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Realize also that just because you are not competitive for UBC, does NOT mean in anyway that you are not competitive for other schools.

 

I sincerely hope this is true. It's discouraging to be told that your life, as you describe it, is decidedly mediocre. Maybe I can put a better foot forward at Queen's.

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I'm OOP, I got:

 

AQ: 25/25

Overall: 95%

Last 60: 95%

Prereq: 87.5%

 

NAQ: 14.76 (edit: this was normalized incase you're trying to add it up)

Leadership: 2/3.5

Service: 2.571/6

Work with others: 3.428/6

Diversity: 3.428/6

Performance: 0/3.5

 

Total: 39.76/50

 

I think i actually have decent EC's but i didn't really explain them right according to the categories. lots of music, teach piano, guitar and bass, lab advisor for calculus and physics, hospital volunteering, blood donor clinic, organize heart and stroke campaign, NSERC genetics research, a few scholarships, etc.

 

I'ld like to go out of province (BC, Alberta or Toronto) and i feel if i applied next year i could probably stand a decent shot (considering my better understandin of applications) but if i get accepted in-prov, I'll go there.

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I'm IP, with horrible marks from a BA (several years ago). Science since then.

 

AQ 17.80/25

NAQ 14.85/25

total 32.65/50

 

GPA 73.78%,

last 60 88.96%

prereq 87.10%.

 

NAQ score:

 

Leadership Experience - 2.0/3.5

Service Ethic Experience - 2.571/6

Capacity to Work with Others - 2.571/6

Diversity of Experience - 3.428/6

High Level of Performance in an Area of Human Endeavour - 1.0/3.5

 

ec's were: Gold Duke of Ed., sports, piano & clarinet, counsellor, lots of volunteer work and traveling, research, etc.

 

 

I wrote the essay the night before the application deadline, and should have put more of an effort into other parts of the application as well.

 

I'm new to all of this- any advice would be appreciated. Cheers

 

If you expect a decent NAQ score you NEED to put more effort into the essay. It's the one chance you have to show the AdCom that you are more than just your AQ. Write it at least a month early and get as many people as you can to read it over.

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Good advice!

 

I also took the time to fully elaborate on all my awards (detailed selection criteria, scope, value, etc.) in the attachment file we were allowed to send. I think that added to my NAQ score!

 

I don't think the ACADEMIC awards count for much. In my feedback session last year, I asked the woman doing my file review how the academic awards factor in. She shrugged and she basically said, "Not much." The non-academic awards might be more useful because you could get points on your NAQ for them. But your AQ really just depends on your marks and your marks alone.

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NAQ score:

 

Leadership Experience - 2.0/3.5

Service Ethic Experience - 2.571/6

Capacity to Work with Others - 2.571/6

Diversity of Experience - 3.428/6

High Level of Performance in an Area of Human Endeavour - 1.0/3.5

 

ec's were: Gold Duke of Ed., sports, piano & clarinet, counsellor, lots of volunteer work and traveling, research, etc.

 

I wrote the essay the night before the application deadline, and should have put more of an effort into other parts of the application as well.

 

My guess is that if you had spent more time describing your volunteer experiences and your work as a counsellor in your essay, you could have increased your scores in "service ethic" and "capacity to work with others" significantly. I was told in my feedback session that those were the areas where most people got marks and that those were the easiest to increase your score in. The leadership and high performance scores are hard to do well in - and probably not worth your time from a strictly getting into UBC med point of view.

 

Mind you...last year, all the sections were out of 5 so it's a little bit different, but I think with the increased scores for service, capcity to work with others, and diversity, this point is only accentuated if anything.

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Basically from what I'm hearing, I'll never get NAQ high enough for UBC.

 

Judging from your EC list, you seem to be alright in the NAQ area. Maybe you could just work on writing it up better? I think your best bet for getting an interview would be to somehow pull up your AQ score. Looking at your scores, it seems that you would need 20/25 in NAQ to get an interview, which is really hard! My guess is that an improved AQ plus a better presentation of your current EC's would probably give you the edge in your total score required to get an interview.

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Wonder where all those peculiarly accurate scores are coming from, especially given that they repeat in people's posts - i.e. 2.571 and 3.428. Anyone who's familiar with the process know anything about this?

