Is the system fair?

[sorrynotsorry]

First I want to apologize for bringing up the issue. But as someone who has taken classes at multiple schools across the country, I want to bring it to UBC's attention (in case they see this) that the amount of effort it takes to obtain a certain GPA is NOT the same depending on where you go. I went to U of T life science for undergrad and ended up with an OK cGPA (but definitely below med school standard) and a 98%ile MCAT. I have then taken upper year undergrad classes at 3 other major Canadian universities (which i am not going to name because it is not my point). The discrepancy that I noticed in terms of content density and exam difficulty between these schools really shocked me. I would say the same amount time I spent to get an A+ in these schools would probably get me a C+/B- at U of T. Now I am perfectly aware that it is extremely difficult to standardize GPA and there is no perfect system, but at the same time I really don't think students should be "penalized" for what they choose to study and where they choose to attend undergrad. 

I would love to hear what you guys think, and whether or not UBC is making any effort to account for the potential "differences"?

* This is all my personal opinion from my personal experience, so I apologize in advance if a similar topic has been discussed before. I also do NOT think one school better prepares someone for medicine than another. I am only concerned about the admission process at UBC (and other schools in the country). 

 

[offmychestplease]

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[Dr. Tenma]

Yeah not all GPAs are the same depending on school and program difficulty. I don't think UBC accounts for the differences, they've stated this that it doesn't matter where you come from or what degree you were in.

On a side note:

Coming from SFU, 3.80 converted to UBC's 85%. But UBC dentistry used UBC's standard scale and my GPA was in the lower 80%s. I could never get an interview at UBC dentistry despite good DAT scores. Thankfully the medical school has a custom scale that is more fair imo. But its still not completely fair. Someone from SFU can only ever get a maximum of 95% at UBC with an A+ where as a UBC student can get higher. Someone from a school that had a 4.00 GPA scale can only ever get 92% as a maximum at UBC. It's not fair but I don't know how else they can do it. The OMSAS scale is even worse IMO. All my A+s automatically get converted to As so 4.33 grades become 4.00 grades. That destroys my GPA and it's really unfair.

tl/dr: No.

[sorrynotsorry]

6 minutes ago, offmychestplease said:

no one forced you to go to UOfT

I attended UofT as an international student, with absolutely no idea about how it is going to affect my future career. I chose UofT mostly because of its location. But I see your point  

[helicase]

UBC is definitely aware of this, it comes up probably annually that in-province schools like SFU and other schools nation-wide that don't use percentages end up with the lowest possible grade conversion. The impression I got from listening to UBC med reps is that they don't think it affects people enough to change it-- and essentially you could have gone to UBC for undergrad :/ Definitely frustrating.

[offmychestplease]

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[sorrynotsorry]

32 minutes ago, offmychestplease said:

there are literally like 5 other universities in downtown GTA and area with easier grading that many people choose to have higher chances to get into med/dent/etc. 

I am not trying to defend my choice to attend UofT,  but I would like to point out a couple things that you might not have experienced unless you are an international student. 

- Before coming to Canada, I did not have a lot of resources to fully evaluate the potential difficulty of all the programs in Toronto.  It is a privilege to have access to such resources. Many foreign sites were banned in my home country for example. If I had access to PM101 back when I was in high school,  I would probably not have attended UofT.

-This might sound silly, but as an international student, my annual tuition was like 50k, combined with the fact that I mentioned above, I chose U of T because it was supposed to offer the best possible education as compared to other schools in the area. Tho this is not necessarily true, but it is the conclusion that I came to with the limited resources I had access to at the time. 

- I was not sure if I wanted to go to medical school till my second year, by then the damage has already been done. GPA in my first 2 years were much lower than my junior and senior year.

Now you could argue that I could have transferred after my first year. I did not, so it is partially my "fault" I agree.    

 

[DrOtter]

19 minutes ago, sorrynotsorry said:

I am not trying to defend my choice to attend UofT,  but I would like to point out a couple things that you might not have experienced unless you are an international student. 

