Class schedule in 1st and 2nd year? + GPA question

[dreizehn]

Hello!

I have 2 questions and I am wondering if anyone will be able to answer them

Essentially, I'm wondering what class is like in 1st and 2nd year. I know on the Foundations website they show a sample week, but I'm wondering more on the large scale. The reason is, right now I am going into 3rd year undergrad. Writing the MCAT this summer (woo...) and plan on applying to UofT Med in fall 2018. This is fairly normal, but the reason I'm asking about schedules is that in the fall I may become owner of a young rescue puppy. I know for sure that my 3rd year undergrad schedule will be light enough for me to care for her easily, but I'm wondering about med school. I wouldn't want to have a puppy in med school because that would be unfair, but she would be 1-2 years old.

I'm not asking for a critique of my decision. I have not yet decided if I will go for the pup. I have read plenty of threads and blogs about having a pup in med school, and most boil down to 'it depends on you'. While some people would never dare to get a dog in med school, others found it valuable for emotional support etc. I'm just hoping to use the answer to this question to help me figure it out.

So how many hours per week would you say you are away from home and at UofT in 1st and 2nd year? Are evenings and weekends typically full of med school stuff (not including studying), and what about mornings?

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My 2nd question is very brief. I am not eligible for wGPA this year. I'm wondering how cGPAs are calculated. I've been on the OMSAS site but my questions is this: do they take all grades and then convert each into a GPA score, then average the GPAs... or do they take the averages of all the grades to give an overall average, and then calculate the single equivalent GPA?

I'm asking because with the former method, my GPA is only 3.65 (since the high 90s marks I got were equivalent to the lower 4.0s) which is not competitive. But the latter method gives me a GPA of 3.92. You can see why I'm asking.

Thanks so much  Hope to meet you all soon sometime down the line....

[FlameGrilledChicken]

For your 2nd Q, I believe they use the former method. (i.e. for me, all my grades were converted to GPA format (4.0, 3.9, 3.7 etc.) and then averaged to give the cGPA. 

[yup]

2 minutes ago, FlameGrilledChicken said:

For your 2nd Q, I believe they use the former method. (i.e. for me, all my grades were converted to GPA format (4.0, 3.9, 3.7 etc.) and then averaged to give the cGPA. 

Yep, the first method! 

[dreizehn]

56 minutes ago, FlameGrilledChicken said:

For your 2nd Q, I believe they use the former method. (i.e. for me, all my grades were converted to GPA format (4.0, 3.9, 3.7 etc.) and then averaged to give the cGPA. 

Thanks for your reply! I just got an email back from the MD admissions office and they said that they actually calculate overall average and then convert that to GPA... I wonder if this is a new thing? Or maybe the person there didn't know?

[FlameGrilledChicken]

14 minutes ago, dreizehn said:

Thanks for your reply! I just got an email back from the MD admissions office and they said that they actually calculate overall average and then convert that to GPA... I wonder if this is a new thing? Or maybe the person there didn't know?

Pretty sure OMSAS calculates GPA, unless UofT recalculates but I highly doubt that. It's pretty standard everywhere to first convert to gpa then average. Which can be kinda sucky cause on the GPA scale, the numbers drop pretty dramatically with each letter grade (i.e. 4.0 -> 3.9 -> 3.7 -> 3.3) such that having a few Bs can bring you down significantly whereas an A- is not so bad.

[Anon-e-mous]

Here is how OMSAS calculates your cGPA, from their website:

Quote

OMSAS calculates the cumulative average by adding all of the course weights and all of the converted grades, then dividing the total course weights into the total converted grades.

Note: The cumulative average is not an “average of the averages”.

https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/omsas-postsecondary-education/

 

So it seems to be the first method like others have said, converting your grades first. Which can really suck with even one B, like FlameGrilledChicken said :/

[dreizehn]

37 minutes ago, caramilk said:

Here is how OMSAS calculates your cGPA, from their website:

So it seems to be the first method like others have said, converting your grades first. Which can really suck with even one B, like FlameGrilledChicken said :/

Dang that sucks! It does say on OMSAS that schools may use a different GPA than calculated on OMSAS.... probably not the case here but I sure am hoping 

[iluvexcel]

Hey, as a third year student who applied to UofT this year and got in, they do the first. Meaning a 90 is the same as a 100, and grades below 80% can wreck you :( 

[Galaxsci]

As for the dog, I know people in med who have one, so it's definitely possible. A small dog might be a good thought so you wouldn't need TOO much time to walk it. On the other hand, others are incapable of taking care of a fish in med school (one of my classmates has a fish that's somehow survived much longer than it should have), so it's definitely person-dependent.

[dreizehn]

On 5/9/2018 at 8:13 PM, premed176 said:

Hey, as a third year student who applied to UofT this year and got in, they do the first. Meaning a 90 is the same as a 100, and grades below 80% can wreck you

Well shit haha. Then I will probably wait till next year and get wGPA... or think of a good academic explanations letter

 

16 hours ago, Galaxsci said:

As for the dog, I know people in med who have one, so it's definitely possible. A small dog might be a good thought so you wouldn't need TOO much time to walk it. On the other hand, others are incapable of taking care of a fish in med school (one of my classmates has a fish that's somehow survived much longer than it should have), so it's definitely person-dependent.

Thanks! And very true