What’s a Competitive Application

[Potentiate]

This one goes out to all the people that have received interviews/been accepted/are knowledgeable on the topic. 

What GPA and MCAT score make a competitive application (ex. likely getting interviewed) at each respective school?

McMaster, Western, Ottawa, UofT, Queens, NOSM, UBC OOP 

For the sake of this question, let’s assume ECs/reference letter/personal essays are on par with other interview invites. 

[IMislove]

Well NOSM you need to be from rural north Ontario to have a chance, if you’ve never lived up there you can forget about it. 

Uot, to be competitive, definitely 3.95+, of course with some people they can get away with lower because all other aspects are pretty good. Graduate applicants with ample research productivity can get away with even lower as they’re in a different pool. MCAT is just a cutoff so make the listed cutoffs and you’re fine.

Queens is a black box, but having a gpa above 3.85 is recommended, although 3.9+ will go a longer way. Of course no one can say for sure what the cut off is, but can’t go wrong with 3.9 these days. MCAT also is unknown, but best to be above 126 in everything (my CARS was 126 so that didn’t pose a problem).

ottawa no mcat. Gpa the higher the better, 3.93+ should give you decent chances, but again people have gotten interviews with closer to 3.9. Again a gpa heavy school, so 3.95+ and gpa wontbe a problem anymore and it’s all on CASPer , and maybe ECs idk they keep changing their formula lol.

McMaster again the higher the better, as the rest is CARS and CASPer, and we don’t get feedback on CASPer so hard to gauge how well you do. 3.85 is close to average accepted, so doing relatively well in CARS 128, and CASPer MIGHT land you an interview, again I’ve seen variation and really I can donwith destroying CASPer.

UBC I do not know.

Western make their cut offs for MCAT (which tend to be high, check their website and aim for those or higher,) and 3.7 gpa 2 best year gpa and you get interview.

 

good luck, and always check the sites and contact adcom for the most accurate information.

as you can tell, it’s very hard to give very concrete answers because it has been variable in what people had when they got an interview/accepted, but you can see an average as well. Post interview most school weigh the interview heavily so gotta rock that once you get one. Good luck.

[HotAwkwardNerd]

I got into Queen's with a 3.83 GPA just as some perspective but the higher the better because the cutoff is said to change from year to year. They also lower the GPA cutoff if you're applying with a Graduate Degree. 

[anonymouspanda]

On 6/28/2018 at 8:50 AM, IMislove said:

Western make their cut offs for MCAT (which tend to be high, check their website and aim for those or higher,) and 3.7 gpa 2 best year gpa and you get interview.

Just wanted to point out that meeting the GPA and MCAT minimums for Western doesn't guarantee an interview. 

[rmorelan]

17 minutes ago, anonymouspanda said:

Just wanted to point out that meeting the GPA and MCAT minimums for Western doesn't guarantee an interview. 

No but it as close to it as anything every is in this game  They want to keep the door open just in case there is some other red flag kicking about they also have to deal with. 

[IMislove]

21 minutes ago, anonymouspanda said:

Just wanted to point out that meeting the GPA and MCAT minimums for Western doesn't guarantee an interview. 

My apologies, I was under that impression for a long time. Only thoughtnaybe a red flag reference or something would deter that. Or that their cut off was based on they get a set number to interview. Good to know thanks.

[Bluecan]

40 minutes ago, anonymouspanda said:

Just wanted to point out that meeting the GPA and MCAT minimums for Western doesn't guarantee an interview. 

What else factors into their decision? As far as I know, they do not look at the ABS. Are SWOMEN applicants guaranteed?

 

22 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

No but it as close to it as anything every is in this game  They want to keep the door open just in case there is some other red flag kicking about they also have to deal with. 

What constitutes a red flag?

[rmorelan]

18 minutes ago, IMislove said:

My apologies, I was under that impression for a long time. Only thoughtnaybe a red flag reference or something would deter that. Or that their cut off was based on they get a set number to interview. Good to know thanks.

....well that is the case It extremely rare for them to not to interview someone with the cut offs. The reason is simply the cut off was set specifically to create a set number of people eligible for the interview. 

[rmorelan]

Just now, Bluecan said:

What else factors into their decision? As far as I know, they do not look at the ABS. Are SWOMEN applicants guaranteed?

 

What constitutes a red flag?

well for starters a criminal background, history of violating privacy rules, history of cheating.......

[member_225]

Does being a francophone applicant give better odds at any of these schools (except for Ottawa which I know they do) ?

[Anon-e-mous]

3 hours ago, member_225 said:

Does being a francophone applicant give better odds at any of these schools (except for Ottawa which I know they do) ?

Yes, at NOSM 

Quote

Context is primarily based on your Canadian place(s) of residence of one (1) year or more. Advantage is given to those who have lived in Northern Ontario, rural and remote areas in the rest of Canada, and Indigenous and Francophone applicants. Link

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[Edict]

McMaster is cGPA - which means every single course is taking into account no grades dropped. This means it can be harder to recover from a bad start to first year for example. 

[anonymouspanda]

Also an update: Western now requires an abbreviated ABS. 

[Potentiate]

Do you think the MCAT requirements will decrease with the abbreviated ABS now being used?

I'm struggling to see how they would use both the abbreviated ABS as well as the MCAT cutoffs. 

[rmorelan]

3 minutes ago, Potentiate said:

Do you think the MCAT requirements will decrease with the abbreviated ABS not being used?

I'm struggling to see how they would use both the abbreviated ABS as well as the MCAT cutoffs. 

so is everyone else

I mean ok Western used the mcat and yeah GPA as a tool to basically cull the crowd down to the right size - exactly the right size in fact. Now they added something else. In theory that means either a) something has to be relaxed, so they won't get enough people to interview so either MCAT or GPA or both will have lower targets - most likely by far would be the MCAT, or b) the new ABS is designed to knock out just those very few people that have the cut offs but are completely devoid of anything else, and there just isn't enough of those to really need to adjust the remaining evaluation sections. c) they want to interview less people (also unlikely) 

 

[fitnessjunkie123]

On 6/28/2018 at 3:19 PM, HotAwkwardNerd said:

I got into Queen's with a 3.83 GPA just as some perspective but the higher the better because the cutoff is said to change from year to year. They also lower the GPA cutoff if you're applying with a Graduate Degree. 

Any idea as to whether this includes course-based graduate degrees?

[HotAwkwardNerd]

10 hours ago, fitnessjunkie123 said:

Any idea as to whether this includes course-based graduate degrees?

This is all Queen's says so you may want to email them directly. "Applicants who have completed a graduate degree and are slightly below the GPA minimum score will be reviewed on an individual basis by the Admissions Committee. Graduate applicants are however required to meet the minimum MCAT score."