- Before coming to Canada, I did not have a lot of resources to fully evaluate the potential difficulty of all the programs in Toronto.  It is a privilege to have access to such resources. Many foreign sites were banned in my home country for example. If I had access to PM101 back when I was in high school,  I would probably not have attended UofT.

-This might sound silly, but as an international student, my annual tuition was like 50k, combined with the fact that I mentioned above, I chose U of T because it was supposed to offer the best possible education as compared to other schools in the area. Tho this is not necessarily true, but it is the conclusion that I came to with the limited resources I had access to at the time. 

- I was not sure if I wanted to go to medical school till my second year, by then the damage has already been done. GPA in my first 2 years were much lower than my junior and senior year.

Now you could argue that I could have transferred after my first year. I did not, so it is partially my "fault" I agree.    

 

Are you a BC resident by any chance? Otherwise the odds of you getting in as an OOP at UBC are very tough even with a 90%+ GPA and stellar MCAT because they have massive IP preferences. Ontarian schools have different weighting strategies that might benefit you a bit more and so does McGill (they adjust for program difficulties). Also with your MCAT,  you should try applying to USask.

With that said, unless you're taking courses at different universities all at the same time, it's hard to compare the amount of effort put in. I, for example, went to a "mid/low-tier" university in Ontario here and only managed to mostly As in my 4th year courses yet I got a 100th percentile on the MCAT. The skills required to succeed in courses at different unis and the MCAT might just be different TBH.

[sorrynotsorry]

23 minutes ago, DrOtter said:

Are you a BC resident by any chance? Otherwise the odds of you getting in as an OOP at UBC are very tough even with a 90%+ GPA and stellar MCAT because they have massive IP preferences. Ontarian schools have different weighting strategies that might benefit you a bit more and so does McGill (they adjust for program difficulties). Also with your MCAT,  you should try applying to USask.

With that said, unless you're taking courses at different universities all at the same time, it's hard to compare the amount of effort put in. I, for example, went to a "mid/low-tier" university in Ontario here and only managed to mostly As in my 4th year courses yet I got a 100th percentile on the MCAT. The skills required to succeed in courses at different unis and the MCAT might just be different TBH.

Hi DrOtter,

I work in BC and I am a BC resident. I thought USask had a 95 percentile OOP cutoff for CARS? I have a 126 in CARS (being ESL sucks), so I am not sure if I will be eligible. I see your point, thank you for your suggestions! 

[zxcccxz]

I think some of you are missing the point that OP is making. Obviously noone forced them to attend UofT, but this evades the problem of fairness which was the purpose of the post. If we get credit for taking a heavier/full course load in the form of wGPAs, if schools like to see that we can handle doing extracurriculars/volunteering on top of being in school rather than only doing them in the summer, and if they want your to maintain your ECs during the summer you write your MCAT or give you credit for having a part-time job during the school year--why not also give credit for having a tougher program?

To address the question directly, the problem is that academics is not all that makes a doctor. Yes, UofT Life Science is a very tough program. But grades only really matter up to a certain point because really you just need enough intelligence and work ethic to pass your courses in med school. Beyond that, there are many other clinical and soft skills that make a much bigger difference towards the ultimate goal of making you a good physician (this is one of the reasons so many schools empahasize CARS). If schools start giving significant credit for completing tougher programs, they would be overemphasizing the importance of attending an unnecessarily difficult program that doesn't necessarily prepare you to be a doctor any better than someone who attended a less rigorous program (ex: if the goal of a course is to teach you algebra, should we give someone extra credit for knowing how to do multi-variable calculus?; not really, we should just give credit for mastering algebra really well). Even if schools were to give some small credit for tougher programs (and to be fair, UofC does do this as part of this "global assessment of academic merit"), it would only be marginal, and lets be honest, the difference between a 3.93 and 3.95 GPA often comes down to luck more so than any replicable difference in the academic abilities of two individuals. 

My view is that, the intense rigour of UofT Life Science is unnecessarily difficult. Perhaps it is useful for grad school, which is really what the UofT Life Sci program is designed to prepare you for (I personally know at least a dozen people from UofT Life Sci who got into prestigious instutions like LSE, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, UPenn, and JHU for grad school). But if it's any comfort, I have many friends in med school now who graduated from UofT Life Science, and they all find med to be a breeze. Most say it's a 1/3 to 1/2 easier than undergrad for them, and anecdotally, I've heard that students from grade-inflated programs like Mac Health Sci do struggle to adapt to medical school. So perhaps if you do get into med school, you'll be in a great position to succeed. 

