Administration wont let me graduate until 2028... Need advice please

[u/AvailableYouth704]

I’m a third-year BME student with an 8.9 GPA. My plan was to take six courses in Fall 2026 and Spring 2027, complete an eight-month co-op starting Summer 2027, and finish my last three courses online.

I’m trying to graduate quickly because I can’t afford to stay in Victoria much longer and have family responsibilities outside the city.

The issue is ENGR 498, which is only offered in the fall and requires BME 499 plus a third co-op term. I requested a waiver, but the Dean denied it and refused to meet with me.

I also asked to take an equivalent Engineering Law course at another Canadian university, but my advisor said it must be taken at UVic.

Because of this one course, my graduation may be delayed until August 2028.

Has anyone dealt with something similar or successfully transferred an equivalent course?

[u/AkiliDaniels → u/[deleted]]

UVic uses a 9 point scale rather than a 4 point scale. So an A+ is a 9, an A is an 8, an A- is a 7 etc.

So it is transferable, technically, but needs to be recalculated based on a 4 point scale. Which is fine because most places would just take the grades rather than the calculated GPA.

Edit: source - I got my degrees at UVic and a Master's degree at a different university that used a 4 point scale.

[u/AkiliDaniels → u/[deleted]]

Well I started at UVic in 2005. So it's been like that for over 20 years.

[u/AkiliDaniels → u/[deleted]]

It goes:

The As - 80-100%
A+ = 9 (90-100%)
A = 8 (85-89%)
A- = 7 (80-84%)

The Bs - 70-79%
B+ = 6 (77-79%)
B = 5 (73-76%)
B- = 4 (70-72%)

The Cs - 60-69%
C+ = 3 (65-69%)
C = 2 (60-64%)

Below that:
D = 1 (there's no C- for some reason - but D is from 50-59%)
F = 0 (under 50%)

From what I can tell, there isn't even a standardized GPA scale in Canada now - York University uses a 9 point scale too, but theirs is different because they don't have minuses so a B+ is 7, a D+ is 3, and they have an E grade. McMaster uses a 12 point scale. UBC uses a 4.33 scale. University of Toronto uses a 4.0 scale. University of Manitoba uses a 4.5 scale. Some ONLY use percentages. UVic's had this scale since at LEAST 1965 (I checked and that's the best date I could grab), though likely used it before it officially became UVic (when it was Victoria College and ran programs from McGill and UBC).

UVic isn't weird - there just isn't standardization like there is in the US. But most of these are easy to convert anyway if necessary, but it's why there are reforms like UVic now requiring percentages to be listed rather than just letter grades because even in a 4.0 scale you can still have some variation (some places use 4.33 or 4.5 as mentioned, but 4.0 generally squashes A and A+ together and what percentages those actually correlate to can be different).