Can I Get Into any Colleges (Ontario)?

[canadaski]

I've suffered bad depression for the past 5 years or so and didn't want to medicate. My grades suffered and I would consistently achieve 50's and 60's with a few 70's and 80's scattered throughout. I'm 18 now and opted to do a "victory lap" make up year which started in September 2012. I am experiencing depression again and my marks suffered again, so I just discussed with my mom dropping out of the victory lap and at least getting better mentally before pursuing anything and so I dropped out today.

I created an ontariocolleges.ca account today as well to check things out. I hate that this is what my life has been becoming. I don't know how I can or why I should try competing with everybody else that has 80's and 90's when I could barely keep myself in school and alive let alone achieve good grades.

Could I get in anywhere with the marks I have? Does it matter that the courses with bad marks are university level courses whereas I'm applying for college? What do you think the best course of action is?

[Noirtier]

I think that the first thing you need to do is focus on getting well. Go see a psychiatrist or a counselor, because it's possible you could have clinical depression that has gone without treatment/medication and needs it. Once you have that under control, I think that with the grades you've been getting, you would be able to get into community college. There's nothing wrong with community college, really. And, it would be a building block, or a foundation, for you to be able to transfer into another public university or college, once you've taken most of the basic courses you need there. Or you could even go the whole way through the community college and simply earn your degree from there. I would recommend the first path, but either way it's up to you. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you get better! :)

[Syvelocin]

I had the same issue in school, but maybe to a lesser degree. I managed to balance my refusal to do homework with great exam grades and barely scraped by. But I pretty much did what Clint is talking about.

What you can even do is go to community college just for the first year if you don't want to stay there. Do so when you're stable and in a better place, and work really hard and get good grades. Then transfer. Even despite the grades, a lot of people do this because you're not really doing your main major courses anyway in the first year or two, just the general classes. Pay a tenth of the price for the BS classes and go to uni for your main classes. Depending on the school you transfer to, you may not even need your high school transcript and you can just use your college one. At least, the school I'm looking at that is this way for transferring applicants.