*UBC def'n: Special Consideration

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Kirsteen, Cda MBA

Date:***2/1/2001 1:31 pm*PST

*

Hello,

 

Does anyone have any insights as to how UBC determines whether an applicant should be granted "special consideration"? What factors are considered and what experiences would define such a candidate? (For those of you who are unaware, if an applicant applies for, and is granted, "special consideration" status, it purportedly guarantees them an interview date at UBC.)

 

Other medical admissions programs, such as McMaster, offer a similar category ("Special Applicant") for the application process; however they provide a much clearer definition of this type of applicant, e.g., the individual must not have pursued full-time post-secondary education; been in the work force for at least seven years post-high school, etc.

 

Thank you, and good luck.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Kirsteen, Cda MBA

Date:***2/2/2001 7:15 am*PST

*

Hello,

 

Since submitting this question yesterday, I had a chat with one of the Admissions Officers at the Dean's Office. What I uncovered follows:

 

a) "Special Consideration" status is given very sparingly. This year, UBC received 90 applications for "special consideration", of which five were actually granted the status. No specific factors are attributed to an applicant who receives "special consideration"; instead, each application is reviewed and judged on a case-by-case basis.

 

I asked how UBC determines their interview pool: a general "file review" is conducted where all applications are assessed based on both, academic and non-academic factors. These factors are assigned scores and a median is determined. Those applicants above the mean are invited for interviews. Therefore, it is the strength of the applicant pool that determines the level of challenge in receiving an interview. An intriguing addendum to this is that the admissions officer stated that, even though this file review is conducted (presumably once all valid applications are received) the selection of interviewees is an ongoing process. I'm not entirely clear as to how this is operates, given that the medians would remain static once calculated, and likewise, the applications sitting above the medians would remain unchanged.

 

c) Finally, upon asking if all rejection letters are sent simultaneously, the officer noted that they are generally sent out as soon as all interviews are set, and that they are usually sent out "in big clumps". Given that the last batch of interview invitations are sent out at the end of March, that could mean that the rejections may not be sent until shortly thereafter.

 

Good luck.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Ian Wong, MS2

Date:***2/4/2001 2:54 pm*PST

*

Hi there,

 

I'd actually heard something very close to this; the number I'd heard was that there were just over 100 requests for special consideration. I tried poking around a little bit, and couldn't find an exact definition of what circumstances qualify for "special consideration". Like you've mentioned above, there's just too much diversity to draw an exact line as to what constitutes SC.

 

ie: Is SC warranted if I lost my job 2 months before writing the MCAT? What if I was also a single parent? What if, in addition to the above, I lost my job because of a workplace disability, and still had to provide for my children? etc, etc. The slippery slope effect means that SC *has* to be evaluated and granted on a case by case basis. I assume there also has to be documentation of some sort to verify that there was a genuine need for SC.

 

I can shed a little light on the above, now that you've already brought it up. I know who the admissions reps are in our med school, and I know at this time that essays and reference letters are still currently being graded and evaluated in order to determine this magical median. However, you have to keep in mind that UBC intends to interview about 2.5 applicants for each spot (about 275-300 interviewed applicants total). Since each applicant gets two separate interviews, that's ~600 interviews that need to be completed in 3-4 months.

 

As a result, had UBC waited to read all the reference letters/essays, they still, at this very moment, could not start interviewing people. This would lead to mass chaos in trying to run all the interviews at a later date.

 

Instead, UBC started interviewing in early January, which will relieve the "interview congestion" later on. The way they can do this, is by selecting for interviewees who have very good paper qualifications that will certainly exceed the median. Therefore, if your application has high grades/MCATs, and has the related research, volunteer, and travel experience, you'd have a very good chance of being interviewed immediately, because UBC knows that your application *would* fall above the median.

 

It's my opinion that the applicant pool doesn't change much each year. If you look at the statistics, the average GPA and MCAT of accepted students probably hasn't changed much more than 1-2% over the past few years. As a result, UBC probably could do a really decent job of estimating the median scores for *next year* (2002) without having seen a single applicant.

 

As for rejections, they usually get sent in batches to minimize headaches. It's simply much easier to co-ordinate the staff for a few large mailouts, rather than sending out rejections individually. Sit tight folks, if you haven't received a letter, you're still in the game.

 

Ian

Can, MS2

 

PS: To everyone out there reading this message board, JOIN IN! Using your real name and e-mail address is optional!

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Kirsteen, Can MBA

Date:***2/5/2001 7:41 am*PST

*

Hello,

 

Continuing along this vein of discussion, I have a question regarding UBC's selection process. Part of each applicant's evaluation consists of a calculation of pre-requisite course average. UBC, however, accept applications that include incomplete pre-requisites, i.e., the student is currently taking the course(s) and therefore, have not yet received have a final mark. Given this, how then, does UBC evaluate or perform calculations for those applications which include incomplete pre-requisite courses?

 

Also, I have a little more insight (albeit, potentially dated) to offer regarding the UBC interview process. This past Christmas/New Year, I took a guided biking trip through Northern India. To my surprise, within the group of people I travelled with were a couple from Vancouver, the gentleman of which is a retinal surgeon at Vancouver General, and a clinical professor at UBC. They were a wonderful duo and had a lot to say with respect to the UBC medical program, given that a few years ago, he was part of the medical program's admissions committee, as well as an interviewer. Additionally, their son had also completed the UBC medical program and is now on the UBC medical staff roster.

 

With respect to the interview process, they mentioned that (at that time) the candidates underwent three separate interviews. (Now it appears that this has been reduced to two?) Each interviewer had a separate area to evaluate: one for general knowledge/intellectual capacity; one for extra-curricular/worldly experience; and the last for overall personality/traits. They stated that each interview normally was of an hour's duration. Each interviewer provided an evaluation of each sector, and these were added to form the overall interview score, which counts for a large part of the overall evaluation.

 

Again, good luck.

 

Kirsteen

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*j

Date:***2/5/2001 5:06 pm*PST

*

Hi again,

 

i just had to repeat what ian said. I remember something I had READ, not heard, but READ somewhere on one of UBC's brochures or on the web about stronger applications being interviewed first. Thus, I remember some of my friends hearing about interviews in december. I guess these are the stronger candidates... but you also have to remember that sometimes the school is waiting for the second semester marks which are not available. Thus, for those who already have a degree, they technically should have also been interviewed... ian- correct me if I am wrong...

 

good luck guys,

j

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Ian Wong, MS2

Date:***2/11/2001 9:18 pm*PST

*

You're quite right.

 

Applicants with a really strong record on paper that will obviously still be above the interview threshold when all applicants are tallied are often interviewed earlier.

 

It just makes sense, because if you don't put those people through the system, then you'd be delaying interviews until all records are processed. That puts a severe crunch on the interviewers, who essentially have one less month to interview the vast number of people that they do.

 

Ian

Can, MS2

 

PS: To everyone out there reading this message board, JOIN IN! Using your real name and e-mail address is optional!

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*terry

Date:***2/21/2001 3:10 pm*PST

*

Ian, are you just making an educated guess about stronger applicants being interviewed first or did you get this info from the adcom?