University Transition Program Faces Uncertain Future After Sudden Pause in Admissions

Photo Credit: Serena Wang

The University Transition Program (UTP) is a program designed for exceptionally gifted BC students, allowing them to complete high school in two years. Admission is selective — up to 20 students between the ages of 13–15 are admitted per year, out of hundreds of applicants.

On Jan. 26, Vancouver School Board (VSB) personnel visited the UTP to inform students and teachers that their program admissions have been paused indefinitely, surprising parents, students, and alumni. Representatives of all three groups shared their frustration at the VSB’s decision with The Nest. Teachers were not interviewed due to potential negative consequences on their professional lives.

A collaboration between the Vancouver School Board (VSB), the BC Ministry of Education, and the University of British Columbia (UBC), the UTP has been running for over three decades in a building on the UBC campus. Upon graduating, UTP alumni are expected to pursue an undergraduate degree at UBC.

Initial Changes

Parents and students reported unease regarding VSB policies towards the UTP since 2023. Restructured admissions and cancelled events were coupled with minimal district communication. 

Irene Yu, a parent of a current year one UTP student, recalls having trouble with the VSB since the beginning of the admissions process. “The UTP admissions were paused not only this year but last year too,” she said. “We applied in September, [...] but they paused it right then, and we had to wait for months.”

“There was already not a very pleasant experience with administration because nothing was clearly stated,” she explained. “No good reason was given.”

Another incident occurred in fall of 2023, when the VSB changed a previously planned overnight camping trip to a one-day excursion. 

“They didn't even give us a reason,” Yu said, explaining that some parents were hoping that whatever the obstacles were, they could “try to brainstorm [...] and solve the problems.” Yu draws parallels between this and later troubles she found with the VSB’s communication process.

Yu described how the experience left her with a feeling that was “almost like a cloud hovering over our head[s].”

UTP alumna Alice Mandlis shared that in 2023, the VSB added a new requirement to the UTP application: a teacher recommendation. In this sense, she said, “they were already limiting the amount of students that could be [...] accepted by the program.”

Immediate Reactions

In January 2024, without prior notice, VSB officials visited the UTP and announced a pause in program admissions to students. 

“The principal and another top administrator just came in [and] interrupted their exams,” recounted Yu. “The students were really shocked because it was coming out of nowhere.”

A lengthy Q&A session followed, according to Yu, in which VSB personnel explained the current students’ options: they could continue in a program that would soon become one cohort of students, or switch to their catchment high school. Many students were blindsided by the announcement. 

“I heard from my kid that some of his classmates were so devastated, they were crying,” Yu said.

“There was no discussion with parents, any stakeholders, any current or graduated students,” year one UTP student Amber Lee told The Nest. “This [decision] was completely made independently.”

Mandlis expressed a similar sentiment. “They have not communicated with anyone within the community. They always talked about alumni engagement, [but they] haven't reached out to us at all. It's been dead silent.” 

She worries that the indefinite pause would herald an end of the program. “It's kind of obvious to everyone within the community and outside of the community that they’re just [pausing admissions] as an excuse to permanently close it,” she said.

Maureen McDermid is a board member of the Gifted Children’s Association of BC (GCABC) who acted as a teacher advisor when the UTP was formed in 1998. She said that her organization was contacted by UTP parents starting in early 2023. 

McDermid said that a number of “really concerned” UTP parents reached out to her organization about the intake pause and its ramifications. She said she acknowledged these worries, but pointed out that the program admits only 20 students per year. “It’s not very comforting, but the effect size is not really that profound.” she noted.

As for the admissions pause becoming permanent, McDermid didn’t seem worried, explaining that after speaking with VSB representatives, the CGABC believes the VSB is “not looking to deep-six the program.”

In an interview with The Nest, VSB Associate Superintendent Alison Ogden emphasized multiple times that “no decision has been made” regarding the future of the program, as the three governing bodies are waiting on the outcome of an external review.

