High Achievement Scores

[shadow27]

Everyone talks about the olympic athlete...but for the rest of us...what are typical examples of something that might get someone points in this...

 

for example...publications...does it matter if you're the first author in a Science article...or will most publications that are peer reviewed get points?

 

What are some other things?

[avenir001]

I heard that they're fixing this this year...that they're not going to be super picky and require that you be an olympic athlete to score high on this section. I'm not really sure but I would think getting published would be considered high achievement...obviously first author is better...but still. Another example may be scoring in the top few % in national/international math/physics/etc competitions.

[kahone]

I had 5/5 for 2 or 3 consecutive applications, and in the feedback sessions I went through after the cycle was done (rejected same # of times from UBC) it was quite clearly stated that the score was thanks to my publication record alone. However, in the earlier application(s) I was told that the score was for my "whole graduate school achievement"...given that my publications were the most significant part of my achievement at that time, it's hard to fully say. One way or another, and it may depend on the people scoring that stuff, I have been repeatedly called an "unusual applicant" by virtue of publications, scholarships, teaching experience, departmental service etc (for reference, not for a premed pissing contest, I've applied with 7 published papers and 5 grad level scholarships from MSc and PhD years). The feedback people always stated that UBC doesn't get many applicants with that much grad material.

 

There used to be a time when anyone scoring 5/5 in that NAQ category would be offered an interview automatically, regardless of the other scores. However, if such a person had lackluster AQ scores (ie, me) then the 5/5 and excellent NAQ scores were not enough to assure competitiveness overall after the interview. I was punted even after a good set of interview scores. For this reason - and apparently a few complaints about the expense to attend an interview when there was little chance of being competitive overall - UBC no longer grants this kind of automatic interview for a 5/5 on High Ach. For the better I think.

 

The short n curly of it is, you don't have to be an olympian - you just have to have acquired a high level of achievement (and make sure that it is conveyed as such in your application materials) in some field. Generally speaking that it something that will take a lot of time and even more effort.

But in the end, the 5/5 doesn't help for squat in the adcom meeting that looks at ALL of your summed scores, normalized scores, interview scores, etc etc etc - they want an overall sense of suitability and one excellent category will rarely, if ever, give that. Well-roundedness wins the day, more often than not.

 

K

[avenir001]

There used to be a time when anyone scoring 5/5 in that NAQ category would be offered an interview automatically, regardless of the other scores. However, if such a person had lackluster AQ scores (ie, me) then the 5/5 and excellent NAQ scores were not enough to assure competitiveness overall after the interview. I was punted even after a good set of interview scores. For this reason - and apparently a few complaints about the expense to attend an interview when there was little chance of being competitive overall - UBC no longer grants this kind of automatic interview for a 5/5 on High Ach. For the better I think.

 

Indeed interviews should not be granted if the person has no chance of being accepted...I think it's just kinda "mean" for lack of a better word. But even though they no longer practice this, they still give interviews to people who will eventually be rejected due to low mcat scores and/or low pre-req avgs, as people have pointed out in other threads...and again, it's just not fair. Obviously they were competitive enough to get interviews, and if they do well on the interview, they should have a chance at acceptance.