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Where is the GPA Average Going?


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***Purely a speculative thread for shits and giggles, no actual bearing on what the admissions process will look like nor reflective of reality at all***

What do you guys think will be the GPA average for the successful 2021-2022 applicants (UBC MD 2026)? Increasing the number of applicants by like 200 resulted in about 0.7% GPA increase from 2018-19 to 2019-20; I can see an obscene number of applicants applying this summer, as well as the inflation that some classes at some unis are seeing due to unproctored exams, pushing the average GPA to like 92%. Genuinely.

Seems scary and really high but that's the game. Will definitely have some people reconsidering the feasibility of pursuing this path though I'mma be real lol

What do you guys think?

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It’s tough but I think it might be more productive just to focus on yourself and your own grades. There’s not really a point in worrying about others and their grades. It’s not something you can control and you’re just going to make yourself and others more anxious and depressed about prospects. I was accepted into ubc med with a far from fantastic GPA. I never even looked up what the average GPA of accepted applicants was. Instead, I put my energy into making my application speak truly about who I am and why I deserve a spot. I know it’s tough and you feel like there are injustices with grade inflation but try to focus your attention on more positive things like family, friends, and yourself through enjoying hobbies, sports, movies, etc. It’s just a suggestion to improve your quality of life.

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37 minutes ago, Ilovepasta said:

It’s tough but I think it might be more productive just to focus on yourself and your own grades. There’s not really a point in worrying about others and their grades. It’s not something you can control and you’re just going to make yourself and others more anxious and depressed about prospects. I was accepted into ubc med with a far from fantastic GPA. I never even looked up what the average GPA of accepted applicants was. Instead, I put my energy into making my application speak truly about who I am and why I deserve a spot. I know it’s tough and you feel like there are injustices with grade inflation but try to focus your attention on more positive things like family, friends, and yourself through enjoying hobbies, sports, movies, etc. It’s just a suggestion to improve your quality of life.

It's true. I think everyone should definitely put their all into their own applications and not worry *too much* about other people. As you said, it is tough, but I do try to follow that principle myself, ex. working to achieve a perfect GPA the past 2 years of my undergrad.

The stress/worry comes from the possible outcome of knowing you poured absolutely everything into the process and yet some online uni grade inflation prevented you from even having a reasonable chance. We've all heard the saying about "GPA gets your foot in the door, ECs distinguish you" and stuff.

Thank you for your words of insight contextualizing this admissions game though for sure. As I mentioned in the first post in the thread, just a pure speculation thread that can't be taken too seriously - everyone has to grind on their own journey

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If there is truly a statistically significant inflation of GPA in COVID time then I would hope UBC can do some kind of normaliztion. This is me being selfish as I already graduated haha.

But yea I agree we should all focus on improving ourselves rather than worrying about something thats out of our control. If you apply next year, then you would have 1 more year to work on you NAQ, which may very likely to have more impact than that of inflated GPA average. 

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I don't think 0.7 increase in GPA is really can really be labeled as inflation in grades. I guess the average GPA for accepted applicants hover around 85~ or something. I don't think it will ever even get close to 90%. 90% is crazy. Also, do you have evidence that COVID caused grade inflations. Most profs adjust the grades anyways to reach some average they have in mind anyway. I agree that many cheaters benefited from the COVID situation but I guess it was mostly at the cost of others, not really as a factor for grade infalation. 

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off topic, but didn't the admission GPA average for UofT go up 0.1 every year and the prediction was it'll hit 4.01/4 this year? I am disappointed to see it haven't even hit 4 yet in 2020! Was betting it'll hit 4.5/4 within my lifetime. Looks like UofT med has this grade deflation thing going on eh, talk about an attitude adjustment.

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3 hours ago, neurologist19 said:

I don't think 0.7 increase in GPA is really can really be labeled as inflation in grades. I guess the average GPA for accepted applicants hover around 85~ or something. I don't think it will ever even get close to 90%. 90% is crazy. Also, do you have evidence that COVID caused grade inflations. Most profs adjust the grades anyways to reach some average they have in mind anyway. I agree that many cheaters benefited from the COVID situation but I guess it was mostly at the cost of others, not really as a factor for grade infalation. 

Agreed on the 0.7 - I used the word "inflation" to talk about COVID grades, not the MD 2024 stats.

