA
Complete additional coursework to increase your GPA.
- Must be completed by the end of fall term preceding the next admission cycle to be included in GPA.
- Courses work must be transferable to UCalgary.
- Complete non-social work courses in the following areas: English/Effective Writing; Sociology; Political Science; Psychology; Indigenous Awareness in the Canadian Context; Human Development Across the Lifespan; Research Methods; Statistics; Gender Studies; and Anthropology.
- No admission preference is given to applicants who take courses within these areas.
- Your admission GPA is calculated on the most recently completed 30 units. Winter, spring and summer grades from terms immediately prior to the expected admission date will not be used in the calculation of the GPA.