 

That really kills me. All our grades (at UBC at least) are reported as whole numbers, yet the AdCom calculates our GPA down to the second decimal point. Whatever happened to significant figures? It's not very consistent with the "academic" way of compiling data and generating averages...

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that doesn't justify disregard for basic methods of statistical analysis.

No, I'm not asking about the stunning "accuracy" of the #s per se, but the fact that while they are SO accurate, they come up the same in SEVERAL people's evaluation. I mean, what are the odds of 3 diff. people scoring EXACTLY 2.571 on the same section? This is obviously a function of that random # being chose to denote a very specific niche in the applicant pool. If they are ranking each volunteer experience based on leadership/empathy/human endeavor/etc on a certain scale and then averaging each experience's score to get the final score in that area, then how come so many people come up with the EXACT same score? That would require them to have the exact same # of experiences on their app AND the same scores for each of those experiences (or scores that compensate, like if one person got 2 in leadership for 2 activities, the second one may get 1 in one activity and 3 in the second). What are the odds?

 

Hope you understand what I'm trying to say, I'm not at my most eloquent today.:P

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No, I'm not asking about the stunning "accuracy" of the #s per se, but the fact that while they are SO accurate, they come up the same in SEVERAL people's evaluation. I mean, what are the odds of 3 diff. people scoring EXACTLY 2.571 on the same section? This is obviously a function of that random # being chose to denote a very specific niche in the applicant pool. If they are ranking each volunteer experience based on leadership/empathy/human endeavor/etc on a certain scale and then averaging each experience's score to get the final score in that area, then how come so many people come up with the EXACT same score? That would require them to have the exact same # of experiences on their app AND the same scores for each of those experiences (or scores that compensate, like if one person got 2 in leadership for 2 activities, the second one may get 1 in one activity and 3 in the second). What are the odds?

 

Hope you understand what I'm trying to say, I'm not at my most eloquent today.:P

 

Yeah the precise calculation of scores at UBC is a bit of a mystery. When I was applying in 03/04 I missed an interview by 0.01 points (I think the cut off was 34.5 and I had 34.49). WTF? ....seriously.

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You guys, after playing with my calculator for a while, I think I know where the 3 decimal places come from...

The NAQ is out of 25 points...what they've done is divided each one-point interval into 7 parts...(ie 1/7=0.143...and everyone's decimal points are more-or-less a multiple of this)...so for example, the interval between 1 and 2 goes like this:

1.000

1.143

1.286

1.429

1.571

1.714

1.857

2.000

and so on...

 

Edit: Oh and I just noticed...they do this for the three categories that are worth 6 points each...for the other two categories worth 3.5 points each, each interval is probably divided into 2 as opposed to 7...

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Judging from your EC list, you seem to be alright in the NAQ area. Maybe you could just work on writing it up better? I think your best bet for getting an interview would be to somehow pull up your AQ score. Looking at your scores, it seems that you would need 20/25 in NAQ to get an interview, which is really hard! My guess is that an improved AQ plus a better presentation of your current EC's would probably give you the edge in your total score required to get an interview.

The thing is I can't improve my AQ unless I go do a Masters or something. I'm not about to go back for more school, so the only way I'd get in is with a 20+ NAQ. From what I see, that is impossible. Anyhow, maybe my AQ will be higher when it is based off my marks from my final year.

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The thing is I can't improve my AQ unless I go do a Masters or something. I'm not about to go back for more school, so the only way I'd get in is with a 20+ NAQ. From what I see, that is impossible. Anyhow, maybe my AQ will be higher when it is based off my marks from my final year.

 

Taking an extra year of under-grad (80-100% full courseload) can really make a big difference in terms of your AQ. If you can get an 85-90%, it'll completely change your last 60 credits % and make a dent in your overall GPA %. Not entirely sure of the extra points you might get (maybe someone with more knowledge of the AQ point systme), but I would assume it would be good for a 1.5-2 point bump.

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I needed a break at work, so I found as many AQ scores as I could and compared them to their Overall % and Last 60 Credits %. The best correlation between percentages and AQ score is 60% Overall (15/25) and 40% Last 60 Credits (10/25). (This has been reported in the past.) I assumed that the best someone could score is 85%, with anything above that having no impact.

 

To figure out an AQ score given percentages, do the following:

 

(O%)*60+(L60%)*40 = C

 

AQ = 1.0422*©–63.8

 

With the seven data sets, it's within 0.3 AQ points.

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