I don't have empirical evidence on COVID grade inflation - only anecdotal. Seeing people rock a 98 average for the year and everything. And yes I agree re: cheating, hence when I was talking about some unis having unproctored exams

I hope you're right about not hitting 90 but I don't know haha

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47 minutes ago, Excel-erate Your Breath said:

Agreed on the 0.7 - I used the word "inflation" to talk about COVID grades, not the MD 2024 stats.

I don't have empirical evidence on COVID grade inflation - only anecdotal. Seeing people rock a 98 average for the year and everything. And yes I agree re: cheating, hence when I was talking about some unis having unproctored exams

I hope you're right about not hitting 90 but I don't know haha

I know what you mean. I am taking a few courses this semester at UBC and it seems it doesn't even cross the minds of some instructors that some people may cheat. absolutely no proctoring, no even checking IDs at times! crazy... but yeah I don't think it will inflate the grades. Hopefully they will at least bring the exams to the in person version from the next semester. If you are doing well and having a GPA around 85 ( if you are IP), then there is no worries in the academic part IMO.

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21 minutes ago, ubcstudent said:

98 average... yikes... Are you sure? Just curious since I’ve been around the brightest students in UBC science and the highest I have seen is 96-97 avg during non-covid times.

98 is the most extreme example (2 students that I know). I go to UNBC (current 4th yr) so I'm not familiar with many UBC people haha. In my own courses here, there has been a definite uptick of 5-8% in course grade averages for courses that I am taking now that last year's 4th years took. Of course, not all of the students in my courses are applying to med, but it *may* reflect a grander trend that COVID schooling is higher in average GPA than non COVID schooling

11 minutes ago, neurologist19 said:

I am taking a few courses this semester at UBC and it seems it doesn't even cross the minds of some instructors that some people may cheat. absolutely no proctoring, no even checking IDs at times! crazy

Yeah for sure LOL either that or they simply are burnt out and don't care anymore which is fair enough, online is draining

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On 4/1/2021 at 5:04 PM, neurologist19 said:

I don't think 0.7 increase in GPA is really can really be labeled as inflation in grades. I guess the average GPA for accepted applicants hover around 85~ or something. I don't think it will ever even get close to 90%. 90% is crazy. Also, do you have evidence that COVID caused grade inflations. Most profs adjust the grades anyways to reach some average they have in mind anyway. I agree that many cheaters benefited from the COVID situation but I guess it was mostly at the cost of others, not really as a factor for grade infalation. 

uh...the average GPA for those that got an interview this cycle was 89% (not taking into account the average GPA of those will be accepted will be a bit higher). Easily next year could have an average accepted GPA of 90-91%+..

https://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/files/2020/12/Interim-Statistics-2020-2021-MED-2025-PDF.pdf

so the "I don't think it will ever even get close to 90%" lol its already at that

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On 4/1/2021 at 9:53 PM, shikimate said:

off topic, but didn't the admission GPA average for UofT go up 0.1 every year and the prediction was it'll hit 4.01/4 this year? I am disappointed to see it haven't even hit 4 yet in 2020! Was betting it'll hit 4.5/4 within my lifetime. Looks like UofT med has this grade deflation thing going on eh, talk about an attitude adjustment.

takes almost generation to go up by 0.1!

Maybe they've slowed it down a little - didn't they make some sort of calculation change?

Actually - I did look up the numbers on WayBackMachine - and it works out to be a fairly nice, linear fit over the past twenty years (pre-2000s may have been "slackers" under the 3.80 line haha).  There's a high-degree of autocorrelation as well (0.93 with a 'lag' of 1).

TGPA.thumb.jpg.a618c3bc84422fd86b7dc0afa8ab096a.jpg

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8 minutes ago, indefatigable said:

takes almost generation to go up by 0.1!

Maybe they've slowed it down a little - didn't they make some sort of calculation change?

Actually - I did look up the numbers on WayBackMachine - and it works out to be a fairly nice, linear fit over the past twenty years (pre-2000s may have been "slackers" under the 3.80 line haha).  

