Grad applicant - my chances?

[oystergem]

Hi everyone. 

I have plans of applying to medical school as a grad applicant but I feel that I don't have the best odds of getting accepted. My cGPA is around 3.54, and I'm not automatically eligible for wGPA and I will write the AEE. Given if they grant partial wGPA, my marks come up to around 3.74. I feel hopeless. This is literally all I'm thinking about, day and night. I'm trying my best, have scheduled to write the mcat in the next few months and on top of that, during this period, I have to finish my graduate thesis. 

My focus on what my future and my career is going to look like has overwhelmed my sense of self-esteem.I know feeling pessimistic about the process, especially when preparing for the mcat is the worst thing I could do and makes everything tenfold harder. I appreciate any advice you have for me.

 

[SnowmanTheSWOMEN]

@RiderSx is your man. He got in this year with a 3.6 GPA I believe. 

[scoobydoo1623]

2 hours ago, oystergem said:

Hi everyone. 

I have plans of applying to medical school as a grad applicant but I feel that I don't have the best odds of getting accepted. My cGPA is around 3.54, and I'm not automatically eligible for wGPA and I will write the AEE. Given if they grant partial wGPA, my marks come up to around 3.74. I feel hopeless. This is literally all I'm thinking about, day and night. I'm trying my best, have scheduled to write the mcat in the next few months and on top of that, during this period, I have to finish my graduate thesis. 

My focus on what my future and my career is going to look like has overwhelmed my sense of self-esteem.I know feeling pessimistic about the process, especially when preparing for the mcat is the worst thing I could do and makes everything tenfold harder. I appreciate any advice you have for me.

 

Do you expect to have publications or conference presentations? This may help you alot. 

 

Are you defending this year?

[bruh]

3 hours ago, oystergem said:

Hi everyone. 

I have plans of applying to medical school as a grad applicant but I feel that I don't have the best odds of getting accepted. My cGPA is around 3.54, and I'm not automatically eligible for wGPA and I will write the AEE. Given if they grant partial wGPA, my marks come up to around 3.74. I feel hopeless. This is literally all I'm thinking about, day and night. I'm trying my best, have scheduled to write the mcat in the next few months and on top of that, during this period, I have to finish my graduate thesis. 

My focus on what my future and my career is going to look like has overwhelmed my sense of self-esteem.I know feeling pessimistic about the process, especially when preparing for the mcat is the worst thing I could do and makes everything tenfold harder. I appreciate any advice you have for me.

 

 

2 hours ago, HeyMrSnowman said:

@RiderSx is your man. He got in this year with a 3.6 GPA I believe. 

That’s true! I got in this year with a 3.60 cGPA as an undergrad - the minimum GPA possible for undergraduate applicants to apply to UofT with. I submitted the AEE and I believe they took it into account. My wGPA should be around 3.90-3.91 depending on how many courses they dropped.

 

As a grad applicant, you definitely have some advantage over UG applicants so you may have a chance even with a 3.7. They might even grant you a full wGPA consideration. Either way, it’s definitely possible. I have grad friends who got in with low 3.8s and other grad friends who didn’t even get an interview with a 4.0! 
 

This was my 3rd cycle and I was also feeling so overwhelmed from past failures. I wrote the MCAT 3 times, first attempt being a 494, and 2nd attempt being 503. I almost gave up and I thought I wasn’t good enough to get into med school. Studying the third time for the MCAT with that pressure was immensely demoralizing, but I persevered anyways and I was able to get a 510 on my 3rd attempt and ultimately get accepted to my dream med school this year. The process is not fair or easy, and sometimes you feel like this dream is so out of reach. But continue to persevere and you will see how it is so worth the effort in the end. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!

[oystergem]

20 hours ago, RiderSx said:

 

That’s true! I got in this year with a 3.60 cGPA as an undergrad - the minimum GPA possible for undergraduate applicants to apply to UofT with. I submitted the AEE and I believe they took it into account. My wGPA should be around 3.90-3.91 depending on how many courses they dropped.

 

As a grad applicant, you definitely have some advantage over UG applicants so you may have a chance even with a 3.7. They might even grant you a full wGPA consideration. Either way, it’s definitely possible. I have grad friends who got in with low 3.8s and other grad friends who didn’t even get an interview with a 4.0! 
 

This was my 3rd cycle and I was also feeling so overwhelmed from past failures. I wrote the MCAT 3 times, first attempt being a 494, and 2nd attempt being 503. I almost gave up and I thought I wasn’t good enough to get into med school. Studying the third time for the MCAT with that pressure was immensely demoralizing, but I persevered anyways and I was able to get a 510 on my 3rd attempt and ultimately get accepted to my dream med school this year. The process is not fair or easy, and sometimes you feel like this dream is so out of reach. But continue to persevere and you will see how it is so worth the effort in the end. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!

Hello! I'm new to this website, I'm not sure how to tag commenters, @RiderSx. Hope you can see this

Apart from us being in different applicant pools, you in undergrad and me in the grad one, assuming they accepted your AEE and took your wGPA into account makes sense as its relatively pretty high. In my case, even if they do accept my AEE partially it will only get up to 3.69 if I've done my calculations right. If they grant a full weighting, it gets to 3.73. I have an intuitive feeling that the cut off for the grad pool will likely be around low 3.8s, and if it happens to be that, my file would then not get reviewed. What do you think? That's my worst nightmare.. I really want to get a full file review. I've written the essays before and I'm confident in doing a good job on them. 

If I can get in touch with some of your grad friends who have gotten in that'd be great.

I'm happy you finally got to where you needed your MCAT to be. I completely agree, I'm now studying for my second re-write and just going through the process again is definitely demoralizing. Last time I didn't have the best studying conditions for it, and I don't really know what to say about this time round with my grad commitments. But it is what it is and I need to make the most of it. 