[sorrynotsorry]

29 minutes ago, zxcccxz said:

I think some of you are missing the point that OP is making. Obviously noone forced them to attend UofT, but this evades the problem of fairness which was the purpose of the post. If we get credit for taking a heavier/full course load in the form of wGPAs, if schools like to see that we can handle doing extracurriculars/volunteering on top of being in school rather than only doing them in the summer, and if they want your to maintain your ECs during the summer your write your MCAT or give you credit for having a part-time job during the school year--why not also give credit for having a tougher program?

To address the question directly, the problem is that academics is not all that makes a doctor. Yes, UofT Life Science is a very tough program. But grades only really matter up to a certain point because really you just need enough intelligence and work ethic to pass your courses in med school. Beyond that, there are many other clinical and soft skills that make a much bigger difference towards the ultimate goal of making you a good physician (this is one of the reasons so many schools empahasize CARS). Even if schools were to give some small credit for tougher programs (and to be fair, UofC does do this as part of this "global assessment of academic merit"), it would only be marginal, and lets be honest, the difference between a 3.93 and 3.95 GPA often comes down to luck more so than any replicable difference in the academic abilities of two individuals.

My view is that, the intense rigour of UofT Life Science is unnecessarily difficult. Perhaps it is useful for grad school, which is really what the UofT Life Sci program is designed to prepare you for (I personally know at least a dozen people from UofT Life Sci who got into prestigious instutions like LSE, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, UPenn, and JHU for grad school). But if it's any comfort, I have many friends in med school now who graduated from UofT Life Science, and they all find med to be a breeze. Most say it's a 1/3 to 1/2 easier than undergrad for them, and anecdotally, I've heard that students from grade-inflated programs like Mac Health Sci do struggle to adapt to medical school. So perhaps if you do get into med school, you'll be in a great position to succeed. 

Thank you zxcccxz. That is exactly what I meant to ask. I heard the same thing from a couple friends that did manage to get into med school that it was actually easier than undergrad. Tho I often get frustrated for making "bad choices", especially since AQ score is automatically calculated at UBC. Thank you for the assurance. I will keep trying until it works out! 

[youbesee]

22 minutes ago, zxcccxz said:

But if it's any comfort, I have many friends in med school now who graduated from UofT Life Science, and they all find med to be a breeze. Most say it's a 1/3 to 1/2 easier than undergrad for them, and anecdotally, I've heard that students from grade-inflated programs like Mac Health Sci do struggle to adapt to medical school. So perhaps if you do get into med school, you'll be in a great position to succeed. 

Perhaps those who were capable of getting competitive grades in harder programs are likely stronger students overall compared to an average student in an easier program.

[TheFlyGuy]

  

33 minutes ago, zxcccxz said:

I think some of you are missing the point that OP is making. Obviously noone forced them to attend UofT, but this evades the problem of fairness which was the purpose of the post. If we get credit for taking a heavier/full course load in the form of wGPAs, if schools like to see that we can handle doing extracurriculars/volunteering on top of being in school rather than only doing them in the summer, and if they want your to maintain your ECs during the summer your write your MCAT or give you credit for having a part-time job during the school year--why not also give credit for having a tougher program?

To address the question directly, the problem is that academics is not all that makes a doctor. Yes, UofT Life Science is a very tough program. But grades only really matter up to a certain point because really you just need enough intelligence and work ethic to pass your courses in med school. Beyond that, there are many other clinical and soft skills that make a much bigger difference towards the ultimate goal of making you a good physician (this is one of the reasons so many schools empahasize CARS). Even if schools were to give some small credit for tougher programs (and to be fair, UofC does do this as part of this "global assessment of academic merit"), it would only be marginal, and lets be honest, the difference between a 3.93 and 3.95 GPA often comes down to luck more so than any replicable difference in the academic abilities of two individuals.