UofTGPA-min.jpg

this would be even more shocking for Calgary. I believe the average accepted GPA is 3.90 now, 10 years ago it was 3.75, and 20 years ago it was 3.60

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I mean, I think the averages will eventually (read: within the next decade) reach the mid 90s range, just as how UBC's undergraduate entering average was increasing almost every other year due to a combination of BC's increasing population and steadfast grade inflation. For med school we're also seeing an accumulation of applicants who were rejected in the previous cycle, so I bet that's adding to the ever-increasing GPA entering average. I bet we're also going to see more inflation as high school students wisen-up and begin choosing programs that are easy to get high GPAs in rather than going for the cookie cutter premed biochemistry/physiology/cell biology route. 

But I think this application cycle, and quite possibly the next one, were and will be mere deviations towards the upside due to our special circumstance. The increase in GPA average will become more gradual once the pandemic goes away, and as more job opportunities and more post-graduate education opportunities open up. 

In any case, we've seen people in the mid to low 80s range get interviews this cycle, and not much seems to have changed from previous years judging from reading the limited number of posts on the interview invites thread.

I also think stressing out about the increasing GPA is also useless thing to do, when we're all just going to try our best to increase our NAQ and AQ every year anyway.

Let's just live our lives. That's what UBC med wants to see, and we're all gonna try until we get in anyways. 

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To get back on topic and out of curiosity, I repeated the calculation for UBC based on Overall GPA.  

It is also a nice, linear fit with very significant autocorrelation likely due to repeat applicants (0.97 with a 'lag' of 1).  

Based on the simple linear regression, the average will indeed hit mid-90s in a decade (0.4 GPA increase per year)

Practically speaking, this means that "non-trads" will continue to experience a GPA decline with time, but non-academics will likely continue to compensate to some degree.  

UBCNGPA.jpg

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do you mean for 2022? We are in 2021 now lol. 

I think the average accepted GPA to UBC will reach 91% next year (2022) because an entire year of online marks will be taken into account + more apps etc

The average GPA for those admitted in 2020 was 89.3%.

I believe the average GPA for those admitted this year in 2021 will be 90% due to a record number of apps. 

And the average GPA for those admitted next year in 2022 will be 91% due to what I said above. 

https://med-fom-ugrad.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2021/03/Statistics-2019-2020-MED2024-Website-1.pdf

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In the early years, they didn't report AGPA so I used the overall GPA to keep it consistent.

There's about 1 point difference between the two - in 2020 it was 88.3 (overall) vs 89.3 (Overall or Adjusted).

Looking at the graph more carefully, I do think the overall or adjusted GPA could be just over 90 this year and could easily hit 91 next year (considering also a likely up-trend because of online/COVID).

Will be interesting to see.  

yeah - fixed the typo.  thanks.

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On 4/3/2021 at 8:54 AM, indefatigable said:

To get back on topic and out of curiosity, I repeated the calculation for UBC based on Overall GPA.  

It is also a nice, linear fit with very significant autocorrelation likely due to repeat applicants (0.97 with a 'lag' of 1).  

Based on the simple linear regression, the average will indeed hit mid-90s in a decade (0.4 GPA increase per year)

Practically speaking, this means that "non-trads" will continue to experience deflation, but non-academics will likely continue to compensate to some degree.  

UBCNGPA.jpg

Very interesting indeed. Thank you. What I would also love to see is how the average GPA across all students at UBC changed over years too. Right now, it is not clear if this increase is because professors became more lenient and give out high grades easily over the years (with the influx of young profs maybe?) or is it that the students study harder and more efficiently (due to advance of technology) or is it that the number of applicants/population is increasing due to immigration or changing attitude towards medicine? Or maybe a combination of all of these factors. 

 

Regarding the disadvantage the non-trads are put in, I think the experience a non-trad accumulates up until 5 years after their graduation ( or more depending on what they did; I am talking average) is probably helping them more than the potential downside of grade inflation. After that, I think the non-academic aspects reach the state of diminishing return and younger folks with inflated grades might benefit a little more.

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On 4/3/2021 at 10:51 AM, offmychestplease said:

do you mean for 2022? We are in 2021 now lol. 

I think the average accepted GPA to UBC will reach 91% next year (2022) because an entire year of online marks will be taken into account + more apps etc

The average GPA for those admitted in 2020 was 89.3%.

I believe the average GPA for those admitted this year in 2021 will be 90% due to a record number of apps. 