The Deetken Review 

To conduct the external review, the Ministry of Education contracted out to the Vancouver-based consulting firm Deetken, whose website states that they have experience in “solving complex and sensitive business problems [with] an emphasis on providing customized solutions that deliver lasting value for our clients.” They do not advertise any specific expertise in mental health, education, or youth services. 

The Nest reached out to Deetken to inquire about what student or community outreach, if any, they did during or before their review. Deetken did not respond to this request prior to the publication of this investigation.

When The Nest asked Ogden about Deetken’s qualifications, she said it wasn’t a question she was able to answer, noting only that “they were engaged through a procurement process through the Ministry of Education and Childcare.”

McDermid confirmed that the BC Ministry of Education headed the review process — not the VSB. She said that the GCABC requested an explanation for the Ministry’s choice to hire Deetken on two separate occasions, and have not yet received any concrete answer.

“The message that we got back [from the Ministry] was that this was considered a high level look at the program — how it was organized, what the finances were like,” she said. The Ministry added that the review was not actively investigating the content of the program and whether it was appropriate for its students. 

Prior Reviews of the UTP

“The review in UTP history has actually been every 5 years — it’s not a new thing,” said Lee. “I think the last one was in 2016, [but] it was sort of cut short by Covid and never resumed.”

UTP alumna Alyona Glazyrina also mentioned occasional reviews of the program, noting that they were conducted internally. She believes an external review might be helpful, observing that “if you are always looking at it internally, you always have the same kind of biases running around the program.”

VSB Associate Superintendent Ogden told The Nest that the UTP has “not undergone a third party review since its inception and formalization [...] we needed to make sure that we had all of the information moving forward.” 

According to Ogden, neither the Ministry nor a third party has ever conducted a review. She explained that while she had received information from parents sharing that reviews had taken place, after looking into it she found that “there has been no review by the Ministry of Education and Child Care of the program, ever.”

Lee said that she believes the UTP community is not against the concept of a review, but in previous years, the (presumably internal) reviews had occurred while admissions continued to run. “The main issue of the pausing of admissions,” she said, “is that the VSB did not exhaust all other avenues of helping the community before going straight to the most extreme.”

Mandlis seemed to share these views, explaining that she thinks an external audit is “something that would have been welcomed by everyone.”

The UTP’s Two-Year Structure

“It’s been a massive shock, because the UTP is a two-year system, and the reliance that each year has on each other to be mature and ready for UBC is crucial,” shared Lee. “It’s critical to understand that the UTP operates on its two-class model that can’t be separated because the year ones learn from the year twos — we get advice, we get a support system.”

The two year structure provides valuable skills and opportunities to second year students as well. “The year twos learn, they develop leadership skills, they develop their emotional maturity, from teaching the year ones,” Lee explained. “There’s this massive gap that’s going to be in the UTP community that won’t be able to function even with this single year pause in admissions.”

Mental Health Concerns

Mental health concerns have been cited by both the Ministry of Education and the VSB as the primary reason for the intake pause. “We wouldn’t pause admission to a program without concerns,” said Ogden, saying that “a range of concerns have been brought forward, including mental health concerns, but also patterns of negative interactions amongst families and the effects that those dynamics have on students.”

McDermid noted that during the GCABC’s conversations with the three governing bodies of the UTP, they were assured that the mental health concerns in question were serious. “We didn’t press, because this is a highly identifiable body of kids,” she said, adding that the VSB “could not in all good conscience and responsibility [...] not investigate and respond.”

Yu was skeptical, however, that the concerns warranted an admissions pause. “I often think that people who have very serious mental health issues are people who really don't know how to seek help, or who have no one to support them,” she said. “But this is probably one of the most amazing parent group communities that I've been [in]. Every single person [is] so dedicated.”

“This was not addressed with the appropriateness the topic deserves,” Lee said. “It stigmatizes UTP students, it stigmatizes the gifted community, and it stigmatizes those with legitimate mental health concerns, because now we’re just addressing this in public with no discussion with families or the students being affected by this.” 

