Advice: Should I even bother?

[coffeeismyvirtue]

Hey guys,

After so much creeping and never posting I thought I might as well ask for some of your guys's advice. I've been wanting to be a doctor since I was a kid but I never tried because I didnt think I was smart enough lol so anyways here are the numbers: UGPA is whack, this is the trend 1.9 (had a rough year), 2.7, 3.2, 3.6. Finished a MA with a 3.8-3.9 and havent written the MCAT yet. Should I even try? idk what do you guys think? You can be critical, I'm not soft.

 

[hvem]

Sorry, Would you be able to translate these into percentages (I did my undergrad at UBC so I don’t understand the GPA system). 

This would probably depend on how strong your non-academic score is, to balance out your academic score. 
 

GPA is definitely important but luckily, I believe UBC allows you remove some of your worse credits ( refer to The UBC Med admissions website to verify whether this is still in place, whether you’re eligible etc. I think there are some criteria you need to meet for that to be possible). This may help you get rid of your first year GPA. 

[frenchpress]

13 hours ago, coffeeismyvirtue said:

Hey guys,

After so much creeping and never posting I thought I might as well ask for some of your guys's advice. I've been wanting to be a doctor since I was a kid but I never tried because I didnt think I was smart enough lol so anyways here are the numbers: UGPA is whack, this is the trend 1.9 (had a rough year), 2.7, 3.2, 3.6. Finished a MA with a 3.8-3.9 and havent written the MCAT yet. Should I even try? idk what do you guys think? You can be critical, I'm not soft.

 

•  

Your GPA is may not be very competitive as it stands. You can convert your GPA to percentages  using this table https://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/files/2012/08/ADM_grade_conversion_tables.pdf and get your credit weighted GPA using this spreadsheet https://www.grad.ubc.ca/faculty-staff/admin-resources-templates/gpa-calculators (to get an accurate result, convert each grade to the given percentage using the other table and enter that in the calculator). UBC will drop you worst single year, to a maximum of 30 credits, but not more than that.

I assume that you’re a BC resident since you’re posting in the UBC forum - In order to get a file review as an in-province application, you need a minimum GPA of 75%, which you may have, depending on how many credits were in your MA (If you’re out-of-province you’d need an 85% average). If you meet that threshold, your first hurdle will be to get an interview - the scoring UBC uses to pick who gets interviews is 50% GPA and 50% non-academics, so if you have a low GPA you need very strong non-academics to get an interview.

So, first step - use the links above and figure out your GPA before and after dropping the worst 30 credits from your worst year. We can give you more advice about your options once you have that info. 

[coffeeismyvirtue]

 

On 7/4/2020 at 11:06 AM, frenchpress said:

Your GPA is may not be very competitive as it stands. You can convert your GPA to percentages  using this table https://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/files/2012/08/ADM_grade_conversion_tables.pdf and get your credit weighted GPA using this spreadsheet https://www.grad.ubc.ca/faculty-staff/admin-resources-templates/gpa-calculators (to get an accurate result, convert each grade to the given percentage using the other table and enter that in the calculator). UBC will drop you worst single year, to a maximum of 30 credits, but not more than that.

I assume that you’re a BC resident since you’re posting in the UBC forum - In order to get a file review as an in-province application, you need a minimum GPA of 75%, which you may have, depending on how many credits were in your MA (If you’re out-of-province you’d need an 85% average). If you meet that threshold, your first hurdle will be to get an interview - the scoring UBC uses to pick who gets interviews is 50% GPA and 50% non-academics, so if you have a low GPA you need very strong non-academics to get an interview.

So, first step - use the links above and figure out your GPA before and after dropping the worst 30 credits from your worst year. We can give you more advice about your options once you have that info. 

Thank you so much for your advice! I calculated my gpa (I was kinda confused on which table to use. My school gives A+ but its the same as an A so they're both 4.0. Using the second table my OGPA is 80% and dropping my 30 credits it's 84%. I am an in province student as I moved here 3 years ago! What do you think?

[coffeeismyvirtue]

On 7/4/2020 at 2:01 AM, hvem said:

Sorry, Would you be able to translate these into percentages (I did my undergrad at UBC so I don’t understand the GPA system). 

This would probably depend on how strong your non-academic score is, to balance out your academic score. 
 

GPA is definitely important but luckily, I believe UBC allows you remove some of your worse credits ( refer to The UBC Med admissions website to verify whether this is still in place, whether you’re eligible etc. I think there are some criteria you need to meet for that to be possible). This may help you get rid of your first year GPA. 

Thanks for your advice! I did the calculations and they're posted below !

[vms]

On 7/3/2020 at 8:15 PM, coffeeismyvirtue said:

Hey guys,

After so much creeping and never posting I thought I might as well ask for some of your guys's advice. I've been wanting to be a doctor since I was a kid but I never tried because I didnt think I was smart enough lol so anyways here are the numbers: UGPA is whack, this is the trend 1.9 (had a rough year), 2.7, 3.2, 3.6. Finished a MA with a 3.8-3.9 and havent written the MCAT yet. Should I even try? idk what do you guys think? You can be critical, I'm not soft.

 

•  

People do get interviews with 84% GPA! In case you haven't seen this yet, here is the interview invites thread for this past cycle:

Interview invite stats starts on bottom of page 19

In case you're not familiar with how UBC selects people for interviews, they calculate your TFR score (total file review score), which consists of AQ (max 50 points) and NAQ (max 50 points). Max TFR score is 100. For IP applicants like yourself, around 52 TFR is required to be invited for interview (although this changes slightly every year).

AQ looks at your GPA (undergrad plus masters) and can be approximated with this formula (from the 2017/2018 cycle):

AQ = 1.6246 * AGPA - 115.57

So your GPA of 84% would result in an AQ score of approximately 20.9

NAQ assesses your extracurricular activities. You would be given 25 out of 50 if your activities were average compared to the rest of the applicants.

With your AQ score of 20.9, you would need a NAQ score of at least 31 to meet the 52 TFR cutoff. So your activities would need to be above average, but it's definitely possible to get an interview with 84% GPA! You've included all years of your undergrad and masters (with lowest year excluded) in that calculation right?

Also, you should try to get the highest MCAT score possible. They only look at the MCAT post-interview and a high MCAT can balance out a low GPA post interview.