Past applicants: Please share your NAQ score (and breakdown) and what you had done!

[Jixe]

As an OOP applicant, I need a 41/50 AQ+NAQ score. Even with a perfect AQ score of 25/25 (85%+ GPA), we OOP applicants still need AT LEAST a 16/25. I'm incredibly curious as to what recent applicants, which were successful or not, have done to deserve their NAQ composite.

[Kuantum]

That'd be good too. I'm also OOP, however, my VR score is really bad. I am going to be contacting AAMC is see if something went wrong, but for now, its bad. My AQ will be 25/25 but I don't know about my NAQ.

[paulista]

NAQ seems to be all about presentation. I had what I thought were pretty competitive experiences and I got 14.07/25. My AQ was high enough that I got interviewed but after being rejected I noticed how poorly I presented my experiences. For this application I reworked everything and I think my score should be significantly higher.

 

It's all about explaining very clearly what you did and highlighting things about the experiences that fall under their scoring categories (leadership, service ethic, capacity to work with others, diversity, high level of performance).

[Smurfette]

NAQ seems to be all about presentation. I had what I thought were pretty competitive experiences and I got 14.07/25. My AQ was high enough that I got interviewed but after being rejected I noticed how poorly I presented my experiences. For this application I reworked everything and I think my score should be significantly higher.

 

It's all about explaining very clearly what you did and highlighting things about the experiences that fall under their scoring categories (leadership, service ethic, capacity to work with others, diversity, high level of performance).

 

I would agree with paulista. I applied last year (as a third-year student) and didn't get in (you only get your AQ, NAQ, and interview scores back if you don't get in). My NAQ score was around 16-17 (I can't remember - it was slightly above the average for interviewed candidates). In my feedback, they told me that I could improve in my service areas and gave me examples of how I could volunteer - to my horror, I discovered that I had done some of those exact things she mentionned, but I just didn't write them down clearly on my application. LOL.

[Kuantum]

I would agree with paulista. I applied last year (as a third-year student) and didn't get in (you only get your AQ, NAQ, and interview scores back if you don't get in). My NAQ score was around 16-17 (I can't remember - it was slightly above the average for interviewed candidates). In my feedback, they told me that I could improve in my service areas and gave me examples of how I could volunteer - to my horror, I discovered that I had done some of those exact things she mentionned, but I just didn't write them down clearly on my application. LOL.

 

Smurfette, were you in-province or OOP?

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I was an OOP applicant to UBC a couple of years ago and was accepted. (As were at least two of my classmates.) I can't speak for them, but I applied to UBC a few times. The first, I was accepted to the MD program but not the PhD so could not matriculate. At that time I believe my NAQ score was around 20. For these past couple of applications I was rated at around 22 or so.

 

I would agree with the above poster re: the importance of presenting your application and experiences properly. The scoring might have changed in the past couple of years, but when I applied there were points for certain types of activities, and also, points could be subtracted for things like not-so-great letters or messy applications. There were also some pretty wild scoring categories in the past, e.g., the achievement category. To gain full marks in this category the applicant required an olympic athletic achievement, professorship at a university, publication in a major journal, etc.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Smurfette]

Smurfette, were you in-province or OOP?

 

I was (and still am) in-province. But I think the scoring is the same regardless. You just have to get higher scores to make it if you're OOP.

[Smurfette]

Hi there,

 

I was an OOP applicant to UBC a couple of years ago and was accepted. (As were at least two of my classmates.) I can't speak for them, but I applied to UBC a few times. The first, I was accepted to the MD program but not the PhD so could not matriculate. At that time I believe my NAQ score was around 20. For these past couple of applications I was rated at around 22 or so.

 

I would agree with the above poster re: the importance of presenting your application and experiences properly. The scoring might have changed in the past couple of years, but when I applied there were points for certain types of activities, and also, points could be subtracted for things like not-so-great letters or messy applications. There were also some pretty wild scoring categories in the past, e.g., the achievement category. To gain full marks in this category the applicant required an olympic athletic achievement, professorship at a university, publication in a major journal, etc.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

 

 

I was told by the admissions people in my feedback last year that they will likely de-emphasize the high achievement category since no one seems to do well in it. I got a 2/5 and she said that was pretty much as high as people got unless they did some of those extraordinary things Kirsteen mentionned. So I wouldn't stress that much over the fact that you haven't won a gold medal in the Olympics yet

[Mimi416]

Hi there,

 

I was an OOP applicant to UBC a couple of years ago and was accepted. (As were at least two of my classmates.) I can't speak for them, but I applied to UBC a few times. The first, I was accepted to the MD program but not the PhD so could not matriculate. At that time I believe my NAQ score was around 20. For these past couple of applications I was rated at around 22 or so.

 

I would agree with the above poster re: the importance of presenting your application and experiences properly. The scoring might have changed in the past couple of years, but when I applied there were points for certain types of activities, and also, points could be subtracted for things like not-so-great letters or messy applications. There were also some pretty wild scoring categories in the past, e.g., the achievement category. To gain full marks in this category the applicant required an olympic athletic achievement, professorship at a university, publication in a major journal, etc.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

 

does anyone know how many pts can be subtracted or if there's a max amount? thnx

[avenir001]

I remember reading a maximum of 2 pts can be subtracted.

 

does anyone know how many pts can be subtracted or if there's a max amount? thnx

[Mimi416]

I remember reading a maximum of 2 pts can be subtracted.

 

thanks for responding....i'm jus kind of freaking out.. i came across this forum and starting reading about this stuff and in my NAQ section...there are some hours that I had left blank for like travels and stuff...i had the exact dates and verifiers listed...but didn't realize we had to calculate the number of hours :S so now i'm really worried if this is going to have a huge impact on my application...so would they deduct two pts for this?

[avenir001]

Mimi, I replied to your pm.