My view is that, the intense rigour of UofT Life Science is unnecessarily difficult. Perhaps it is useful for grad school, which is really what the UofT Life Sci program is designed to prepare you for (I personally know at least a dozen people from UofT Life Sci who got into prestigious instutions like LSE, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, UPenn, and JHU for grad school). But if it's any comfort, I have many friends in med school now who graduated from UofT Life Science, and they all find med to be a breeze. Most say it's a 1/3 to 1/2 easier than undergrad for them, and anecdotally, I've heard that students from grade-inflated programs like Mac Health Sci do struggle to adapt to medical school. So perhaps if you do get into med school, you'll be in a great position to succeed. 

This is a great summary, and exactly how I feel in my experience with the Canadian (mostly Ontario) system, couldn't have put it any better! Hang in there OP, it seems like you've got the right attitude to succeed and with enough perseverance you'll make it. Good luck!

[destiny deoxys]

In my opinion, the prof who teach a class makes all the difference not the university you attend  I could have gotten a  hell of a ride if I would’t have selected my prof through rating/feedback

[rmorelan]

this is actually a pretty big problem really - and even on the Ontario government for instance was trying to block. They wanted all core programs to have basically interchangable courses - so people could transfer much more freely between the various schools. Makes sense form a policy point of view. 

As other pointed out there is even outside of that a broader issue with evaluation - we have grafted our medical school evaluation systems on top of another system which serves a different purpose (and even that purpose is suspect in the year 2020). University programs were designed to get people to learn a set of relatively general knowledge initially and then advance towards graduate studies. Most of the time people don't do either - the undergraduate programs are used to either seek directly a job in something that uses a fraction of the skills learned, or as a mere stepping stone to the real education (of which often we are taking about a professional school of some kind). If the goal of the school is to prepare you for say grad studies than their difference make more sense. For what we are doing not so much. The price we pay for continuously adding on to a now primitive education system which ironically is supposed help us advance at the highest levels. 

So yes it isn't fair. It isn't fair that people working harder and achieving more in one place is evaluated to be less than someone somewhere doing the same or even not as much. It is isn't fair that ultimately what we are making you do is choose to optimize for a subsequent degree in what you really want (like medicine etc.), or obtain what effectively a better education (university is supposed to be hard, and push you to think and learn in new ways to expand your sense of the world and yourself. It should never punish you for doing that). It annoys me that those two things will always be at odds in our current system. 

 

[sorrynotsorry]

8 minutes ago, destiny deoxys said:

In my opinion, the prof who teach a class makes all the difference not the university you attend  I could have gotten a  hell of a ride if I would’t have selected my prof through rating/feedback

I agree with you. Tho I would argue that both the instructor and the university are factors that could make a difference from my personal experience. 

[zxcccxz]

13 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

It is isn't fair that ultimately what we are making you do is choose to optimize for a subsequent degree in what you really want (like medicine etc.), or obtain what effectively a better education (university is supposed to be hard, and push you to think and learn in new ways to expand your sense of the world and yourself. It should never punish you for doing that). It annoys me that those two things will always be at odds in our current system. 

 

This is a great point. I personally get very annoyed when people continually post on this forum or ask me IRL what the "easiest" program is to give them the golden ticket to med school--it's really such a counterproductive mindset to have, and makes me question whether I would like to have them as a colleague in the future. I have nothing against anyone who chooses a satellite campus because they want to be closer to home, or to go to a less prestigious university because they like a program there or feel the community is a better fit for them. But many people think "Courses are easier at the Missisauga campus of UofT compared to the main campus and I will be able to stand out more in my class", and make it their main reason for avoiding a challenge--it's really tantamount to saying, "I think I'm incapable of succeeding except in an environment where I will never be challenged and where I feel everyone is comfortably dumber than me".

I don't know if it's actually true that going to an "easier" university makes it easier to get into medical school. I barely know anyone who go into med school from places like Trent or Brock, while there are loads of people coming out of big unis like UofT, UBC, and UofC, but of course the student body at these unis is so much larger and attracts much smarter students... so it's really hard to say.

