School w/ GPA Forgiveness??? PLEASE HELP THE NEWBIE

[GabriellaGE]

Which Canadian (or US, but Canada is preferred) med school has some kind of forgiveness in their application? I have a very poor GPA from 1 year of a previous unrelated degree and refuse to let it impact my (now) very strong application. I know University of Calgary can "ignore" (for lack of a better term) post-secondary from 10+ years ago. 

Does anyone else know of anything else similar but not as drastic? Ex. only calculating a cGPA from your best 3 years. Literally anything that doesn't make me wait 4 more years.

No way am I going to omit those old transcripts from my application so please don't bother suggesting.

Thanks in advance

[IMislove]

I would suggest looking up each medical school's application website to get these answers. Some schools include Ottawa, Queens, Toronto has a wGPA where it drops one full credit per year after 4 years as long as you had gone full-time throughout your whole degree, and Western. Not sure about others.

[rmorelan]

there are lots of examples on the forum of what schools will do that  - where are you at in your new degree? Some schools won't count the old degree at all if you do it correctly

[GabriellaGE]

Just now, rmorelan said:

there are lots of examples on the forum of what schools will do that  - where are you at in your new degree? Some schools won't count the old degree at all if you do it correctly

Third year psych 3.8 gpa! My past degree wasn’t completed. Only a year (8 courses)

[rmorelan]

2 minutes ago, GabriellaGE said:

Third year psych 3.8 gpa! My past degree wasn’t completed. Only a year (8 courses)

ok sounds good! 

as pointed out above you will need to learn the "rules" for Western, Queens, Ottawa, and Toronto specifically in Ontario. Some of your target schools are MCAT heavy but as an arts student you should have an easier time with the CARS section (which trips people up the most on average). 

Western in particular simply won't look at your old degree. You need to carefully match up the rules here to make sure you aren't doing something that will exclude you from applying to various places. 

Is your GPA exactly 3.8?

[GabriellaGE]

1 minute ago, rmorelan said:

ok sounds good! 

as pointed out above you will need to learn the "rules" for Western, Queens, Ottawa, and Toronto specifically in Ontario. Some of your target schools are MCAT heavy but as an arts student you should have an easier time with the CARS section (which trips people up the most on average). 

Western in particular simply won't look at your old degree. You need to carefully match up the rules here to make sure you aren't doing something that will exclude you from applying to various places. 

Is your GPA exactly 3.8?

For this degree yes. For a cGPA it drops down to 3.21 that’s why I need schools to not look at the previous haha. I’ll definitely being doing my research tonight. Isn’t even more Western competitive? Thank you so much!

[rmorelan]

Just now, GabriellaGE said:

For this degree yes. For a cGPA it drops down to 3.21 that’s why I need schools to not look at the previous haha. I’ll definitely being doing my research tonight. Isn’t even more Western competitive? Thank you so much!

well western has a best two year cut off of 3.7 right now and won't even count your first set of courses at all - it is more of an MCAT school than a GPA one so that puts you on solid footing very likely. 

Similar with Queens and their last two year policy as examples. 

 

[indefatigable]

1 hour ago, GabriellaGE said:

Which Canadian (or US, but Canada is preferred) med school has some kind of forgiveness in their application? I have a very poor GPA from 1 year of a previous unrelated degree and refuse to let it impact my (now) very strong application. I know University of Calgary can "ignore" (for lack of a better term) post-secondary from 10+ years ago. 

Does anyone else know of anything else similar but not as drastic? Ex. only calculating a cGPA from your best 3 years. Literally anything that doesn't make me wait 4 more years.
 

I think that's exactly what UAlberta does - drops the lowest year - double check their webpage, especially if you're IP there.  Besides the options mentioned above, UBC also does something similar - they really look for Non-Academics though.  

 

54 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

well western has a best two year cut off of 3.7 right now and won't even count your first set of courses at all - it is more of an MCAT school than a GPA one so that puts you on solid footing very likely. 

Similar with Queens and their last two year policy as examples. 

 

First - congratulations on the fellowship!  Nicely done! (no/little call too?).

Out of curiosity/distraction, since I come from an earlier era, before things like SWOMEN advantage existed, I checked the Western admissions criteria around the turn of the millenium (when many premeds were yet to start grade school haha), through the internet wayback machine and saw that the admission criteria almost looked like a carbon copy of Toronto : minimum MCAT scores (9 in each section) then GPA (min 3.7), with prereq courses (albeit two year GPA).  I think during that era, a 3.7 was probably more like a 3.8 today so Western seemed to have been probably very similar to UofT except the difference was considering the MCAT competitively, instead of only GPA like UofT.  Since then Western has clearly put increasingly more emphasis on the MCAT, rather than GPA. As discussed previously, it's true that GPA has probably risen non-uniformly in different programs, but it's interesting to see how similar they were at one point.  

