Eligibility and priority admission

Operated by the University of British Columbia, UBC Child Care is part of Student Housing and Community Services, a unit in UBC’s Vice-President, Students portfolio.

As such, admission for UBC students, faculty and staff is our priority, although we do accept applications from any family who would like to enroll their child.

Priority admission order

As spaces for child care become available, we provide admission in the following priority order:

  1. Internal transfers—children who are already enrolled and are graduating to the next age group.
  2. Sibling Priority—siblings of children who maintain ongoing enrolment with us.*

    Eligibility for sibling priority:
    • Parents/guardians must be full-time students, faculty or staff.
    • The child must have been on the waitlist for a minimum of 12 months.
    • The sibling who is currently enrolled must remain enrolled in an ongoing capacity.
  3. University/UBC Child Care-designated priority groups—from time-to-time, the university and UBC Child Care may allocate a limited number of spaces for specially-designated priority groups.
  4. Children of full-time UBC students—with priority admission within this group offered to self-identified Indigenous students.
  5. Children of full-time UBC faculty/staff—faculty or staff with full-time status may be given consideration for enrolment after the above priority groups.
  6. Children of part-time UBC students or employees—students, faculty or staff with part-time status may be given consideration for enrolment after the above priority groups.
  7. Non-UBC families—while any family is eligible to join our waitlist, the need for child care from our other priority groups leaves very few, if any, remaining spaces for non-UBC families.

All vacancies are filled in accordance with UBC policies and the university’s commitments to our priority groups—and in compliance with provincial licensing regulations.

We do not consider families’ addresses when we are making offers.

*The primary intent of the sibling priority policy is to help families keep siblings together during their early years and to reduce drop-off and pick-up challenges for our currently enrolled families.

Full-time status

Here is how we define full-time status for students, faculty and staff, consistent with UBC’s definitions.

Students

Explore our programs and settings, check your eligibility, find out what it costs, and learn more about how and when to apply.

  • Undergraduate students: must be and remain registered in a degree-granting program during Winter Session (September–April) with a minimum of 9 credits of UBC undergraduate coursework per term (18 credits total). The majority of these credits must be in-person coursework.
  • Graduate students: must be and remain registered in a full-time graduate program and have full-time status confirmed by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

Faculty

UBC faculty must have a full-time teaching and/or research appointment and must be paid directly by the university.

Staff

UBC staff must have a full-time position—minimum 30 hours per week.

Confirming your student or employee status

Confirmation of your student or employee status will be required at the time that you receive and accept your offer of enrolment. You will be asked to provide your student or staff identification number, so we can verify your status.

Additional questions?

If you have any questions about your eligibility or priority group placement, please contact the Child Care Administration Hub.