Salt Spring’s Maia Cassie knew she wanted to attend the University of Toronto when she started looking seriously at post-secondary options.
But scholarships were going to be “a big factor” in her ultimate choice of school, Cassie said last week in describing how she earned the U of T’s top entrance award: the National Scholarship. It will cover all tuition and incidental fees and residence costs for her four-year undergraduate degree, and includes mentorship by a faculty member. Approximately 10 National Scholarships are awarded each year, valued at more than $100,000. U of T material states, “These are students who demonstrate superior academic performance, original and creative thought, and exceptional achievement in a broad context. They excel in academic pursuits, demonstrate enthusiasm for intellectual exploration and have a strong involvement in the lives of their schools and communities.”
The scholarship path was both rigorous and interesting for Cassie.
After receiving the required nomination from her high school — Queen Margaret’s School (QMS) in Duncan — she completed the application form. While it included all the standard kinds of questions one would expect, applicants also provided an open-ended writing piece based around a few random words.
“So that was really unique and I really liked that,” she said. “From there they contacted me letting me know that they liked my application and I was going to have an interview. Before those interviews came, we had a lot of cool webinars and got to meet all the other finalists and hear more about U of T.”
Then came a series of interviews with a few staff members, professors and a past National Scholar.
Cassie also submitted one of the video essays from her YouTube channel that looks at film, TV and social media through a sociological lens.
“I got to talk to a professor at U of T about that video and go into it more in depth and hear his thoughts, so that was a very exciting little taste of getting to talk one-on-one with a professor. And I’m very excited to do that more.”
Cassie will be part of the faculty of social sciences, which she said “lined up perfectly with all of my interests.”
“I think a lot of the stuff that I do currently — extracurriculars and such — is about examining the way that people interact with the world, and why and how social change happens, and understanding politics, and those sorts of things.”
She has been a Model United Nations participant, and worked and volunteered with organizations such as Volunteer Cowichan, Literacy Now Cowichan and at the Salt Spring Public Library, often in social media roles. She was one of two winners of the inaugural Judy Nurse Bursary for young library volunteers pursuing post-secondary education in 2024.
She won first place in the English-speaking category of the national Poetry in Voice recitation competition in 2023 and third place in the bilingual category this year.
Cassie moved to Salt Spring with her family from Port Moody, B.C. when she was two years old. She attended Salt Spring Centre School through Grade 5, spent Grade 6 at the middle school and then completed her education at QMS in Duncan. While there she was involved with musical theatre, the competitive theatre team and filmmaking club, and was editor of The Quill literary magazine, captain of the Ethics Bowl team, student council president and head prefect on the prefect council. She was also on a QMS team awarded the international Westmont Prize for their video on creating a sustainable fashion app.
She expressed gratitude to her parents, Aidan and Mike Cassie, for their role in her receiving the National Scholarship.
“I can attribute a good amount to support from my parents who have always been just super helpful and there for me in all these many application things, and in all the extracurriculars that led up to it. They definitely had to read a lot of drafts of my written application. They’ve been pretty instrumental, I think.”
Cassie said she has never been to Toronto, but is excited to discover the city.
“It’s definitely a very different style of living than growing up on Salt Spring.”
The University of Toronto is Canada’s largest university, with almost 100,000 students in 80 departments, according to the online Canadian Encyclopedia.