[BingBop]

38 minutes ago, zxcccxz said:

I don't know if it's actually true that going to an "easier" university makes it easier to get into medical school. I barely know anyone who go into med school from places like Trent or Brock, while there are loads of people coming out of big unis like UofT, UBC, and UofC, but of course the student body at these unis is so much larger and attracts much smarter students... so it's really hard to say.

Yeah, I went to an "easier" university that isn't known for its science program in the slightest. Many of my classmates just didn't give the slightest of shits about doing well in their courses. Working as an Instructor's Assistant and marking student work was incredibly eye-opening... like half of the kids barely even did the assignments. I don't know if the courses were that much easier necessarily, but I do think you have more opportunities when half your class couldn't care less.

For example, like eight people from my program applied for the NSERC USRA... lol. I've heard that hundreds apply at Western. I never once had a test negatively bell curved... but is that actually a thing at other schools? My more reasonable professors would actually often curve the test upward by removing questions that a majority of the class did poorly on, and show us the graphical distributions of answers to justify it. Generally they would make it so that their adjustments could only make your mark go up or stay the same, not go down. 

I've told every premed I can that going to a prestigious school isn't worth it if you're trying to apply for medical school. You put in more work for basically no reason. It's unfortunate that these things aren't spoken about more honestly for high school students. Luckily for me, i just kind of stumbled into my university because I liked the campus and it ended up turning out great. 

In the same breath though, the more prestigious schools generally have better co-op programs. So it does balance it out in some ways if you manage to land a good job. Two of the doctors I have worked for solely hire co-op students from UWaterloo. One of the doctors was across the country in BC, but UWaterloo has that much clout. 

Like many premeds, both of those jobs I landed through connections. So right off the bat, the answer to your question of whether the system is fair is an astounding no. 

[sorrynotsorry]

18 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

It should never punish you for doing that). It annoys me that those two things will always be at odds in our current system. 

 

Thank you, this is something that I wanted to say but too scared to, as it is commonly interpreted as finding excuses for bad grades. I really wish the schools could make changes to address the issue so that students could ACTUALLY study whatever and wherever they want, as the schools all presently claim. 

[rmorelan]

3 minutes ago, sorrynotsorry said:

Thank you, this is something that I wanted to say but too scared to, as it is commonly interpreted as finding excuses for bad grades. I really wish the schools could make changes to address the issue so that students could ACTUALLY study whatever and wherever they want, as the schools all presently claim. 

like it or not the medical system did actually try that with the MCAT - in the end we are talking about some form of standardization of evaluation or at least equalization in some fashion. Its a hard problem, and the MCAT introduces issues of its own mind you. 

 

[justdoingmybest]

On 6/16/2020 at 12:29 PM, offmychestplease said:

no one forced you to go to UOfT

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[rmorelan]

33 minutes ago, zxcccxz said:

This is a great point. I personally get very annoyed when people continually post on this forum or ask me IRL what the "easiest" program is to give them the golden ticket to med school--it's really such a counterproductive mindset to have, and makes me question whether I would like to have them as a colleague in the future. I have nothing against anyone who chooses a satellite campus because they want to be closer to home, or to go to a less prestigious university because they like a program there or feel the community is a better fit for them. But many people think "Courses are easier at the Missisauga campus of UofT compared to the main campus and I will be able to stand out more in my class", and make it their main reason for avoiding a challenge--it's really tantamount to saying, "I think I'm incapable of succeeding except in an environment where I will never be challenged and where I feel everyone is comfortably dumber than me".

I don't know if it's actually true that going to an "easier" university makes it easier to get into medical school. I barely know anyone who go into med school from places like Trent or Brock, while there are loads of people coming out of big unis like UofT, UBC, and UofC, but of course the student body at these unis is so much larger and attracts much smarter students... so it's really hard to say.

very confusing topic

I mean often more academically minded people will seek out places that have this reputation and those people may have medical plans. You have a bias before you even start medical training. 

 

[rmorelan]

37 minutes ago, burneraccount909 said:

This. I did my undergrad in mechanical engineering in a co-op program where you had to get a 3.2 GPA or higher in your 1st year to get in (average GPA was around a 3.5 for the cohort I was in). Even with this knowledge, the professors didn't curve anything to a 3.5 - it was usually closer to a 3-3.2 (with a few classes curved to a 2.0 where half of the class failed). Most of us took a pretty severe hit because of it. 

