REVIEW OF Ontario Virtual School BY student, Juanita Rangel Galvis

(4.5) Student Experience

I think Ontario Virtual School has a great student experience. I loved the fact that it was flexible and I could adjust it to my needs, even more because my schedule was full and there were days where I could take four classes while others none. I do wish I could have talked to other students that took my same class so I had a more realistic experience, but I also enjoy working alone so it was easier for me to concentrate and get good grades because I didn't have to depend on others. Finally, my english is not perfect and I took the chemistry SCH4U so I thought it was going to be harder but the teacher used simple vocabulary and the subject vocabulary was explained throughout the course.

(4.5) School Leadership

I didn't have much contact with the school leaders, headmaster, guidance counsellors or anyone with and administrative job, but, overall the teachers did very well in presenting themselves and letting me know that every question I had would be answered. In some labs I did seek for their assistance, and every time they guided me through the process rather than either telling me the answer or not really helping me. Also it was really important for me that my teacher understood I don't speak perfect english but if I made myself understood she didn't lower my grade or anything of the sort.

(5) Teaching

I think the teachers did a great job in recognizing what I could do and knowing how to help me reach my true potential, meaning they didn't ask too much of me but also they did not let me off the hook without handing anything in. Even though, at the beginning I wasn't sure how much my teachers expected from me, after handing in a few tasks it was clear what they wanted and how. Regarding this point it would be useful for international students to have some kind of rubric in how the teachers will be grading. Finally, something that helped a lot was seeing comments below my grade to understand the grade but it would be more useful to see my comments in the same image or document I sent so that I knew exactly where I made the mistake and could learn better from it.

(5) Academics

Academically, it was great! I learned a lot and it was really interesting. I do think sometimes it was a bit hard, mostly because the course expected me to read two chapters from a book that was a bit complex. Additionally, some exercises that were in the worksheets weren't explained with an example, which made them kind of hard. But other than that I did find the course really interesting and just right, it was a very complete course and I feel ready for my university. The last part of the course for me was the most interesting because I did not only learn theory, instead I saw the application of chemistry in real life which made that unit more interesting and easy.

(4.5) School Life

Doing a virtual school I would show others the platform it was on and what we used. With a virtual school even though it is hard to sometimes find motivation doing it on your own, I found that the flexibility is what makes the school so great. If you need a break- it is easy to just take sometime away from the computer and focus on other things. I do think that is a great benefit from this school because it helps not only to manage your own time but also your mental health.

(3) Admissions

The cost of OVS was a bit high for me but there was not an admission process so that wasn't stressful at all. The only hard thing was getting approval for my prerequisite. As an international student knowing whether or not they would approve my class, it would be nice if there was some kind of list of topics that were necessary to have taken before in order to take a course with them. If you are applying for this school my only advise would be to read the terms and condition and the course content just to be sure that is what you need. But really there was nothing that was so difficult and the admission process was really waiting for the system to process the credit card payment.