GPA vs Credit Hours

[Guest iddle]

Hi.

I see on the admissions site that UBC prefers applicants to have 90 credits at the time of admission (90 required by that April). I’m in the process of applying now. I have 4 full time years completed now, but will not have my degree finished until next December. 1.5 years of my credits can be exempted from the GPA calculation (over 10 years old). I have to decide between 2 scenarios:

1)exempt my old grades, and apply with a 95% average, without 90 credit hours at the time of application.

2)keep everything, apply with about an 80% average, with more than 90 credit hours at the time of application.

 

Needless to say, those old grades were pretty bad, although all of my prerequisite courses have been done recently. Hopefully someone here can give me some insight on this.

Thanks.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I would contact the admissions guys directly. As far as I knew (although it's been over 4 years now), you needed to have completed 3 years of undergrad by the time you were accepted; ie: if you don't have the 90 credits you aren't eligible to enter the program.

 

If you applied with the 95% and no 90 credits in October 2003, would you have 90 credits by April 2004?

 

Ian

[Guest iddle]

Sorry, I don't think I was very clear. I will have 90 hours by April with or without the older coursework. My question is regarding if it is worthwhile to have the 90 hours now, at the time of application (at the cost of my GPA).

I have not been able to reach anyone at admissions. I'm out of town and stuck using email. I tried a few times in early September and I'am still waiting for a reply.:\

[Guest Ian Wong]

Hmm. Wish I knew. Applying with a 95% average is going to help significantly, I would think, assuming that within those courses are all your prerequisites as well. If you will be degree-less in both circumstances, I would think putting the 95% up would be the best option (particularly since it sounds like your grades 10 years ago were pretty bad).

 

I don't think there's any sense in drawing attention to the fact that you didn't have the best marks 10 years ago. Rather, you want them thinking that you are a strong student right now. That's a tough question! I would see if there's any technical reasons why UBC wouldn't take the above route, and if there isn't, I'd probably go for that.

 

Ian

[Guest iddle]

Thanks!

It does bring up another question though. All of my prerequisites are in the recent coursework except for my first inorganic chem lab (at SFU, CHEM115 now renamed?). I'm not too sure how to report this on my application. This has been my outstanding question with admissions. Unfortunately they have yet to reply and I'm running out of time. I've spoken with the academic advisor at my school and she forwarded a copy of my email to a contact she had in admissions. That was a few days ago. Any other suggestions?

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there iddle,

 

I ran into a pre-req similar problem when I first applied to UBC. You have to make sure that ALL of UBC's pre-req courses are included in the courses that you use for your GPA. So, what that means is, if you decide to apply the ten-year rule and effectively obliterate any courses that are ten years old or older, then you can no longer count any of those courses as UBC pre-reqs. However, you still must be able to fulfill the UBC pre-reqs with your courses that are not ten years old or more. You must therefore, have taken either the same, or a higher-level pre-req course to replace that obliterated course, in your more recent years. If you do not have a higher-level, or repeated pre-req course in your transcript, then you will not be able to apply the ten-year rule.

 

As an example, I applied the ten-year rule which effectively allowed UBC to ignore the mark from my first year (with lab) chemistry course. However, this meant that, in order to apply to UBC, I had to make sure that I had another full-year chemistry course to fulfill the UBC inorganic chemistry course requirement. I ended up taking another half course of inorganic chemistry (first year) plus a half course of environmental chemistry (third year), which together, satisfied the inorganic chemistry requirement. By the way, your pre-req courses can either be already complete, or in the process of completion, i.e., as long as you complete them by April of the current application cycle, you can validly apply the ten-year rule and still satisfy the UBC pre-reqs.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest soapyslicer]

Hi,

 

I am in a similar situation. There are a couple of things to think about.

1. Will you be dropping anything you have to have as a pre-req. You can use upper level courses that have the lower ones as their pre-req as subsitutes.

2. You have obviously proven that the first year you took was not the norm so if you need the pre-req's I would not worry.

3. 80% overal is a decent score. Do you have the EC to back it up? For example your overall will get somewhere around 8/12.5 and you last 60cr will likely get full marks. Your pre-reqs? So overall in academics you will only lose 2-4 marks overall ie out of 25. Does removing those courses also really increase your pre-req marks? I have been told by many who have sat on the admitting committee it is not you overall GPA sometimes but rather the pattern. If you where a slow starter no big problem, many people are. As well is it 90cr by Oct 1, 2003 or 90cr by April, 2004? If everything else is OK I would go for the 95%. They do accept more people with 80% than those with 95% but they also get alot more.

 

All that being said I was also told that they start at the top of the academic marks /50 when looking at people post interview. No matter what you decide you want to be as high up on that scale as you can! I always assumed they would look at those who were at the top of the heap in the interview and go from there!

 

This of course is all based on what I was told by Dr. Frinton last year. I DO NOT KNOW HOW THEY ARE LOOKING AT GPA AND EC'S THIS YEAR!!!!

 

Just my thoughts as long winded as they are...

 

Soapy

[Guest iddle]

Thanks everyone. I'm getting way more information here than with admissions...

I think the 10 year rule will work as I'm currently in a 3rd year organic chem course (not a UBC med prerequisite) that has the first year inorganic chem lab I did 10 years ago as a prerequisite (way down the line of prerequisite courses!). So if I understand correctly, the 3rd year organic chem course will now count as a prerequisite course.

Two questions:

1)My old lab that I'm excluding was a .5 credit course and the organic course is 3 credits. Will they prorate it down to .5 credit or will it count as 3? (doesn't really matter much either way)

2)More importantly, how do I fill out my online application form (transcripts section)? Do I include the old lab course that will be excluded, and do I include the organic course, now that it will become a prerequisite? To further complicate this question, if I do give the organic course, on the online system should I identify it as an inorganic prerequisite (for the inorganic lab that it is replacing)?

 

Hopefully someone knows the answer as the people at admissions are swamped right now and probably won't be able to respond to me until after the deadline.

 

Thanks again!!

[Guest soapyslicer]

Hi,

 

I would fill in you most recent course as your pre-req and just don't put a mark in yet. Make sure you make a request in writing and hand it in with your must sign form for them to exclude everything over ten years. I would be careful about the chem because I thought it had to be within the same area - ie inorganic chem. The other option if you don't get an answer prior to handing in is still write the letter, explain that you tried to contact them for more information, that you are interested in excluding the old IF the new courses cover your pre-reqs. They are not out to get anyone so I am sure they would be fine with it. I know Joy told me they only use the 10year rule if it turns out to be to your advantage!

 

soapy:)

[Guest coastal79]

So from what I'm reading here, if I have a higher level course in a subject area, I can replace a lower level prerequisite course. Is that right? In my case I didn't do very well in first year English because I went into business english (thought I'd be a businessman :rolleyes ). However, I ended up as an English major, and have several much better upper level English marks to choose from. Last year I simply used my first year English marks.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

You can only use a higher lever course to "replace" a lower year mark if you are applying the 10-year rule to eradicate those lower year courses--sorry. :rolleyes I encountered a similar situation a couple of years ago when filling in my biology course requirement. I had a number of full-year biology courses, the later (and higher level) of which had higher marks than the earlier (and lower level). UBC takes the first course that you have completed to fulfill the pre-requisite course requirements, so that means that if you completed, in your case, a first year English course in 2000 with say, a mark of 80%, and a third year English course in 2002 with an 85%, then the first year course will be used to for admissions mark calculation purposes.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest coastal79]

That sucks. The difference is huge, 70-90, and it would have really helped my prereq GPA to use my upper level english courses. So it goes.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Well, at least UBC are kind enough to include the 10-year rule. As you may know, other schools treat these sorts of pre-requisite courses differently, which is one reason why it's nice to have diversity in the Canadian medical school admissions process.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest coastal79]

True about it being nice to have diversity in the different schools. Despite being from BC, I think UBC is the school that I have the least chance of getting an interview at this year. Can't throw in the towel though!