Will a C+ hinder my chances for McGill med?

[TheHopefulMD]

Hey guys! I recently got a 69% in organic chem I, which at my university is considered a C+. I was wondering if I would still have any chances for McGill med with a C+ on my transcript. I'll be applying through the QC university stream and I know it's a pretty competitive stream so I was wondering if I still had any chances or if I should perhaps repeat the course maybe? Thanks for helping me guys!

[hopefulpremed98]

They don’t look at individual class grades. They look at your overall gpa. So yes you still have a chance. It’s not ideal as it lowers your gpa but you’re not going to be rejected because of a c+

[fluffybunnyyyyy]

Hey! I applied to McGill Dent last cycle with a C+  in one of my electives (ya i know i should have pass/failed it) a while back in first year and was admitted! That one C+ really only lowered my cGPA by 0.01-0.02 (confirmed when I entered my all my grades into mcgill's excel sheet) because I had enough A's to offset it. It stings, but keep pushing forward! feel free to ask me questions if you need!  

[SpeedyPotato]

16 hours ago, TheHopefulMD said:

Hey guys! I recently got a 69% in organic chem I, which at my university is considered a C+. I was wondering if I would still have any chances for McGill med with a C+ on my transcript. I'll be applying through the QC university stream and I know it's a pretty competitive stream so I was wondering if I still had any chances or if I should perhaps repeat the course maybe? Thanks for helping me guys!

Hey! So the thing is, per say no it shouldn't if you have good grades in other classes. Thing is, though, Organic Chem is also one of the classes that counts as a one of the prerequisite classes (unless things have changed since I got in). You average for prereqs doesn't really matter pre interview, but it accounts for 30% of your post interview score if you get there. If you have time, I would suggest retaking the class. No need to panic though, you might still get in, but a prereqs average of let's say 3.5 will make you go down quite a bit of ranks from your interview ranking. Best of luck!

[Vons]

1 hour ago, SpeedyPotato said:

Hey! So the thing is, per say no it shouldn't if you have good grades in other classes. Thing is, though, Organic Chem is also one of the classes that counts as a one of the prerequisite classes (unless things have changed since I got in). You average for prereqs doesn't really matter pre interview, but it accounts for 30% of your post interview score if you get there. If you have time, I would suggest retaking the class. No need to panic though, you might still get in, but a prereqs average of let's say 3.5 will make you go down quite a bit of ranks from your interview ranking. Best of luck!

McGill changed those requirements starting in the current cycle! They no longer calculate a prerequisite GPA to use in the post-interview ranking, which is now based 100% on your MMI performance. Starting in the current cycle the science prerequisites only need to be completed with a grade that would allow one to obtain transfer credit, which iirc at McGill is a C or a C+ but don't quote me on that. So as long as TheHopefulMD's C+ would count for transfer credit and it doesn't hit their cGPA too badly they should be fine.

[TheHopefulMD]

On 1/10/2021 at 12:47 PM, Vons said:

McGill changed those requirements starting in the current cycle! They no longer calculate a prerequisite GPA to use in the post-interview ranking, which is now based 100% on your MMI performance. Starting in the current cycle the science prerequisites only need to be completed with a grade that would allow one to obtain transfer credit, which iirc at McGill is a C or a C+ but don't quote me on that. So as long as TheHopefulMD's C+ would count for transfer credit and it doesn't hit their cGPA too badly they should be fine.

Perfect! Thank you so much to everyone who answered, I really really appreciate it! I just have one more question, it doesn't matter who answers it, Vons post just reminded me of this question so I decided to quote him/her. So I know for this cycle, the prereq GPA is not going to used post-interview at all but what about the next few cycles? Is it possible that McGill might end up using prereq GPA for post-interview rankings again, in the next few cycles? 

[hopefulpremed98]

25 minutes ago, TheHopefulMD said:

Perfect! Thank you so much to everyone who answered, I really really appreciate it! I just have one more question, it doesn't matter who answers it, Vons post just reminded me of this question so I decided to quote him/her. So I know for this cycle, the prereq GPA is not going to used post-interview at all but what about the next few cycles? Is it possible that McGill might end up using prereq GPA for post-interview rankings again, in the next few cycles? 

They changed it for future cycles too. Prereq Gpa doesn’t really matter anymore, the only thing that matters post interview is your actual interview. They did it to explicitly make it the same as how the cégep stream works, and that was the reason for the change, not COVID. Hope that helps

[Cardiolove01]

Admissions directly told me that the condition is for covid only as a lot of students were impacted by winter marks and classes being online and it might be enforced for next few years only until those winter marks are cleared through the application system depending on how long online learning goes on for but that afterwords there's a good chance they are reverting back to it and will be counting the prerequisites once again. The email came from Danielle whose head of admissions. 

[Vons]

8 hours ago, Cardiolove01 said:

Admissions directly told me that the condition is for covid only as a lot of students were impacted by winter marks and classes being online and it might be enforced for next few years only until those winter marks are cleared through the application system depending on how long online learning goes on for but that afterwords there's a good chance they are reverting back to it and will be counting the prerequisites once again. The email came from Danielle whose head of admissions. 

Are you sure that's not just concerning the fact that they're accepting Pass/Fail credits for prerequisite courses taken during Winter 2020? That seems to be a slightly different issue from what TheHopefulMD is asking about (unless they took their Organic Chem class in Winter 2020).

[MDee2B]

Med admissions criteria are generally stable but can and do change over several years (ex elimination of NTP category). So while the science prereq marks don’t have much bearing on this cycle (and potentially the next couple of cycles), I think it’s a good idea to “assume the worst” that in the longer term, science prereq marks may be more heavily weighted once again.

That said, if OP gets admitted this cycle then it doesn’t really matter what does/doesn’t change to admissions criteria in the future. So I wish you luck, and if you don’t get in this time just keep your eye on possible changes in admissions criteria in the future and be open to the fact that you may have to redo orgo at some point.