Am I complaining? No. That was my choice to go into that program - I could have very easily switched to a different program after deciding to go full steam on trying to get into med in year 2. But I decided to stay, and I had to accept the GPA hit because of it. I also think it's an impossible task to fully account for all of the differences between programs in difficulty, and trying to do so would probably add more problems than it would fix. 

Also OP, a lower GPA isn't the end of the world. I know plenty of people (myself included) who got in this year with a lower GPA.

right but what is the limitation of that to the medical profession as a whole? Simply put we have extremely few engineers, or related branches (like me a computer scientist). That is a problem, particularly since the future of medicine is very much so interconnected with the future or engineering systems, or advanced computer technology. 

Stick 100 biology majors in a room and well you probably get particular solutions to problems. Stick just one person with a different point of view in there (say an engineer)? The result is not a linear increase in solutions - the combination is more powerful than the sum of its parts. I see that every day on a professional level.

In your case you made a choice sure and you have to respect individual choices. yet we are aware that applying any form of global pressure against something and you skew the results and almost always for the worse. That would be ok if for some reason say in this case getting a whatever on average in engineering served a purpose - there was some reason for it and it achieved some end at least relative to other fields. There isn't a clear reason though, and that is the problem. A large group of people are being excluded due to effectively a form of bias. 

 

[justdoingmybest]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:48 PM, rmorelan said:

right but what is the limitation of that to the medical profession as a whole? Simply put we have extremely few engineers, or related branches (like me a computer scientist). That is a problem, particularly since the future of medicine is very much so interconnected with the future or engineering systems, or advanced computer technology. 

Stick 100 biology majors in a room and well you probably get particular solutions to problems. Stick just one person with a different point of view in there (say an engineer)? The result is not a linear increase in solutions - the combination is more powerful than the sum of its parts. I see that every day on a professional level.

In your case you made a choice sure and you have to respect individual choices. yet we are aware that applying any form of global pressure against something and you skew the results and almost always for the worse. That would be ok if for some reason say in this case getting a whatever on average in engineering served a purpose - there was some reason for it and it achieved some end at least relative to other fields. There isn't a clear reason though, and that is the problem. A large group of people are being excluded due to effectively a form of bias. 

 

-

[petitmonstre111]

4 hours ago, sorrynotsorry said:

First I want to apologize for bringing up the issue. But as someone who has taken classes at multiple schools across the country, I want to bring it to UBC's attention (in case they see this) that the amount of effort it takes to obtain a certain GPA is NOT the same depending on where you go. I went to U of T life science for undergrad and ended up with an OK cGPA (but definitely below med school standard) and a 98%ile MCAT. I have then taken upper year undergrad classes at 3 other major Canadian universities (which i am not going to name because it is not my point). The discrepancy that I noticed in terms of content density and exam difficulty between these schools really shocked me. I would say the same amount time I spent to get an A+ in these schools would probably get me a C+/B- at U of T. Now I am perfectly aware that it is extremely difficult to standardize GPA and there is no perfect system, but at the same time I really don't think students should be "penalized" for what they choose to study and where they choose to attend undergrad. 

I would love to hear what you guys think, and whether or not UBC is making any effort to account for the potential "differences"?

* This is all my personal opinion from my personal experience, so I apologize in advance if a similar topic has been discussed before. I also do NOT think one school better prepares someone for medicine than another. I am only concerned about the admission process at UBC (and other schools in the country). 

 

OP, I'm sorry you got some incentive reactions. Your point is valid, regardless of your own personal experience with this (which in your case, worked against you). "No one forced you to go to UofT" is besides the point. There is a well known problem of grade inflation, and massive variations in programs difficulty across institutions. I'm actually quite disappointed with what I am seeing in this thread, and the very little empathy that is shown.

Also, why do we assume that someone SHOULD have know they are gunning for med and therefore arrange their entire undergrad career for this sole purpose... this is not the case for everyone, and frankly, I don't think this is something that should be encouraged either...