 

 

[wakedywack]

Very similar situation as you! Got around 3.55cGPA with a 3.68wGPA. I had a stretch from 1st year to second year where I did absolutely terrible.

 

It sucks because I know if they don't cut off my GPA I'd be a fairly strong candidate as I have multiple publications/research and did come from a somewhat unconventional field where getting marks is pretty hard on its own (engineering). I'm not sure if they have a strict cut off after their initial 3.0 one but I wish us all the best. On their website they said 3.7 so if they do grant you AEE, you may be good though, so don't lose hope!

[oystergem]

5 hours ago, wakedywack said:

Very similar situation as you! Got around 3.55cGPA with a 3.68wGPA. I had a stretch from 1st year to second year where I did absolutely terrible.

 

It sucks because I know if they don't cut off my GPA I'd be a fairly strong candidate as I have multiple publications/research and did come from a somewhat unconventional field where getting marks is pretty hard on its own (engineering). I'm not sure if they have a strict cut off after their initial 3.0 one but I wish us all the best. On their website they said 3.7 so if they do grant you AEE, you may be good though, so don't lose hope!

Yes very similar! @wakedywack

Just curious so you're a grad applicant? Masters or PhD?

Thats the thing! What I'm questioning is the cut off after the 3.0 initial one.

[wakedywack]

14 hours ago, oystergem said:

Yes very similar! @wakedywack

Just curious so you're a grad applicant? Masters or PhD?

Thats the thing! What I'm questioning is the cut off after the 3.0 initial one.

Yeah I am! I'm an MASc candidate in Biomedical Engineering! My thesis and research in general is very medical focused (biophysiological signals) .

 

Yeahh, if they look at every application after the 3.0 one I feel like I would be worth an interview, if they cut at 3.7 I'm done  . I think I'll write the AEE anyways, even though I did take 5-6 courses per sem (qualifying for wGPA). There was a stretch from 1st year to second year where I literally got a 2.8 GPA because i couldn't focus on school due to personal reasons. Hopefully they take those into account!

[Neurostudent]

On 5/14/2020 at 3:28 PM, oystergem said:

Hi everyone. 

I have plans of applying to medical school as a grad applicant but I feel that I don't have the best odds of getting accepted. My cGPA is around 3.54, and I'm not automatically eligible for wGPA and I will write the AEE. Given if they grant partial wGPA, my marks come up to around 3.74. I feel hopeless. This is literally all I'm thinking about, day and night. I'm trying my best, have scheduled to write the mcat in the next few months and on top of that, during this period, I have to finish my graduate thesis. 

My focus on what my future and my career is going to look like has overwhelmed my sense of self-esteem.I know feeling pessimistic about the process, especially when preparing for the mcat is the worst thing I could do and makes everything tenfold harder. I appreciate any advice you have for me.

 

@oystergem

Hi ! We litteraly have the same concern!

I'm a graduate student too (currently finishing my master thesis + writting a paper as 1st author as well as studying for the MCAT for the first time... really overwhelming)! 

I'm not really familiar so whats the difference between wGPA and cGPA ? How can you calculate your GPA for toronto?

I have the same concern. I'm a grad student, with very good EC but my GPA is not the best ! 

Wish you the best of luck and hopefully we'll both be admitted ! I heard that U of T is less strict with grades when you have very good EC and are grad student so lets hope that it is true :/ 

 

[oystergem]

2 hours ago, Neurostudent said:

@oystergem

Hi ! We litteraly have the same concern!

I'm a graduate student too (currently finishing my master thesis + writting a paper as 1st author as well as studying for the MCAT for the first time... really overwhelming)! 

I'm not really familiar so whats the difference between wGPA and cGPA ? How can you calculate your GPA for toronto?

I have the same concern. I'm a grad student, with very good EC but my GPA is not the best ! 

Wish you the best of luck and hopefully we'll both be admitted ! I heard that U of T is less strict with grades when you have very good EC and are grad student so lets hope that it is true :/ 

 

Hi @Neurostudent  Oh wow we're exactly in the same situation right now.

So wGPA stands for 'weighted GPA'.  You can find more info on UofT Med website, basically they've stated the following: If you have completed every year of your undergraduate studies on a full-time basis with a full-course load i.e. five full course equivalents (FCEs), in the regular academic session (September-April), we will automatically apply the wGPA formula.  The wGPA removes one FCE grade(s) for each year of study from your GPA."

Thank you! Fingers crossed 

[Neurostudent]

27 minutes ago, oystergem said:

Hi @Neurostudent  Oh wow we're exactly in the same situation right now.

So wGPA stands for 'weighted GPA'.  You can find more info on UofT Med website, basically they've stated the following: If you have completed every year of your undergraduate studies on a full-time basis with a full-course load i.e. five full course equivalents (FCEs), in the regular academic session (September-April), we will automatically apply the wGPA formula.  The wGPA removes one FCE grade(s) for each year of study from your GPA."

Thank you! Fingers crossed 

Woww thats great ! I will definitely look into that thanks ! Do you have to request to be evaluated with your wGPA ?

Thanks

[ninjabro]

Publications will definitely help you as UofT seems to heavily reward research experience. 

[oystergem]

On 5/16/2020 at 9:00 PM, Neurostudent said:

Woww thats great ! I will definitely look into that thanks ! Do you have to request to be evaluated with your wGPA ?

Thanks

From my understanding, @Neurostudent 

If you automatically qualify for the weighting formula, there's no need for a request. Requests are usually only done if the applicant isn't eligible for the wGPA like when they haven't taken a full-course load in their undergrad years