Graduate applicants

[Guest lekgor]

Hello!

 

I wonder what kind of characteristics/criteria are medical schools looking for graduate applicants.

 

It seems to me that the GPA cut off is 3.0/4.0 for most schools but do they really take low 3.x as acceptable GPAs?

 

Are publications important? What about MCAT marks?

 

Thanks,

lg

[Guest aneliz]

The really depends on the school... some care a lot, others don't care at all and lump grad applicants into the same pool with undergrads.

 

At UWO, grad applicants are given no extra credit/consideration over undergrads. They need to meet the same GPA and MCAT cuts and have the pre-reqs as undergrads. Their graduate work is not counted at all in the admissions decision, and they receive no extra 'points' for having any publications.

 

This is substantially different at some other schools.. you will need to contact each different med school that you are intested in to find out their policy.

[Guest avisee]

I guess it really depends on the school. Not many schools have specific graduate pools. U of T has a grad pool and will take students with a 3.0, but if you look at the threads in the Toronto section, it sounds very competitive. Publications and research productivity are crucial to getting in from the grad pool.

 

Ottawa has a grad pool as well, although I believe you need to maintain straight A's in your grad courses, and I think they require a slightly higher undergrad WGPA as well (3.3?).

 

Other schools may use one or more of your graduate years in their GPA calculation. I think Queen's is willing to use grad year(s) to help you meet the cutoff with your last two years.

 

Bottom line, grad school is basically helpful in med school admissions by showing adcoms that your intellectual/academic capacity is stronger than perhaps your undergrad marks let on. It's not just a matter of saying you're willing to jump through a hoop, do 20 years of school just to get into med. You have to show that you can do WELL in a few of those years to prove you have what it takes. In a research-based grad program, that means you should be publishing, getting results, presenting at conferences, making a good impression on your supervisor and committee. In a course-based grad program, that comes down to marks again.

 

If you have a low GPA in undergrad, grad school may be your chance to make up for it, maybe to prove that you're more mature or maybe that your supreme intellect just didn't lend itself well to the type of assessment in undergrad. MCAT likely doesn't matter any more than it does for undergrad applicants, as long as you meet the cutoffs. The only exception would be if you plan to apply to the US, or possibly to Manitoba (maybe to a lesser extent, U of A or UBC(?)), where your MCAT score is actually plugged into an equation to determine your "score", rather than serving only as a cutoff or flag.

[Guest McMastergirl]

At Mac, I don't believe there is a "grad pool." There is a separate pool for people who don't meet the GPA requirements but are interviewed because of "special qualities." I suppose having a PhD with lots of published research might fall under this category.

 

Otherwise, you get thrown in with everyone else. Grad school marks don't count. Publications don't count either. If you manage to get an interview, you may or may not be able to use your advanced degree to your advantage when being interviewed.

 

At Mac, of course, the MCAT doesn't count either.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Ottawa has a grad pool as well, although I believe you need to maintain straight A's in your grad courses,

Actually, for Ottawa, you don't need to have an A or above for all of your graduate courses. What you do need is an A-average.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest shrinkage]

So, you think you can impress an ad. comm. with your cool new M.Sc., eh? Think again...(N.B. The following reflects reality as I know it, from the perspective of a student who did an M.Sc. at U of T, and applied to all medical schools in Ontario and Alberta)

 

1. Unlike in merit-based, statistically-sound undergraduate courses, grad. school courses are more "communist" in their grading, especially when classes are as small as 2 or 3 people. Some profs. just give everyone an A- and feel that they should be happy with it. I know of other profs who admit that they have never given an A+ for a grad. course (strangely, at U of T, for grad. courses, an A = A+...both give GPA's of 4.0...weird, eh?). What this means is that just ONE A- can screw your average and result in your application being tossed.

 

For example, the University of Ottawa requires an "A" average in grad. courses. Before we even consider what this means, it is arguably a stupid criterion at the outset, since students with undergraduate GPA's as low as 3.3 are considered eligible (which would probably correspond to less than an A average). It follows logically that the definition for success / superiority in more advanced courses (i.e., Master's level) should be equal to or less than the definition for less advanced courses (i.e., Bachelor's level). According to OttawaU's modus operandi, applicants with a PhD might need an even greater (A+) average. Now, let's consider a "real life" example that could easily happen to you...Let's look at my grad. school marks: 2 A-'s, and 3 A's...this gives a U of T grad. school GPA of: 3.88, which IMO, is kick-ass. My cumulative undergrad. GPA was only 3.74. However, because my grad. school academic average was not "straight A's" OttawaU rejected my application (they gave this specific reason in the rejection letter).

