Second Year SFU student to UBC - worth it?

[doctorinprogress]

Hey guys, hope everyone's doing well!

I'm currently in a dilemma and thought to ask premed 101 for advice. I'm currently an SFU student entering second year. My question is, whether staying at SFU will put me at a disadvantage when applying to Canadian med schools. I have heard many people say this is not true, and also many people saying it is and that I should transfer out of SFU as soon as possible due to the different style of grading in classes (when compared to UBC classes for example). I applied to UBC and got accepted, however, many of my credits did not transfer over to specific courses, only as electives. I've been in talks with my advisors who said that I will need to redo a bunch of courses for my major (which will put me at first-year standing again). Basically, transferring to UBC is proving to be a hassle. However, because of the lower GPA I may have if I apply to UBC med from SFU, I am wondering if the hassle will be worth it down the road. If anyone could provide some advice during this time, I would really appreciate it!! My advisors have not been super helpful and I have no sense of certainty. 

Thanks in advance!

*I know this has been asked before but the questions were a couple years old and not sure whether the answers still really apply. 

[youbesee]

The reality is somewhere in between. If you are looking only at the raw numbers, then yes UBC will scale your grade down. They do this by taking your letter grades and converting them into percentages as follows: https://med-fom-ugrad.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2012/08/ADM_grade_conversion_tables.pdf

This effectively caps your max grade at 95%, and these conversions are typically on the lower end of the equivalent range that SFU uses. You can likewise check the OMSAS grade conversion table for Ontario schools.

On the other hand, it is hard to say that getting the same percentage grade at UBC is equally difficult. Perhaps getting a 90% at UBC is as difficult as getting a 95% at SFU. This is just speculation however.

Overall, if you are a very strong student who is confident in your ability to perform at UBC, then perhaps it is worth it, but I feel it won't make a huge difference for many students.

[n-methyltyramine]

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[hopefully2020]

I'm from UBC. Depending on your major, most of your required science courses will have average between 80-70, very few above 80. It can be very challenging to achieve high gpa

[UbcSci2]

On 7/2/2020 at 7:49 PM, hopefully2020 said:

I'm from UBC. Depending on your major, most of your required science courses will have average between 80-70, very few above 80. It can be very challenging to achieve high gpa

Do you mean the class averages are 70-80%? I would say high 60s to mid 70s usually. Didn't see an 80 average till 4th year for required courses.

 

And that shouldn't mean you can't obtain a high grade. The distributions for these classes can still be very broad. 20% of the class can get >90 and another 20% <65