**ATTENTION**: To all out-of-province applicant to UofA!!!

[Guest UBClebronjames]

I am an out of province applicant and I applied last year, and my application was deemed incomplete because they told me I did not have 3 credits of first year general chemistry (otherwise known as inorganic chem). But I knew I did complete two 3 credit courses at Waterloo; each with a separte lab component course/mark. For GenChem first term I got 73% and 83% in the lab; for GenChem second term I got 58% and 90% in the lab. Now here is where the funny business comes in...

 

If you receive a mark lower than a C- from any school other than UofA it will be deemed a failed grade. So at Waterloo my 58% translated into a D+, which is a fail at UofA when they converted it to their requirements. This is all done at the UofA registrar's office and Alberta Med doesn't know anything other than what the registrar gives them.

 

UofA told me to repeat the course! But I was like why I didn't fail it at Waterloo and everyother university in Canada (UBC, UofC, all OMSAS, Sask, and Manitoba) recognizes that credit except you. On the UofA med website it states that you cannot have a failed grade, but it does not state that a C- is equivalent to a failed grade. Also, most schools combine the lab and lecture mark into one if they are given as separate courses since most school have combined courses to begin with.

 

So a warning to all applicants that are out of province and have a grade lower than C- from any univerisity/college in Canada; your application will be deemed incomplete at UofA. But check directly with UofA med for specific answers to your own situations, as any thing lower than 62% from Waterloo was a fail at Alberta, this may be different for each school since 58% was a D+ at Waterloo, but if I had received 58% at UBC it would be a C-

 

Has anyone else out there also had similar situations of rejection after the fact of applying assuming everything was complete?

 

regards

[Guest shkelo]

That sucks, dude. A word to the wise though - anything less than a B (3.0/4.0) for a pre-req course is going to sink you, regardless if they give you credit for it or not. Luckily (if you consider it luck), you can replace any pre-req with a higher level course. The pre-req avg. for those accepted to med school is over 3.8/4.0 with 3.5-3.6 being on the lowest end of the scale. Getting into med school isn't easy and you realistically need great marks among other things.

[Guest UBClebronjames]

I understand that marks are indeed important (my pre-req average is 80% and overall is 83%).

 

It just bothers me that if you did poorly (less than C-) in one course that it will make you ineligible to apply to UofA. A true fail of 50% should be the determining factor. I mean there are likely others who have done extremely well in all their other courses but gotten sick on exam day and gotten themselves a D- or D+. But if they showed that they can climb out of that hole and get a respectable avg of 80 then this protocol should be reviewed.

[Guest summervirus]

I'm sure there are a number of things that we all wished could be changed in the admissions process. But, realistically, if a school has to somehow narrow down 1000+ applications to ~100, there has to be certain cutoffs. Luckily, each school has its own set of cutoffs. If you really think you're a competitive applicant, there will be a school out there that you'll be eligible to apply for. Queen's and Western, for example, are set up so that students who mess up one course (like you did), still have a legitimate shot.

 

There's no point complaining about how unfair the UofA is. And, you'll probably have a really difficult time convincing the majority of people that the admissions process doesn't work...

[Guest UBClebronjames]

I agree that they have to narrow down the list of applicant, but that isn't my beef. What I feel was, and still is, unfair is that nobody knows that this lower ceiling exists. So you could spend a huge chunck of time and energy writing the essay, getting is proofread, getting together a extracurricular list, plus verifiers, get referees to write your reference letters, spend the $60 dollars or so to apply, spend the 10-20 dollars on transcripts/mail, and not to mention the application fees and countless hours putting everything together online; and after all that you find out that your are ineligible even though you looked at the website and reviewed all concerns with the admissions office. I didn't have a clue going into the application that my grades would be altered and that there was a lower ceiling.

 

If I had know ahead of time I wouldn't have applied. And THAT is what my beef is about. They should inform applicants that there is this lower ceiling.

[Guest shkelo]

If you're concerned about how this will affect other applicants to U of A, why not e-mail the admissions office with the suggestion of adding an extra sentence to the Informational Brochure on the U of A Admissions webpage. Something like, "Courses that are failed are considered to be deficient. A minimum grade of 2.0 © is required in all preprofessional coursework."