And the average GPA for those admitted next year in 2022 will be 91% due to what I said above. 

https://med-fom-ugrad.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2021/03/Statistics-2019-2020-MED2024-Website-1.pdf

Yes you are right... I think my previous guess was off. Do you know how easy it is to get a 90+% GPA at UBC in a science program like biology or CAPS? I didn't do my undergrad at UBC but I looked it up and seems like a feat based on my research online...

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16 hours ago, neurologist19 said:

Very interesting indeed. Thank you. What I would also love to see is how the average GPA across all students at UBC changed over years too. Right now, it is not clear if this increase is because professors became more lenient and give out high grades easily over the years (with the influx of young profs maybe?) or is it that the students study harder and more efficiently (due to advance of technology) or is it that the number of applicants/population is increasing due to immigration or changing attitude towards medicine? Or maybe a combination of all of these factors. 

It's a complex topic and probably multi-factorial.  

-Generally speaking, professors and incentivized to have high teaching ratings which is facilitated when students receive higher grades - so that creates long-term pressure to increase grades especially for early-career profs.  Grades are going up at all universities and at private schools in the US even more so (one can imagine the direct financial pressure that parents and alumni can use say by witholding donations if unsatisfied).    

- Students are more aware of the differences in grading and program difficulty and the importance of grades - so are able to choose courses/programs that enable higher GPAs.  Potential med students seek out programs with reputations that are known for broadly higher GPAs eg. MacHealth Sci which creates upward pressure on admission GPAs.  These programs are relatively new - I remember calculating that around 1/8 Ontario med students is a MacHealth Sci grad - which is an astounding number* (see below for discussion).

- other factors like more applicants, students, etc..

I don't think there's so much evidence that students are getting "smarter" as scores on standardized tests like the MCAT at UBC have been relatively constant (e.g. 2016 had the highest MCAT scores over the past five years).  The MCAT is used mysteriously at UBC for admissions, but at as premed applicants apply to 3 schools on average (NOT 3 times on average which has been repeated ad infinitum), one can imagine there's still incentive for students to perform well.    

*[I understand their argument about selectivity and so forth, but I think that can be quickly countered with a thought experiment: consider the next 100 students that did not make it into HealthSci - they are likely "exchangeable" from a statistical point of view i.e. have almost identical abilities and intrinsic motivation as well as goals - so it is the stochasticity of the process which led to their application not being accepted (i.e. 'bad luck').  I would be shocked if the proportion of those students making it into med school is much different from the Ontario background level when controlling for high-school GPA, etc.. as even though MacHealth Sci does of course foster other abilities like communication, GPA is "king" when it comes to medicine]

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4 hours ago, indefatigable said:

It's a complex topic and probably multi-factorial.  

-Generally speaking, professors and incentivized to have high teaching ratings which is facilitated when students receive higher grades - so that creates long-term pressure to increase grades especially for early-career profs.  Grades are going up at all universities and at private schools in the US even more so (one can imagine the direct financial pressure that parents and alumni can use say by witholding donations if unsatisfied).    

- Students are more aware of the differences in grading and program difficulty and the importance of grades - so are able to choose courses/programs that enable higher GPAs.  Potential med students seek out programs with reputations that are known for broadly higher GPAs eg. MacHealth Sci which creates upward pressure on admission GPAs.  These programs are relatively new - I remember calculating that around 1/8 Ontario med students is a MacHealth Sci grad - which is an astounding number* (see below for discussion).

- other factors like more applicants, students, etc..

I don't think there's so much evidence that students are getting "smarter" as scores on standardized tests like the MCAT at UBC have been relatively constant (e.g. 2016 had the highest MCAT scores over the past five years).  The MCAT is used mysteriously at UBC for admissions, but at as premed applicants apply to 3 schools on average (NOT 3 times on average which has been repeated ad infinitum), one can imagine there's still incentive for students to perform well.    

*[I understand their argument about selectivity and so forth, but I think that can be quickly countered with a thought experiment: consider the next 100 students that did not make it into HealthSci - they are likely "exchangeable" from a statistical point of view i.e. have almost identical abilities and intrinsic motivation as well as well as goals - so it is the stochasticity of the process which led to their application not being accepted (i.e. 'bad luck').  I would be shocked if the proportion of those students making it into med school is much different from the Ontario background level when controlling for high-school GPA, etc..]

This rampant grade inflation is the main reason you would want to use the MCAT. It's the great equalizer. It's a shame UBC doesn't use it pre-interview.

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