 

2. For some schools, being in a graduate program does not increase your odds of gaining admission, and may even decrease them. For example, if you look at some schools' entrance statistics (e.g., U of T's, I am sorry I don't have the reference handy, but I definitely remember this) the proportion of students accepted out of graduate programs is less than the proportion of students accepted out of undergraduate programs. There are probably several reasons for this: a) "really smart" medical school applicants are probably accepted very early...like after 3 years of undergrad, while many of the applicants accepted afte grad. school needed to gain an extra quantity of maturity and/or training in order to be seen as competitive, there may be a limited number of seats in the class available for graduate students, with the competitiveness for people in that pool being directly proportional to the total number of grad. applicants that year, and c) such "soft" indicators are research productivity and publications play a significant role for graduate student admissions into some medical schools (again, U of T is a prime example). Depending on the kind of research you do, there may or may not be an opportunity for early / on-going publication to get a few papers under your belt in time to beef up your medical school application. For example, I spent 16 months coordinating a research project in undergrad, and it was going really well...then WSIB pulled the plug on our funding for political reasons. The end result? Not enough data for publication. Also, I just finished my M.Sc. study, and now have data for 3 - 4 journal articles (easily...my thesis was 500 pages). However, none of these fruits of my labour were realized early enough to help my CV...hence, U of T trashed my application.

 

3. Timing graduating from a graduate program is ALWAYS something of a headache. In my class of 8 people, I will be the only one who graduates "on time" (within 24 months). About 3 of the other 7 people might finish before Christmas if they are lucky, and the other 4 are as good as lost. There are still at least 2 people from the class before me who have not graduated yet (i.e. they are embarking on their 4th year of full-time master's work). Note that trying to graduate on time is maybe only 50 % in your power. You can be delayed by MANY things...e.g., ethics approval (I needed this from 2 REB's, and it took NINE MONTHS), equipment on order / not working, unreliable subjects (whether human or animal), the whim of your supervisor (a lot of them get pissed off when they find out you aren't considering a PhD and could even "punish" you for this by making it harder for you to graduate on time), and let's not forget the vacation schedules of your committee members. As you can probably tell, I could go on FOREVER about this, but I won't.

 

BOTTOM LINE: You are MUCH better off doing a 1-year "failure lap" improving your GPA as a "special student" without starting a new degree. Embarking on a research career is NOT an advisable way to improve your profile for entry into medicine. I was lucky enough to get into UWO despite taking this silly approach, but it definitely burned me for U of T and OttawaU.

 

I'm not saying that research absolutely sucks...but it DOES absolutely suck if you are intending to use it to "help" your medical school application. Just make sure you weigh the options carefully.

 

I apologize if there are any inaccuracies in the admissions criteria of the schools mentioned above, but all facts mentioned are true to the best of my knowledge.

 

Okay, so I just wasted like 40 min of life typing the above, but if it can help even one person from wasting 1-2 y of theirs, than it's worth it (I think).

 

[Guest ewon2003]

Hi there,

 

Another option to the "special year" is the 2-year 2nd degree programs offered at many schools like UBC.

 

The advantage of doing this is that it's undergraduate gpa and schools like Western or Queens will look at only the new GPAs, and you don't need to fulfill the ridiculous grad school requirement of getting all As.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

(strangely, at U of T, for grad. courses, an A = A+...both give GPA's of 4.0...weird, eh?).

This is not true. Unlike other graduate schools' grading scales, the highest graduate mark attainable at UofT is A+. A UofT graduate A+=4.00 on the grade scale, whereas an A=3.90. (I know this as two A+s appear on my UofT transcript from a couple of graduate courses that I completed this year.) Thus, even if you are given a couple of A-s, if you attain a couple of A+s then Ottawa will happily consider them balanced and view your graduate academic performance as A.

 

Also, as an alternate perspective to that of shrinkage, although I definitely do not condone completing a masters for the sake of attempting to strengthen a medical school application, I'm convinced that it was the strength of my MSc performance that won me my interviews this year--including those at UofT and Ottawa. I'd agree that basic science MScs may be more difficult, early on, to demonstrate tangible graduate productivity, but other MScs, i.e., in clinical science, offer a wealth of opportunities to demonstrate productivity.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Jixe]

This site has the undergraduate & graduate GPA grade scales:

www.rosi.utoronto.ca/academic_history.html

 

Looks like there's no difference between the 2, albeit anything below a 70% is a fail in graduate studies.

[Guest lekgor]

Hello again!

 

Thanks everyone for great inputs and comments! I really appreciate it!!!

 

 

It seems to me that the concensus is that for graduate applicants, U of T and Ottawa are two of the more "probable" choices. Then what exactly are these schools look at for graduate applicants?

 

For example, U of T says that an "emphasis" will be placed on graduate performaces and research productivity. Is research producitivity here equals to publications? One of my friends who got into U of T med didn't even get a single paper from her M.Sc. Is research productivity equal to how your supervisor perceive as you workind hard or producing data?

