So you have 50% chance of getting in medical school and 100% of getting an interview if you have a GPA over 90% as IP applicant. Am I missing something here?

[neurologist19]

This is for class of 23 UBC Med school.:

Since the number of IP acceptance at UBC is very small (~10 people total), even if we consider all the accepted OP students in the range of 90-100, it means that at least (76/(76+82))=48% of IP applicants with a GPA of 90% were accepted in medical school. Since the acceptance rate for people who were invited to interview is about 49% (source https://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/files/2020/12/Interim-Statistics-2020-2021-MED-2025-PDF.pdf ), it means that ~48*100/49=98% of people with GPA over 90% got an interview.

 

Am I doing missing something here or is it how it goes?

 

 

 

 

[Coldery]

Yes. Your first set of calculations about the ~50% getting accepted is essentially correct. I remember reading off similar stats when I was in your position 2 years ago.

I am not sure about the 2nd set of calculations concerning the 98% interview rate though. From what I currently read of it, you may be making some incorrect assumptions. Technically, the interview rate could range from almost 100% with all the IP 90%+ refused applicants coming from post-interview rejections to 50%, with the refused 90%+ BC applicants all stemming from pre-interview rejections. 

Of course, if UBC elaborated more on the stats of the interviewees themselves, we wouldn't have to make these assumptions but that's where we are right now.

[Bumblegum]

. You are assuming only 10 OOP get accepted but they explicitly say 29 get accepted every year into the program and probably at least 2/3 of OOP have 90+.  Therefore, it’s more likely that only 68 people above 90% got in for IP and 82 got rejected for a likelihood of 45% for IP applicants that have over 90% GPA.

 

for your second point, your logic may be bit flawed and you’re making a few assumptions. You’re assuming that nearly all of those with 90% average got an interview but there is nothing to suggest that. I think you should consider other confounding variables like that perhaps people with a higher GPA have a greater than 50% of getting accepted once they have an interview. Thee are not independent probabilities.

Think more so 70% * 70% = approx 42% chance of admission than 50% * 100% = 50%

In the end these are just statistics. I think it’s better to focus on what we all can individually do to improve our application and prepare to hopefully become doctors one day :). 

[frenchpress]

Not quite a 50% chance as others have explained above. But yes, it’s actually pretty high. I remember when I was applying I kept reminding myself that I was much more likely to be accepted to medicine than, for example, have a paper published in many competitive venues in my field. 

[neurologist19]

Thanks for your replies. Yeah, I agree that I relaxed many of the assumptions here, but it was nonetheless interesting for me to see it is not quite the herculean task I imagined it would be to get into medical school if you have a good GPA. Even for the GPA range of 85-89.99, there seems to be a 40% chance of acceptance. Of course, I assume that if someone has a GPA over 85%, there are hardworking people and curated good EC as well, so it is not all independent variables as you guys mentioned.

[Bumblegum]

Yes I agree. There is this strange narrative where people seem to assume that good grades and MCAT are associated with horrible people skills/ ECs / ethics (in my own experience). If anything, I’ve found the opposite but that’s just my own anecdotal experience with that. 
 

It’s too easy to get lost in all the neuroticism and hype around Med school. I feel we all tend to overthink this a bit.