By Adriana Fallico
School has always acted as a safety net for Breanna Badree.
“All I know is school, school, school and I didn’t have to think about all the other things an adult would have to think about because I’m always in school,” says Badree.
Fresh out of graduating from Seneca Polytechnic with an undergraduate degree in mental health and addiction in April 2024, she had a vision for the next two years of her life.
She had submitted an application to York University’s master of social work program on Dec. 20., 2023 and was still awaiting a response at the time of her undergraduate graduation.
When she finally received the school’s response, anxiety pumped through her veins. But in an instant, she read the infamous “we regret to inform you” line.
“I felt like I was going to die and then I thought ‘What am I going to do now?’” she remembers.
This is the harsh reality that many undergraduate students fear while applying for their masters—that their aspirations and hopes will be crushed by a simple rejection letter. The work behind applying for a master’s program can be a whirlwind of emotions for students who are hoping to advance their education.
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)’s earliest deadline to apply to its fall masters programs is Jan. 20, 2025, a time of year that can loom over students, especially because this date falls on the second week of the winter semester. There are three intake cycles throughout the year, but Dr. Carl Kumaradus, vice-provost and dean of the Yeates School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at TMU, says the fall intake is the busiest time of year.
The number of individuals seeking out a graduate degree has increased over the past 21 years. According to Statista, 231,930 students enrolled in a master’s or an equivalent degree program in Canada in 2022. This is the highest number of enrolled students in 21 years, almost twice as many as the 119,331 students who enrolled in 2001.
Many students have no choice but to apply to graduate programs after completing their undergraduate degree in order to be qualified to work or teach in their field. Nevertheless, the journey that students go on when completing their applications isn’t always an easy one.
“Put aside the self-doubt and put in the application and see what happens.”
Chris Donovan knew that a career in freelancing would not last forever.
He did not start his educational journey in a traditional manner. Donovan completed two years at Mount Allison University studying fine arts and another two years at Loyalist College in their photojournalism program.
After finishing his final year at Loyalist College, he moved to Toronto to pursue a career as a freelance journalist. After a few years, he began working part-time at the University of Guelph-Humber as a teaching assistant. Initially, he rejected the idea of teaching as a long-term career—he had come from a family of teachers and wanted to work directly in the photography industry.
Although he was not teaching students, he found himself in a classroom setting quite often and grew to enjoy the environment.
“You can become jaded in the field pretty quickly and the excitement that students had, it helped to feel excited about the medium,” says Donovan.
He decided to pursue a master’s degree in hopes of teaching photography, so he applied to TMU for the master’s of fine arts in documentary media. He was granted special permission from TMU as he did not hold an undergraduate degree—Donovan says this is a “rare” exception.
Donovan’s prior years of schooling were considered enough by the admission committee to meet the application qualifications. He is currently in his third year of TMU’s PhD program in media and design innovation.
“I had a fair bit of work experience and some kind of recognition in the photojournalism field, I think that was kind of the main thing. Had it not been for that stuff, I do not know if it would have worked,” he says.
Kumaradus is aware of how challenging the application process can be for students.
“It can be a lot for some people. I would imagine that if [students] follow the typical road of graduating with a bachelor’s degree and are looking towards what is next, I would imagine some students are having a hard time choosing either to enter the workforce or don’t know what they want to do and would like to get more specialized learning,” says Kumaradus.
Donovan was a little more at ease with his application since he was already holding a secure job.
“I was always kind of like ‘if I get it, that’s fine if I do not, it’s fine,’” he says.
Donovan was accepted into the program in 2019 but his master’s studies were mostly conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation he actually loved.
“I did not enter the program for connections with people, I just wanted to get the papers, so being able to do it online was great,” says Donovan.
Looking back, he believes the reason he did not undergo graduate school earlier was that he always found himself engulfed in freelance work.
“I think you have to fit graduate school into your life,” says Donovan. “It is hard as an adult to just drop everything and become a student again.”
For some like Donovan, completing a master’s degree is not always necessary given their chosen career path. Kumaradus believes that all students should keep an open mind.
“I think a master’s program is a good option because it tends to be one to two years of duration, and it’s not a large time commitment in that stage of most people’s lives. It could be a good way to get more experience, learn more about a specific area and then see what they would like to do,” he says.
Donovan wants students to remember that graduate school is what students make of the experience.
“[Graduate] school guarantees literally nothing,” he says. “The one thing it does guarantee is that you learn something, but it’s not going to make you richer, it is probably going to make you poorer. If you love learning and that is your priority, then it’s a great thing to do if you want to.”
“I think there’s certain things in life that are worth paying for and this is something that will pay you back.”
For others, the desire to undergo a master’s degree might sprout from a change in their original plans. Gavin Ball, an animation generalist and graduate of the digital media program at TMU, knew he did not want to work full-time in the animation industry for the rest of his career.
Ball did know that he wanted to teach animation at a post-secondary level, so he taught at multiple colleges between 2016 to 2017 while doing freelance animation work. He eventually landed a job as an art director with Arc Productions, an animation and post-production company based in Toronto. He hoped it would land him more stability and an opportunity to freelance and develop his own projects.