 

Once again, thanks a lot everybody!

 

With great thanks,

lg

[Guest avisee]

I wouldn't say that U of T and Ottawa are more probable, they're just willing to look at you differently than undergrad applicants. For someone with a low undergrad GPA, this can be highly beneficial, as you get something like a second chance (not quite, but close enough).

 

As many people have mentioned above, qualifying for a special admission category means also jumping through a lot of hoops, and both schools are pretty picky about who qualifies for these pools (eg, at Ottawa, if you meet the undergrad cutoff, they'll stick you in the undergrad pool even if you are a grad student, which leads me to believe it's still easier to gain admission in undergrad pools than grad pools). I think the grad pools are sort of like second-chance forums, designed to pick up promising premeds who don't meet the standard undergrad criteria. If you happen to also have good undergrad marks, more power to you, but it doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the grad pool.

 

Research productivity is probably most importantly publications, especially first author pubs. There may be a lot of variation on this, and I'm sure those who've been through the grad school wringer already can give you an accurate idea of what to expect, but it sounds like the average grad applicant with average extracurriculars and average undergrad GPA should probably aim to have AT LEAST one first-author pub, and probably at least 2-3 publications in total to be competitive. If you don't meet this, you can make up for it by being strong in other areas, but it sounds like that is a pretty competitive expectation.

 

Ottawa and U of T require you to fill out Research productivity packages after you apply, so you can list your pubs (including those in press), presentations at conferences, and require letters from your supervisor/committee.

 

Those two schools aren't necessarily the most likely places to be accepted to as a grad student, they just happen to have formal grad pools. I imagine most other med schools have fairly similar proportions of students in their classes with advanced degrees. But it just means that you must meet their undergrad cutoffs. In a way, if you have good undergrad marks, it's arguably easier to be accepted as a grad student to these other schools, because you're considered on level playing ground with undergrad applicants, so your graduate degree and any publications will be that much more impressive since not everyone has the same experience. If you apply to a school with a special grad pool, you're being compared only against other grad students, meaning that being published and in the midst of a grad degree is standard faire, and it's even harder to stand out amongst that pile.

 

Grad school really isn't something to do just as a backdoor to medicine. It may be the most commonly perceived back door, but it's got the biggest, meanest bouncer. If you just want to improve your odds of admission, it's probably easier to spend the two years doing a second bachelors degree and working hard to get those good marks. But if you are genuinely interested in research or graduate study, then it's worth looking into.

[Guest peachy]

it sounds like the average grad applicant with average extracurriculars and average undergrad GPA should probably aim to have AT LEAST one first-author pub, and probably at least 2-3 publications in total to be competitive.

I read things like this a lot, and I don't think that any of us can know what they are really looking for. Maybe it's an unpopular position, but personally, I find this extremely unlikely to be true.

 

At this stage in our careers, whether or not someone has publications depends on an awful lot of things, of which many are beyond the control of the average grad student. (Does your PI publish a lot? Does he stick everybody's name on the publications? How long have you been in a grad program? Did you work in the same lab for evey summer during undergrad too? Are you working in a really hard area that publishes infrequently? Are you in basic science or a clinical area? etc, etc, etc)

 

Personally, although it's a slightly different situation, when I applied to the MD/PhD program, I was totally freaked out after reading everywhere that publications, publications, publications were the important thing. Yet I was accepted with NO journal publications, and I know people with a dozen publications that were rejected.

 

They are interested, imho, in evaluating your potential based on your history. And while publications are definitely a GOOD thing, but they are certainly not everything, and are evaluated in the context of the rest of an application.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there jixe,

 

Looks like there's no difference between the 2, albeit anything below a 70% is a fail in graduate studies.

Sorry, I should have stipulated the grade point scale to which I was referring--it was the OMSAS scale. On the OMSAS scale, a UofT A+ equates to a 4.00 whereas a UofT A equates to a 3.90. Therefore, whether you score an A+ or an A can make a difference in the eyes of OMSAS, and thus, in the eyes of the schools that depend on OMSAS to generate your GPA.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi lekgor,

 

Is research producitivity here equals to publications?

There are a number of different ways in which you can demonstrate productivity at the graduate level. These can include: full publications on which you are an author; published abstracts; abstracts presented at conferences either in poster or oral presentation form; membership(s) in bodies affiliated with your research realm; graduate awards; participation in your faculty's or department's committees; journal manuscript editing; participation in your deparment's student affairs groups; good graduate course marks. In short, it's not always just about first-author publications, although granted, they can only strengthen your application.

 

If your undergraduate record is not the strongest and you are applying to any of the schools which separate graduate applicants from undergraduate applicants, then quality work in the above areas will definitely help you.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen