Grade Conversion

[Guest Clairisa]

I am curious how my grades will be viewed by UBC and maybe some other Canadian med schools. My school reports grades only by letter. I know that UBC expects you to have a minimum 70% average. In my school a B+ is 80-84%, a B is 76-79%, a B- is 72-75%, and so on down the line. An A+ is 96-100%, an A is 90-95%, and an A- is 85-89%. I know my grading scheme is apporimately one letter grade off from UBC, i.e. 80-84% at UBC is an A-, and anything 90% or above is an A+.

Ok enough numbers to boggle the mind. My question is when they look at my admissions average what will my A-'s look like to them. Will they be averaged to equal 87% (which is approx their value at my local college) or will they be averaged to equal 82% (which is their approx value in the UBC grading scheme).

Also I am commencing study at UBC this fall and will be completing my last 4 (1 year organic and 1 year biochem) core requirement courses (plus a bunch of others) there. Would it be to my advantage to repeat courses there to get a UBC grade. I know this may sound stupid/redundant but it is easier to get a higher grade at UBC. I will be taking upper level courses in the same areas (eg 2nd year biology courses) but I know they look at the 30 required credits to calculate part of your admissios percentage so those wouldnt really be of much help in that calculation.

Sorry if this post is kind of incoherent, and thanks in advance for any advice :b

[Guest Ian Wong]

UBC conversions are really a black hole. Like your college, UVic only reports grades using letters. To this day, I still don't know what UBC did to my UVic GPA to convert it into percentages. My guess is that they have some kind of conversion chart.

 

Either way, there's nothing you can do about the grades that are already on your transcript, so that renders the above point moot! Just do the best you can, and get the highest grades possible while keeping up in other areas.

 

I wouldn't repeat a course ever, unless it was seriously dragging down my GPA. Even then, there is the possibility that the med school has access to both time you took that course, and they may still use both grades to calculate your average; for this kind of stuff, you really need to call the med school and ask them how they manage these cases.

 

Good luck, and have fun at UBC!

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest Clairisa]

The only things I have done that are core courses are first year bio, engl and chem

all of which I have a B- in....not stellar yet not killer.

I have already done other biol couse in which I have done better (in the A range).

And fortunately for me I find organic chemistry interesting so I look forward to taking it this fall.

 

thanks for the input Ian, and how is Mission BC treating you this summer?

[Guest MEDCOMPSCI]

Well not to soudn mean or anything, but a B- grade on the OMSAS scale correlates to a 2.7 GPA. If you have three courses that are all B-, then you may be in a little trouble.

 

However, if OMSAS uses the scale with the 72-75%. then you have a 3.0 in those courses, which would be a lot better.

 

I think you need to find out from OMSAS and figure out exactly what the situation is regrading your grade conversions.

[Guest BCgirl]

Does it matter how OMSAS converts her grades? She just asked about how UBC would convert them... not any Ontario schools.

[Guest MEDCOMPSCI]

Sorry..my mistake. I live in Ontario so I guess I just have OMSAS on my mind. But yes, I ment how UBC would convert your grades (ie - 2.7 or 3.0)

[Guest Kirsteen Can MBA]

Hello Clarisa,

 

I don't know if this applies to you, but UBC is unique in that they offer the option for you to drop any years of marks that are ten years old or greater from consideration. This is accompanied by the requirement that you must have higher level courses in subjects that are considered pre-requisites for UBC from which the marks may be used in compiling your academic score.

 

If this does apply to your scenario, then you must request, in writing, the years that you wished to have dropped from consideration.

 

Kirsteen

[Guest bibs74]

Take the time this summer to contact the admission secretaries at the schools you would be interested in attending, a have them take a look at your undergraduate academic record. Face to face appointments are of course the best, but obviously difficult for out of province/city schools. I took the time to do this with the Ontario schools before I applied this past year, and the information and advice I received was invaluable and without a doubt, helped my application tremendously.

 

Best of luck.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I just wanted to ditto what bibs just said. The best source of reliable information is the admission committee, and the associated support staff. I think this forum is great for getting different points of view from different people (certainly, doing a lot of research on the internet helped my med school application tremendously, and that was nearly 3 years ago, when there wasn't that much on-line), but when you are looking less for guidance, and more for cold, hard facts like grade conversions or GPA cut-offs, you've got to head straight for the source. Don't be afraid to call and talk to these people. Ultimately, the time that you invest now will save you many headaches in the future, both for yourself, and them.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3