In earlier years, students’ mental health seemed to be a priority at the UTP. Rex Chen, a UTP graduate from 2015, mentioned the presence of a Ministry-instated psychologist, who he said became increasingly involved in the program over subsequent years. He emphasized that while the UTP was “more or less self-sustaining”, the psychologist was continuously there to help students’ needs. 

“They used to have a full-time psychologist on staff, and then they put it down to two part-time psychologists, and now there are no psychologists on staff,” said Kristin Hopkins, a parent of a gifted student who was hoping to apply to the UTP next year. 

Hopkins’ child has a gifted designation, and has struggled socially and emotionally in a conventional school. Upon finding out about the UTP, her family believed that it was the only viable option for their child’s highschool education. 

“They're saying that there's very high levels of anxiety within the school, but I mean, that's one of the main symptoms of profound giftedness,” Hopkins said. 

“This program exists because these children have mental health challenges,” she continued. “To go in and say these kids have mental health challenges, because of the program is ridiculous. The program is there to help them with those challenges.”

Lee thinks that reintroducing an on-site psychologist would be “a massive help” to the UTP community. “You’ll have someone there who will be at the school five days a week and [that] you can trust.” 

The Student Experience

Current and former students have spoken highly of the program and its impacts on their respective journeys. 

Glazyrina considered the program to be “lifesaving” for its target audience. “If I hadn’t gone to the program, I probably wouldn’t be in university right now, not because of my age, but just because I wouldn’t have enough motivation by the end of [high] school to actually go to university.” 

This story doesn’t seem to be unique. Lee explained that she also found herself and her classmates' lives were improved by the UTP. “This is a story that you’ll hear repeated constantly — that you were doing well in [mainstream] school, but you weren’t happy and you weren’t doing the best you could. Eventually that leads to a host of other things like burnout, depression, and anxiety.”

“That’s what honours programs are there for,” Lee continued, referring to the UTP, MACC, and other enriched programs. “They’re not just academic, they’re for the community [...] of people who are like-minded, who you can just be yourself with.”

Jonathan Chan, another UTP alumnus, noted that the program’s close association with UBC was a major benefit for him. 

“We were on the UBC campus, so we got to go to UBC lectures,” he said. “We had a lot of different extracurricular experiences that I think really helped me find what I want to do in university. It has definitely helped me now that I’m at UBC.”

The program may be hyper-concentrated and high-intensity, but many students found that these qualities can be beneficial for those who need an extra challenge. 

“I didn't really feel engaged with my classes [in elementary school], and I didn't really feel like I was learning the material,” explained Mandlis. “Spending time in UTP really helped motivate me academically and helped push me for success that I don't think I would have gotten otherwise.” 

One caveat she noted, however, is that “emotional intelligence is something that isn't developed a lot in the program.” Even though the program has been taking strides in that direction, she said, “it's been kind of limited.”

The Broader Narrative

Chan felt “angry but not exactly surprised” by the pause in admissions, and considered it representative of a larger pattern within the VSB — that is, the cutting of enriched programs across the district. 

He cited the MACC “revisioning” and the combination of the Hamber Challenge and Studio programs as other instances of this, saying that over the past few years, the VSB has been trying to reform, shrink, or entirely shut down these programs. “In their words, it’s to improve equity, but I don’t really think that’s the case,” he said.

For Chen, he agreed “it’s part of a much broader thing,” and added that he “can’t ascribe motivations for this, but it does seem like [...] some of the particular needs and intricacies of certain programs are being lost.” 

Chen stressed the importance of considering the “social cost in terms of not being able to allow [gifted] students to achieve actual the full potential they have, and instead consigning them to the regular system.”

Chan, on the other hand, worries that the VSB’s indefinite admissions pause will exacerbate educational inequities.

“If you take away these programs in public school, the parents are just gonna take their kids to private school,” he explained, “But parents who can’t necessarily afford that, they’re just going to be stuck with their kid in a program that doesn’t really fulfill their needs. [...] By taking away these programs, the VSB is making education a paywall.”