Unfortunately, Arc Productions announced on Aug. 2, 2016, that it would be filing for bankruptcy and going out of business, leaving Ball without a job after only being with the company for a few weeks.
He ended up getting a full-time teaching position with Ontario Tech University, but in order to continue with the job and pursue a career in academia, he knew he needed a master’s degree.
“When I applied, I was not so sure on what was going to happen,” says Ball. “But based on my portfolio and academic history, they were able to grant me a spot into the program.”
For Ball, the financial aspect of returning back to school was his largest barrier.
“I had the additional cost of commuting to the city, and tuition and everything else that goes with that,” he says. “You can’t recoup that as quickly as you’d like to.”
Despite the hurdles many students jump through to pave their way financially, Ball was determined to get as much as he could out of his education.
“I think there’s certain things in life that are worth paying for and this is something that will pay you back,” says Ball.
When he was first laid off, he still had his own freelance commitments and teaching responsibilities to fall back on. He also had a young family and his wife was on maternity leave at the time.
He attended Industry Day – Master of Digital Media in 2018, a TMU-hosted event that showcased students’ work and offered networking opportunities with those connected to the program. From there, he reached out to the program’s coordinators and explained his situation, testing his chances of how likely he was to get into the program.
Through his connections with former colleagues and supervisors, he was able to formulate an application that got him accepted to the program.
He says he is unsure what his path forward would have looked like if he hadn’t been accepted to the program since, “the program’s format was more project-based and in line with my goals, and the fact that it was a shorter period of time worked out for me.”
A moment in Ball’s master’s studies that stands out to him is when Canadian animator Charlie Bonifacio attended a lecture to give a presentation. Filled with excitement and anxiety, Ball showed Bonifacio some of the artwork he was working on at the time, which he felt “wasn’t even close to what [Bonifacio] could do.”
Ball says Bonifacio recognized his drive and work and gave him a piece of advice that has stuck with him to this day.
“Just keep going. I didn’t know if I was going to get better, but I did, and I kept getting better. So I tell and teach young people, and I see them transform themselves through their efforts and their belief, so now I say that: just keep going.”
“If you love learning and that is your priority, then it’s a great thing to do if you want to.”
In Badree’s situation, she says that in order to get a high-paying job in her field, it is required that people seek out a master’s degree. That is what convinced her to apply.
“With a bachelor’s degree, you can only get so far. I hope to one day open up my own practice, so you need your master’s degree for that,” she says.
As Badree worked on her application, she was confident that she would be accepted, not really thinking about what she would do if she was declined.
“I knew this program was competitive, I already had that in the back of my head,” says Badree.
On the other hand, Kumaradus believes that a lot of students are facing apprehension over applying because they are unsure of whether graduate school is the right path for them.
“I would imagine there is a lot of uncertainty or doubt whether graduate studies are the right thing to do or not, but still wanting to apply because that’s one of the options [students] have,” says Kumaradus. “Be open to rejection, because you just never know,” he says. “Put aside the self-doubt and put in the application and see what happens.”
Badree does not regret taking this chance. She believes that the fear of rejection is why most students do not go forward with an application and encourages everyone to take a chance.
“Don’t be afraid to apply. Everyone is going to be afraid to apply because there is a chance that they won’t get in, but what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You miss it 100 per cent if you don’t apply, but there is a fifty-fifty chance when you do apply,” she says.
At the time of Badree’s rejection, she had yet to learn this lesson. She called York University’s admissions office after she was rejected, asking to know why she was not selected.
“I couldn’t let it slide,” she recalls. “I had to figure out why.”
She knew at the time that the chances of her getting a personalized reason would be unlikely, given the volume of applicants and the small number of students admitted. York University’s master’s of social work program only admits 25 students a year.
Badree was told on the call that she could not be given a direct reason as to why she was rejected but was offered some suggestions as to what she could do to improve, the main being her amount of volunteer work.
“I explained to them that there are reasons why I couldn’t give all my time to volunteering because I also had work, I had papers due,” she says.
She was actually able to have someone in the admissions office re-read her statement of interest, and she was told that this statement, her grades and letter of recommendation from her professors were actually “great.”
“They made me seem like I’m the superstar,” she says.
She was again told that her amount of volunteer work could have played a significant role in why she was not accepted.
“Because many people read the applications, someone could be really hard on volunteer work and some people could be really hard on grades. So it was just my luck at the time,” Badree says.
She came to the realization that maybe her rejection was an opportunity to continue improving her resume.
Following this revelation, she began volunteering at Compass Community Services, a counselling organization in Guelph, Ont. She was tasked with creating intervention plans and providing a variety of resources for those struggling.
During that time, she found that the work she was doing was a great way to put into practice what she had learned at school—she found herself going back and re-reading what she was taught in her undergraduate degree.
“I have never had to actually apply all of this knowledge and real-world concepts. I had to take a second to really learn how to do all of that,” she says.
Badree acknowledges that the initial rejection was “discouraging” and left her feeling “hopeless.” She has now come to the realization that what happened to her was probably for the best. She sent in her application to the same social work program in December 2024 and is awaiting the results. Despite the extended timeline, she is grateful that it happened.
“I realized that everything happens for a reason,” Badree says. “Honestly, maybe all of this experience now is helping me see it in a better way.”
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