[rmorelan]

Ha thanks - took a year to figure out how to get that arranged. There is no overnight call and when I am on clinical service I am 1/2 evening, 1/2 day shifts. Weekends when they occur and done cause a replacement of the same number of days during the week. Compared to residency that is positively civilized. When off service it is just typical work day like hours. 

and yeah that is interesting! Western gave up on GPA with all the inflation and trouble matching various programs towards some form of standard

[tavenan]

7 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

Ha thanks - took a year to figure out how to get that arranged. There is no overnight call and when I am on clinical service I am 1/2 evening, 1/2 day shifts. Weekends when they occur and done cause a replacement of the same number of days during the week. Compared to residency that is positively civilized. When off service it is just typical work day like hours. 

and yeah that is interesting! Western gave up on GPA with all the inflation and trouble matching various programs towards some form of standard

 

Western gave up on GPA due to the inflation but as a result the MCAT cutoffs have become ridiculous for non-SWOMEN. Hopefully they can become more reasonable with the psych section being taken into account now, something like 127/128/127/??. Still around a 513 overall score or higher (so 90th percentile) but just not a 90-95th percentile CARS cutoff which is worse than the old Verbal 11... 

Honestly I think at some point Western should bump up the GPA cutoff to 3.8. Would still be a main refuge for GPA-problematic students given it's a relatively low cutoff and all the exceptions they allow for GPA calculations. 

[rmorelan]

Just now, tavenan said:

 

Western gave up on GPA due to the inflation but as a result the MCAT cutoffs have become ridiculous for non-SWOMEN. Hopefully they can become more reasonable with the psych section being taken into account now, something like 127/128/127/??. Still a 513 overall score or higher (so 90th percentile) but just not a 90-95th percentile CARS cutoff which is worse than the old Verbal 11... 

Honestly I think at some point Western should bump up the GPA cutoff to 3.8. Would still be a main refuge for GPA-problematic students given it's a relatively low cutoff and all the exceptions they allow for GPA calculations. 

true - by the same token it won't change much either. Most people hitting the cut off for the mcat have much higher than 3.7. That move would exclude a group of people that the school seems interested in attracting (they even DROPPED the gpa cut off a few years back). 

hopefully there will be some diversity in scoring with psych section online. Of course the reason they are so high is exactly the applicant pool - the cut offs are reactive to the stats of the people that apply so in a sense nothing can make it easier or harder. 

[indefatigable]

15 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

Ha thanks - took a year to figure out how to get that arranged. There is no overnight call and when I am on clinical service I am 1/2 evening, 1/2 day shifts. Weekends when they occur and done cause a replacement of the same number of days during the week. Compared to residency that is positively civilized. When off service it is just typical work day like hours. 

and yeah that is interesting! Western gave up on GPA with all the inflation and trouble matching various programs towards some form of standard

Glad it worked out!  Should be a great couple years in Boston!  We may lose your moderation skills to SDN haha. 

[rmorelan]

3 minutes ago, calcan said:

Glad it worked out!  Should be a great couple years in Boston!  We may lose your moderation skills to SDN haha. 

ha, hadn't thought about that  

On the bright side I will know the US education system a lot better. 

There is a chance I could actually work at Harvard after they tell me - which is a really interesting possibility. It is going to be strange working with Harvard medical students and teaching them on a regular basis. I will be waking part their school to get to work, ha. 

[indefatigable]

5 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

ha, hadn't thought about that  

On the bright side I will know the US education system a lot better. 

There is a chance I could actually work at Harvard after they tell me - which is a really interesting possibility. It is going to be strange working with Harvard medical students and teaching them on a regular basis. I will be waking part their school to get to work, ha. 

It's a great opportunity!  I visited the main campus some time ago and really liked it - never made it to the medical school though!  Pricy city, but I'm sure you'll be in a decent position as a fellow.  You may decide to return -the frozen Rideau haha.  

[rmorelan]

Just now, calcan said:

It's a great opportunity!  I visited the main campus some time ago and really liked it - never made it to the medical school though!  Pricy city, butI'm sure you'll be in a good position as a fellow.  You may decide to return -the frozen Rideau haha.  

very likely I will be coming back - but it would just be incredible to work there for a bit as well. For a computer scientist turned doctor it is just such an an amazing place - stuck between MIT and Harvard, ha, could be worse. 

It is amazing sometimes where the road leads.......

[indefatigable]

8 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

very likely I will be coming back - but it would just be incredible to work there for a bit as well. For a computer scientist turned doctor it is just such an an amazing place - stuck between MIT and Harvard, ha, could be worse. 

It is amazing sometimes where the road leads.......

One of Harvard's track is a joint program between the two institutes, I think - makes sense top med school + tech schools... anyways congratulations again!  I think I've redirected/taken too much of the OPs thread, so I'll just add continued good luck!   

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, GabriellaGE said:

For this degree yes. For a cGPA it drops down to 3.21 that’s why I need schools to not look at the previous haha. I’ll definitely being doing my research tonight. Isn’t even more Western competitive? Thank you so much!

Just to circle back the wagons here to the OP - you will need full assessment of everything at this point as well to shake out what tricks etc can help. Your school may offer that service, and of course posting more details on the forum may help as well. Pay close attention at Ottawa as well - depending on how your GPA is structured (ie is your last year your best year) you have be in good shape there. 

and of course congrats on the turn around!

[GabriellaGE]

What do you mean a full assessment and to shake out the tricks?

thank you so much, super helpful!

[rmorelan]

just a breakdown of exactly courses and GPA by year, MCAT scores and cross correlated with the various school policies. Evaluation of ECs etc also versus the school's general policies, and whether there are any additional factors to consider (languages spoken, geographic areas you grew up, financial resources to consider the US option....)

the point is to develop an overall plan that maximizes the chances of your admission success while advancing any other goals.