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Needing advice to strengthen app


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Hi guys, completely new forum user here. I plan on applying to UBC med this upcoming application cycle but probably won't make it past the pre-interview stage due to the current strength of my app. Thus, I need to plan how to improve my app for the following year if I get rejected. I have my heart set on med (hopefully UBC) and realize that getting in can be a grind. Any advice on how to improve is appreciated! Current stats:

Geography: In-province.

aGPA: 86%

MCAT: 511 (130/124/129/128).

Year: Bsc. 2019 (graduating this year)

EC's: honestly not that strong overall in my opinion. However, this is the part of my app I can realistically make up the most ground on, right? 

- Clubs at university: exec of 2 different uni clubs for 1 year each (~60 hrs each), member/participant in uni clubs: (~ 300 hrs) over 4 years.

- Hobbies: varied, some I have done for several years (~2500 hrs rough estimate).

- Volunteering: hospital/nursing home over 2 years (~200 hrs), volunteering at programs aimed towards helping disabled/autistic children (~40 hrs across 8 months), volunteered as a tutor for school-aged children (40 hrs),.

- Employment: worked as a clinical research assistant (~320 hrs across 2 months), worked an office job as at freight-forwarding/logistics company (~350 hrs) across 2 months, worked as a private tutor for high school students (40 hrs across 4 months).

- Research: Clinical research assistant (see above), volunteered as a clinical research assistant (~70 hrs across 8 months), poster presenter at 2 conferences, 1 first author publication in a relatively prestigious journal, 1-second author publication. 

- Other: random and non-specific activities (around 5 of them) that have under 20 hrs of commitment.

Pretty much it for the EC's. I may be forgetting some of them, but that is the bulk of it. My opinion on my EC's is that they are relatively weak in terms of diversity and time hours committed. Another thing is that I currently lack any real leadership EC's and I feel like that's important. While I don't see myself as a natural leader, I think it is a skill that is worth developing in the long run, so suggestions in that department are appreciated. In terms of GPA, I don't plan on taking any more courses to boost it, so I'm thinking my 86% is pretty much set. Seeing as it is more than 2% lower than the average interview invite GPAs, probably need to make up for it on NAQ. As for the MCAT, I'm probably not going to worry about that I interview once at UBC (and subsequently see what all my application scores are). I may need to retake due to relatively low score (especially in CARS, damn...)

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Try to increase your GPA and MCAT as much as possible (I understand this can be difficult and take a while). In addition, keep getting involved in things you enjoy and want to learn about. For ECs, I would suggest you really try and think outside the box when choosing what to put on your app. Not only classic premed ECs (volunteering, research) but also other things that make you unique (some sort of personal experiences or circumstances). Lastly I would spend a lot of time writing up your ECs on the app. Make sure that your description is very detailed and really describes how you were involved and what you accomplished.

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34 minutes ago, Matty66 said:

Try to increase your GPA and MCAT as much as possible (I understand this can be difficult and take a while). In addition, keep getting involved in things you enjoy and want to learn about. For ECs, I would suggest you really try and think outside the box when choosing what to put on your app. Not only classic premed ECs (volunteering, research) but also other things that make you unique (some sort of personal experiences or circumstances). Lastly I would spend a lot of time writing up your ECs on the app. Make sure that your description is very detailed and really describes how you were involved and what you accomplished.

Thank you for those points. Regarding GPA, I'm under the impression that doing a full year of EC activities + working (which I plan on doing) would increase my application score more than doing an extra year of school. What is your opinion on this? 

Personal experiences/circumstances are interesting and it seems like a lot of people write about them in the NAQ section. I just don't know what would be considered a significant enough personal experience/circumstance to be worth writing about as well as how to write the entry. What would be an example?

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It’s honestly hard to say. It’s really depends on your personal situation and what you think you could accomplish in terms of ECs as well as GPA. So whatever you think is better is probably the way to go.

I don’t think that every experience has to be very unique and significant. Just write about what makes you who you are today. For example some people have younger siblings, and in my eyes this can be thought of as a caretaking role, etc... you can PM me if you have any questions or anything.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey!

For leadership, definitely write about how you were the exec for two different clubs at your school, you can write them separately as well, and truly highlight what you did and your role in it. Make sure to write how you were a leader, and how that had an impact, also relate it to your personal experience or life story if you can. For research, both first author and second author publications are extremely good! Write about both of them, highlight being independent, collaborating with others, being a leader, and how much patience you had to have and manage things during that research. Make sure to also tie your research with your personal experience if you can, to avoid being a typical premed student and just amping your application with random research. Another point, keep working with kids with disabilities if you can, and highlight that leadership role. Talk about how different and similar we are, and what you learned from those kids, what you taught them, how you plan on helping others as well in the future, etc. I think you already have a solid application, however you really need to build those hours. Lots of med students take a gap year after undergrad, so you can do that too if you want. Also, make sure you have a couple of hobbies such as sports, music, writing, or literally anything that you enjoy doing for fun, and focus on that as well. 86 isn't that bad, but if you take the gap year, you can take the MCAT again as well, as sometimes high MCAT makes up for a low GPA and vice versa. I hope this was helpful for you. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

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